19 posts tagged “unlocked”
Officially Unlocked iPhones On Sale at Hong Kong Apple Store
Check
out the Hong Kong Apple store online and you'll see a couple of lines
of text that'll tempt, tease and beguile you if you're dreaming of an
unlocked iPhone 3G: "iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store
can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from
your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete
activation." About $700 will get you an unlocked 8GB version, and the 16GB is just $800. Handy for the dev team, no doubt. [Hong Kong Apple StoreSlashphone]
credit - http://gizmodo.com/5055149/officially-unlocked-iphones-on-sale-at-hong-kong-apple-store
Singapore shops threatened for carrying unlocked iPhones
Apple’s
pretty serious about controlling the reselling of unlocked iPhones. Not
only have they instituted restrictions on their end of how many phones
can be purchased and by what methods, but they’re also going after the
other end of the process and reputedly going after retailers who sell the unlocked phones.
According to a report in The Strait Times, Apple’s threatened shops in Sim Lim Square, a Singapore mall, for selling unlocked, imported iPhones. The damages sought are supposedly around S$1,000 (~US$691) for each unlocked handset sold.
Shops in the mall apparently are now experiencing a shortage of unlocked iPhones, though they claim it’s because they’re sold out and not because Apple was threatening them with legal action.
Category: News
Fully Unlocked French iPhone to Sell for $1,110
Orange
will start selling the iPhone this Wednesday at three different price
points: if you purchase it with one of the special iPhone voice and
data contracts they will sell it for $591. Then, current users of the
Orange network will be able to purchase the iPhone without a
new contract for $962. And finally, users from other networks will be
able to buy it for $1,110, fully unlocked. In other words, and
paraphrasing Obelix, these Orange froggies are crazy. [France 24
]
6:19 AM ON WED NOV 28 2007
BY JESUS DIAZ
378 views
Read More:
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iPhone Prices Compared in Four Countries (Verdict: We're Doing Alright)
Shimura Gives iPods a New Coat of Aluminum
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Custom ringtone: I’m not (completely) dead yet.
We previously reported that the recent iPhone update (1.1.1) not only bricks unlocked phones and wipes out third-party software, but also disables custom ringtones—even those installed using iToner, which had previously survived such updates.
However, it turns out that the update doesn’t completely break custom ringtones. Apparently, iToner-installed ringtones remain on the phone after the update; it’s just that the phone no longer displays them in the Ringtones list. In fact, if you set a custom ringtone before applying the update, the iPhone keeps that custom ringtone after the update—it appears as the chosen ringtone on the Sounds screen, and it still works (when someone calls, the custom ringtone plays). Unfortunately, the first time you view the Ringtones screen after the update, you lose that custom ringtone.
In other words, if you really want a custom ringtone, but you also want the latest iPhone software, here’s how to get both: choose a custom ringtone, install the iPhone update, and then don’t ever access the Ringtones screen (at least not until Ambrosia figures out how to get iToner working again.) Of course, this means you should choose a custom ringtone you can live with for a while; maybe a long while…
Category: Hacking, Software, Tips & Troubleshooting
http://iphone.macworld.com/2007/09/custom_ringtone_im_not_complet_1.php
Yesterday we reported how to unbrick an unlocked iPhone. Today we have discovered that you can send and receive calls, SMS and mails too, as well as surf the Web with it. You just have to use a TurboSIM card (like I did) and, according to the iPhone Sim Free people, any restored iPhone with their paid software installed (we have been unable to test this. )
I was too tired to think about trying this yesterday, but today I put my TurboSIM card with the Vodafone SIM and, as you can see in the video, it works great. The iPhone is now exactly in the same state as it was for me before the software update: it can send and receive calls, SMS and mails, as well as surf the Web.
The iPhone Sim Free people, who previously said their paid software unlock will work despite firmware updates, is claiming now that if you downgrade to firmware 1.0.2 your non-AT&T SIM will work just fine. I've tried this but couldn't get it to work. We are talking to them to see what may be happening.
Meanwhile, iPhone Dev Team is working full speed ahead on two things:
• Downgrading the baseband so they can unlock again the iPhones restored to version 1.0.2 from 1.1.1.
• Crating another free unlock that will work for version 1.1.1 of the software. According to them, both may be very near--now testing-- and they have put it forward to people with bricked phones to "be patient and hold on until we come with a full solution for 1.1.1 firmware."
11:56 AM ON SUN SEP 30 2007
BY JESUS DIAZ
17,666 views
It's about 3 months after the iPhone launch, and happy with the improvements, I was planning to change our "Wait" verdict
to a full-on and rabid "Buy". That wasn't because of Apple, but because
of the cool apps being offered by independent developers. All that came
to an end yesterday after the new Apple firmware 1.1.1 neutered the handset.
