Unlocked Iphone Made Easy

[nikster]

Hackers have found a new, easier way to unlock the iPhone so it works on any carrier using a thing called a TurboSIM which basically can take on bits an pieces from a SIM it's attached to. The TurboSIM passes on the id information from the original AT&T SIM

You still need to do some pretty sophisticated iPhone hacking in order to get it to work. However, other than previous solution this one doesn't require a SIM writer or any hardware other than the TurboSIM itself so it's foreseeable that enterprising individuals will begin selling real unlocked iPhones before long.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/14/unlocki...r-still-a-pain/

I think I'll still wait until I can purchase an unlocked one from Apple.. but it's getting really close now..

[bendix]

It's testament to Apple's engineering that the best hackers in the world - all who boasted it would take days to break the iPhone - have failed miserably on this.

I saw the thing in Chicago recently. ###### I want one. NOW

[cdnvic]

Windows 98 and XP made hacking seem so easy. These days more security conscious software companies (even Microsoft) are starting to make them work for it.

[think_too_mut]

"iPhone Who?" was the title of an article about Nokia's Q2 results. The company sold 102 million handsets over that period.

Apple sold what - 200,000 iPhones??

[cdnvic]

"iPhone Who?" was the title of an article about Nokia's Q2 results. The company sold 102 million handsets over that period.

Apple sold what - 200,000 iPhones??

In the first week maybe.

They sold out the first production run utilizing only one carrier in a single market, with one model.

How many markets, with how many carriers and how many models make up the Nokia number?

[Solosiam]

"iPhone Who?" was the title of an article about Nokia's Q2 results. The company sold 102 million handsets over that period.

Apple sold what - 200,000 iPhones??

102 million handsets, of which 95% probably fall in the $30-100 range.

Apple looks like they will be selling 10 million phones this year at significantly more than $699 (its a tie-in with telecomms company so is subsidised by them - i.e you can only buy it at that price on a plan).

Not bad for a first attempt, sure it may only be 2.5% of Nokia's sales in terms of actual phones, but the price is probably 10+ times as much as the average Nokia phone, so perhaps 25% in terms of sales.

[cdnvic]

Apple has never seemed that interested in the bargain sector of the market.

[think_too_mut]

Apple has never seemed that interested in the bargain sector of the market.

Everybody likes high end, even Nokia...

"During the period they shipped 1.5 million of its top end multimedia phone, the N95, with margins on multimedia handsets rising to 20.9 per cent (from 16.1 per cent this time last year)."

Whole article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/02/nokia_q2_results/

[nikster]

"iPhone Who?" was the title of an article about Nokia's Q2 results. The company sold 102 million handsets over that period.

Apple sold what - 200,000 iPhones??

Numbers are not what has Nokia running scared. Potential is. Apple is making sleek phones that work. Fastest sales in a single model in history in the U.S., more than the Razr when it came out.

The iPhone just happens to work way better than anything Nokia has to offer. This is why I want one - it's a smart phone where most stuff doesn't just work but is also a pleasure to use

vs. Nokia's current iteration of smart phones which can do one or two things well and can do 15 other things but those are so bad that you really don't want to use them for anything except to show off the fact that it can be done.

The iPhone still has a few annoying flaws, but hey it's the first attempt and it's only going to get better. What makes the iPhone a huge threat is potential. Apple owns the software on the iPhone - OS X - and this is very far ahead of anyone else. Whether or not Apple is going to capitalize on this potential is anyone's guess but they have a good fighting chance there.

Apple keeps stressing its main advantage is software and I think they are dead on there. Analysts don't seem to get it because they, like many other people, just look at the hardware and think the software is a commodity which is trivial to do. Which is about as far from the truth as it gets. Nokia can make an iPhone form factor, Nokia can compete design-wise, manufacturing/distribution is no contest. But Nokia doesn't own decent software. I am hoping they are going to really put some effort into Symbian or one of the open source phone OS projects. What they have now is shi_t.

I am a huge fan of the early Nokia phones way back when, before color displays - those really maxed out on the potential of the technology available at the time. They were a pleasure to use - near-perfect. But those times are over and Nokia hasn't been able to keep up its ease of use while simultaneously integrating high end features. Not that the company has done badly, mind you but the ease of use is gone.

[LaoPo]

Hackers claim to untie Apple's iPhone from AT&T

Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:55PM BST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hackers have found a way to use Apple's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iPhone on networks other than AT&T's, opening up the coveted device to rival carriers and overseas customers, according to a Web report on Friday.