Sure, unlocked iPhones were broken. But more importantly, Apple wiped
away the powerful programs that helped push the iPhone to greatness.
With this, I'm going to have to move our recommendation from "Wait" to
"Don't hold your breath." I'm done with this handset until third-party
apps come back.
It's understandable for Apple to wage a war on unlocking the iPhone, since the company shares revenue from fees with AT&T. But the truth is, if cellphone service was awesome, like it is on iTunes, there wouldn't be a need to unlock the iPhone. Secondly, bricking these things is totally uncool, and apparently, malicious—according to some early code investigations by the independent iPhone Dev Team, Apple could have avoided this entirely.
I get that Apple might not have wanted to wage a long back-and-forth war with hackers, as the PSP developers are. And this kind of big blow is going to be a devastating and effective scare tactic, even if a fix comes a few days later. Unlike a Sony PSP, people can't go a few days without their phones, without social or work hiccups. This is why I never unlocked my main iPhone, only testing these hacks on a spare 4GB test dummy. But I don't want to be held hostage like this. Did I buy this phone or am I just renting it?
Screw the unlock for a second. Let's talk about the those third-party apps. Programs like the faux-GPS, IM clients, Flickr Upload, and NES emulator—what did they ever do but make the iPhone far better than the stock original? They made it far more competitive with open-platform superphones like the Nokia N95, to which I will now be switching.
I look at my iPhone with version 1.1.1 software on it compared to the
old hacked one. I'm happy for the iTunes Store, which we've been
waiting for. But it's not more important than fixing things, and adding
capabilities such as copy/paste and email search. And it's certainly
not better than all those programs I can't use anymore. Here's the
comparo chart, from Rob Beschizza at Wired based on a chart from 9to5:
At Mossberg's All Things D conference, Jobs mentioned that the thing
Apple wasn't good at, compared to MSFT, was the ability to work with
partners. Some believe that's a big part of why Apple lost the Big OS
War back when GI Joe was a Saturday morning cartoon. So why make the
same mistake twice?
Come on, Apple, make things right. I'm not so deluded that I think this little rant of mine will stop you from selling millions of these phones to the mainstream. But I'm pretty sure this is what other geeks are thinking. Even if you have to fight the unlocks, the apps deserve to live.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iphone/iphone-re+reviewed-verdict-dont-buy-302075.php
There's more than one way to break your phone free of Apple and AT&T's constraints, but for now the rewards barely outweigh the drawbacks
The day the iPhone was released in June, a cottage industry sprang up with the goal of freeing the phone from the restrictions Apple (AAPL) and its partner, AT&T, have placed on it. The top goal has been to eliminate the requirement that all iPhone buyers sign up for two years of AT&T (T) service. It appears they have succeeded, but the results are not for everyone.
I've spent the past week or so testing an "unlocked" iPhone supplied by a Canadian company called PureMobile. To release the phone from AT&T's control, the company modifies Apple's hardware based on a procedure spelled out by George Hotz, a 17-year-old student at Rochester Institute of Technology. The phone, sold on the PureMobile Web site, costs around $600, which is $200 more than the just-slashed price of a standard 8-gigabyte iPhone.
I used the unlocked iPhone on the T-Mobile and AT&T wireless networks after inserting SIMs (the small cards in each phone that identify the subscriber) swapped from my other mobile phones. There were a few hitches. With a non-AT&T SIM, I had to change some simple settings to gain access to e-mail or the Web over the phone network. And neither of the two SIM cards allowed me to use the iPhone's visual voicemail feature, which lets the user go straight to any voice message by selecting it from a list on the screen. On the plus side, the unlocked iPhone let me cruise around on Wi-Fi networks without any SIM card at all. You can't do that on a locked iPhone. Oddly enough, the YouTube application did not work on this PureMobile unit.
Warranty Voided
Some of these capabilities are very cool, but the unlocked phone makes sense only for customers who have a good reason not to go with the standard AT&T deal—such as living outside the U.S. and really, really craving an iPhone. You'll still be stuck with relatively slow phone networks, even in Europe, and there's the fact that the hardware modification voids the Apple warranty. PureMobile is working on a third-party warranty arrangement, but don't expect to get any tech support from Apple for a modified iPhone.