A group called iPhoneSIMfree.com said it had developed a piece of software that, when installed on an iPhone, allows the use of rival mobile services such as T-Mobile, according to widely followed technology blog Engadget.com.

AT&T has an exclusive two-year agreement to provide phone and data services for the iPhone in the United States. Apple is in talks with carriers in several European countries to launch the device there by the end of the year.

Photo

Enabling the combination phone, media player and Web browser to run on other networks -- known as "unlocking" -- has been a stated goal of many hackers since the iPhone hit the market in late June.

"The unlock process took only a couple of minutes. From our end it was totally painless," Engadget said.

Rest article:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/businessNews...436004320070824

LaoPo

[nikster]

Engadget says that this hack "works 100%", here's the original link:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/24/iphone-...august-24-2007/

The hackers that did it want to sell this hack commercially from their website next week. I will wait and see what the reaction on Apple's side will be. I also think these are different people from the ones with the hardware hack, so quite possibly unlocking software will soon be available from many different sources or even for free.

[Carmine6]

Engadget says that this hack "works 100%", here's the original link:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/24/iphone-...august-24-2007/

The hackers that did it want to sell this hack commercially from their website next week. I will wait and see what the reaction on Apple's side will be. I also think these are different people from the ones with the hardware hack, so quite possibly unlocking software will soon be available from many different sources or even for free.

My guess is Apple will tolerate some unlocking, but if it takes off they'll change the phone's software. Someone pointed out that Apple isn't exclusive with AT&T out of the goodness of their heart. AT&T paid to be the exclusive provider. If the unlocking takes off, no one is going to pay Apple to be exclusive.

Check this quote from this article: "Apple is said to be asking for 10% of the revenue from iPhone voice and data usage in Europe, a deal that would make other handset providers green with envy."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showAr...cleID=201802274

It also says analysts have estimated that AT&T pays $3/month for each iphone subscriber and $8/month for each new subscriber. That's a lot of revenue they'll give up if anyone can buy in the US and unlock.

[Clipped]

could you imagine the repair cost for dropping your iphone?

[nikster]

It also says analysts have estimated that AT&T pays $3/month for each iphone subscriber and $8/month for each new subscriber. That's a lot of revenue they'll give up if anyone can buy in the US and unlock.

Yeah - personally, I think Apple is making a mistake there, that's just too greedy. The monthly payment is Ok - it's the same as an operator subsidy which is very common in the U.S. and Europe. $8/month x 24 months is about $200. But the revenue sharing - that's unheard-of.

Maybe they've never been to Thailand but if they had, they'd know that such a thing will never happen here, ever. You can't sell operator lock-in here. Same all over SE Asia and I am sure in many other countries. That would be a pretty large market to give up on.

I need to look this up but I think there's an EU law that requires operators to unlock phones for a fee or after a certain time period. I hope, anyway.

Edit: Doesn't look like it, actually. Operators need to disclose terms and conditions for the contractual subsidies and have to unlock it on request after 6 months, but I couldn't find anything that would force operators to unlock phones before 6 months have passed. The good news is that the 6 months unlocking rule would prevent Apple from re-applying the lock with software updates - I think.

Edited August 25, 2007 by nikster

[tjo o tjim]

Apple isn't likely to make a big deal off this. The unlock took longer than many other popular phones with exclusive contracts, and really is more of a marketing thing than an actual exclusivity. Loosing $3/month/user for 3-5% of customers in markets with the exclusivity terms is likely less of an issue than the gains from selling an extra 10% or more phones to markets without the agreements in place.

I paid $50 to unlock my blackberry, only to find out that it was useless without Blackberry service. The iPhone won't be completely useless unlocked (only thing lost is Visual Voicemail, which I have to say is really cool).

I just wish it was available now... I have to resort to using my old motorola phone for access in Thailand since AT$T's roaming data rates would kill me.

[Naam]

Iphone reminds me of IPOD = Idiots Price Our Devices.

[steffi]

Well Winner and a few other shops at MBK have had iphones for a sale there for quite sometime. At a heavy premium no less. So no doubt they'll add on yet more to sell a completely unlocked iphone there as will a lot of other people there.

Anybody seen the iphone working on AIS or DTAC yet?

They probably are available unlocked at MBK.

Apple isn't likely to make a big deal off this. The unlock took longer than many other popular phones with exclusive contracts, and really is more of a marketing thing than an actual exclusivity. Loosing $3/month/user for 3-5% of customers in markets with the exclusivity terms is likely less of an issue than the gains from selling an extra 10% or more phones to markets without the agreements in place.

I paid $50 to unlock my blackberry, only to find out that it was useless without Blackberry service. The iPhone won't be completely useless unlocked (only thing lost is Visual Voicemail, which I have to say is really cool).

I just wish it was available now... I have to resort to using my old motorola phone for access in Thailand since AT$T's roaming data rates would kill me.

[peter991]

iPhone to be Thai MyPhone?

An American teenager has written a software application that unlocks the iPhone restrictions, meaning the spiffy new phones could soon be on sale in Thai malls.

At the moment, Apple Inc has installed hardware in the iPhone that seeks to limit use of the much hyped cellphone to the AT&T network in the US.

But a story in MacNewsWorld reported Friday that a hacker has bypassed that protection.

If the story pans out - and there seems to be strong proof that the iPhone protection has been bypassed - that would open the iPhone for use on any phone network, including in Thailand.

The still somewhat complicated hack would also allow the phone to be used on networks in countries outside the US.

Thai technicians already are expert at making phones designed for US-based CDMA networks function on the GSM networks in this country.

The development could represent a serious blow to the US phone giant AT&T, which had been hoping to leverage the popularity of the sexy new phone into a dominant position in the US market.

But they failed to take into account 17-year-old George Hotz, and his desire to use the phone on the T-Mobile network.

Hotz posted details of the 10-step hack on his blog and also a video of the procedure on YouTube. The video has already been viewed more than 130,000 times.

"My iPhone works with T-Mobile now, and that's all I ever wanted," Hotz told MacNewsWorld, adding that it had taken him about 500 hours to figure out the workaround.

Hotz reportedly began working on the project on June 29, the day the iPhone was released, along with four other online collaborators. Working 8 to 10 hours a day, he finally distilled his efforts into a two-hour process that involves both soldering and software skills.

"I'm sorry about how hard (these instructions) are to follow, but someone will get them to work, and simplify them, and simplify them more," Hotz wrote on his blog. "Hopefully a software unlock will be found in the near future."

"I think this is a great thing for users," Hotz said. "What I want is for people to be able to buy an iPhone, unlock it and use it."

[steffi]

Yes but isn't this the hack that requires soldering. Secondly Bangkok hasn't really done their research because the iphone is already for sale at MBK. But it's just not hacked yet.. or probably is by now. Given that one of the TurboSims on ebay is from a Thai you expect all kinds of profiteering at MBK in the next couple of weeks.

[nikster]

Yes but isn't this the hack that requires soldering. Secondly Bangkok hasn't really done their research because the iphone is already for sale at MBK. But it's just not hacked yet.. or probably is by now. Given that one of the TurboSims on ebay is from a Thai you expect all kinds of profiteering at MBK in the next couple of weeks.

There's the soldering hack which is only for the brave and not very practical - impressive but not something a lot of people will do.

Then there's the TurboSim hack which requires the TurboSim and unlocks basically not the phone but rather enables one other Sim at a time to work in the iPhone. If you switch phone numbers or providers, you have to do it all over again. It's not a real unlock.

Then there's the final unlock mentioned above which is the first true software-only hack. This is the one that's going to be useful to the masses. And it should drop in price very quickly.

And there's the iPhone Dev list software unlock waiting in the wings. Unless that's the same as the above - not sure who's involved. In theory that one should be open source. And at that point iPhone unlocking will be easy to do in the comfort of your own home

[Carmine6]

Apple isn't likely to make a big deal off this. The unlock took longer than many other popular phones with exclusive contracts, and really is more of a marketing thing than an actual exclusivity. Loosing $3/month/user for 3-5% of customers in markets with the exclusivity terms is likely less of an issue than the gains from selling an extra 10% or more phones to markets without the agreements in place.

I paid $50 to unlock my blackberry, only to find out that it was useless without Blackberry service. The iPhone won't be completely useless unlocked (only thing lost is Visual Voicemail, which I have to say is really cool).

I just wish it was available now... I have to resort to using my old motorola phone for access in Thailand since AT$T's roaming data rates would kill me.

It's not that Apple is going to lose just the monthly revenue from the unlocked phones, its that all of that revenue is at risk if it gets out of hand. Because AT&T isn't going to want to be kicking $3/month back to Apple if T-Mobile isn't paying anything for iphone users. Only gets to be a big deal if there are a lot of T Mobile users, which is unlikely if you know a bit about T Mobile. But, if AT&T's lawyers are any good, there's language in the contract dealing with Apple's duties in responding. Probably nothing extreme like recalling unsold units, but I doubt they can just ignore this for future production runs.

In Europe, they haven't rolled out yet. If the exclusive providers are going to pay 10% of revenue back but competing service providers would pay nothing for unlocked iphone users, they may be taking another look at those contracts. There might be enough time to fix the phones to be released in Europe since they already are tweaking other aspects of those.

I think the batch of phones already on the market has a chance of becoming pretty valuable.

[LaoPo]

Teenage hacker unlocks the iPhone

A New Jersey teenager has unlocked the iPhone, opening the way to Apple's iconic mobile telephone being used by non-US networks.

George Hotz says he wishes his hack could be a bit simpler

The Associated Press news agency confirmed George Hotz, 17, had unlocked the iPhone and used it on T-Mobile, a rival to its sole US operator, AT&T.

The hacker says the unlocking takes about two hours and involves some soldering and skill with software.

AT&T and Apple have not yet commented on the news.

Some of my friends think I wasted my summer but I think it was worth it

George Hotz

Hackers and security researchers have been poring over Apple's much-coveted phone since its launch in the US in June in an effort to discover vulnerabilities in the handset.

Top of their list has been cracking the code that ties the phone to AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive network.

Before George Hotz's announcement on his blog, the iPhone was made to work on overseas networks using another method, which involves copying information from the Sim (Subscriber Identity Module) card.

However, special equipment was needed and the actual phone was not unlocked, with each Sim card having to be reprogrammed for use on a particular iPhone.

Analysts believe Apple may still have time to modify the iPhone production line to make new phones invulnerable to the hacks before the iPhone's expected European launch later this year.

Collaboration

The young hacker says he hopes phone-owners can eventually unlock their phones by themselves, and that he hopes his discovery will not be exploited for commercial gain.

"That's exactly, like, what I don't want... people making money off this," he told AP.

The next step, he said, would be a non-solder solution: a way to unlock the phone using software alone.

Technology blog Engadget said on Friday that it had successfully unlocked an iPhone using a different method that required no tinkering with the hardware. The software was supplied by an anonymous group of hackers that apparently plans to charge for it, AP reports.

The agency notes that both the Hotz and Sim techniques leave the iPhone's many functions intact apart from its "visual voicemail" feature, which shows voice messages as if they are incoming e-mail.

The New Jersey hacker says he collaborated online with four other people, two of them in Russia, to develop the unlocking process.

He spent about 500 hours on the project since the launch on 29 June.

"Some of my friends think I wasted my summer but I think it was worth it," he told US newspaper The Record of Bergen County.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6963696.stm

LaoPo

[steffi]

Well this hacker had his unlocked phone on ebay for sale but now the auction has been closed and his account no longer exists so it would seem he pissed somebody off.

Did anybody see all the people trying to make money of iphone domain names on ebay?

Edited August 26, 2007 by steffi

[Carmine6]

Well this hacker had his unlocked phone on ebay for sale but now the auction has been closed and his account no longer exists so it would seem he pissed somebody off.

Did anybody see all the people trying to make money of iphone domain names on ebay?

Posted this on the other thread. His blog says he traded the phone.

http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/

"THE iPhone HAS BEEN TRADED

Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone. I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones. I will be sending the iPhones, unlocked if they wish, to jpetrie(the first donater), gray(the reversing genius), and iProof(who is truly amazing at finding stuff online) Thanks a lot everyone.

[nikster]

Well this hacker had his unlocked phone on ebay for sale but now the auction has been closed and his account no longer exists so it would seem he pissed somebody off.

Did anybody see all the people trying to make money of iphone domain names on ebay?

Loved all the ppl trying to hawk iPhone-related email addresses on ebay. "Selling [email protected]... " etc. Funny. I doubt they made money off that but then you never know. Wouldn't have thought you could trade an unlocked iPhone for a Nissan 350Z either. But maybe that's just because I don't have a stack of unused Nissan 350Zs lying around

[gharknes]

anyone think Apple may be supporting this on the QT ? or maybe even assisted