There's also the possibility, which PureMobile warns of on its Web site, that a future Apple software update might relock the phone and leave you with an elegant but expensive brick. You can get around that by refusing to accept updates, but then you can't use new applications, such as Wi-Fi access to the iTunes Store. Nor will you get updated bug fixes and security patches. The phone I was testing was already behind on Apple software updates, and I didn't dare try installing the latest version of iTunes.
As you might expect, there's more than one way to unlock an iPhone. A company called iPhoneSimFree has a software patch that rewrites some of the iPhone's built-in code. This avoids warranty issues, but its legality may be challenged under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (Both AT&T and Apple declined to comment on the subject.) iPhoneSimFree's U.S. retailer, Wireless Imports, is taking advance orders for the $99 software.
The Hacker Option
There's one other effort I should mention, from a band of hackers—in the original sense of programmers who want to take things apart and make them work better. Called the iPhone Dev Team, they're working on both unlocking the network and making it possible for iPhone owners to install applications beyond those Apple has chosen to supply. I can recommend this software only for adventurous folks who have some knowledge of how Apple's OS X software works. Besides, at this point there really aren't any compelling programs to download to your iPhone.
While these projects may not be attractive to most ordinary iPhone users, they are important. The iPhone is too good a product to be limited to the narrow choices that Apple and AT&T want to offer. More power to the folks who are working, often as volunteers, to make the product better.
(AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
Unlocking a phone, or the selling of a service to unlock a phone, is not illegal in the UK, according to Ofcom
Two websites are vying to offer the first commercial service for unlocking Apple's iPhone so that the device can be used outside the US in Europe and elsewhere.
The "unlocks", which would be bought as a piece of downloadable software over the internet, will enable the phone to be connected to any network in "multiple countries", the sites claim.
So far the iPhone is only available in the US on AT&T, but in the past two months a number of hackers have posted details on the internet of how to unlock the phone, meaning that it need not be tied to any particular network.
The latest offerings differ in that they do not require any sophisticated equipment - only a single download - and will appeal to owners of the phone in Britain and elsewhere who have bought the phone in the US and are keen to insert their existing SIM card.
iPhonesimfree, which appears to be closest to introducing a service, posted a comment on its site today saying that it was hoping to release the software "in the next 48-72 hours". The unlock would enable the iPhone to function normally, but be connected to a British network.
"We have both voice and data extensively in multiple countries, using various different carriers and have found no problems," iPhonesimfree said.
Uniquephones, based in Belfast, an established site which offers unlocks for a range of handsets, has posted a video which purports to demonstrate its software, but when pressed by Times Online to unlock an iPhone that had been purchased in the US, declined.
The site, which said it will charge $50 (£25) for the service, has recently received a letter from a law firm representing AT&T, the official network for the iPhone in the US, "presenting issues such as copyright infringement and illegal software dissemination". It was still taking legal advice, a spokesman said.
Neither unlocking a phone nor selling a service to unlock a phone is illegal in the UK, according to Ofcom, although a customer who has a contract and unlocks their phone so that it can be taken to another network may be breaching the terms of the contract, the regulator said.
That situation is unlikely to arise in the case of the iPhone, however, because the device can be bought in an Apple store - for either $499 or $599 - before any contract is signed. In other words, the market for unlocking iPhones will be those people who have bought the device without a plan and want to insert their existing SIM.
There are numerous reports of Britons who have either bought the device on eBay, or asked a friend to buy one in the US and bring it back.
Jeremy Plant, a 46-year-old publisher from Elstree, Hertfordshire, was among those excited British iPhone owners who were anxious that the sites introduce their service.
"I've already got mine to work as an internet browser and a music player, but obviously I want it to work as a phone as well," said Mr Plant, whose friend bought him an iPhone in the US two weeks ago.
Neither Apple not AT&T have commented publicly on unlocking, but the issue is likely to provide a major headache for O2, which is widely reported to have been awarded the contract to release the phone in the UK.
A readily available unlock would mean that O2 will fail to reap the rewards of its exclusive contract - for which it is understood to have paid handsomely.
Lawyers said that O2 would be pushing to have a clause inserted in its contract with Apple that made it the "sole and exclusive distributor" of the device.
"That way Apple could be stopped from selling the device on its own, and one could prevent the situation of a person owning an iPhone without a contract," Tom Wheadon, a partner in telecommunications law at Simmons & Simmons, said.
iPhone: from sale to hack
June 29: iPhone goes on sale in the US
July 2: First reports of an iPhone hack surface in internet forums, one hacker - 'gj' - claiming: "i'm pretty sure I know how to do it"
July 6: Unnamed hackers claim to have discovered the iPhone's root password - 'dottie' - but it is not immediately clear what its use is
July 6: Renowned hacker 'DVD Jon' completes the first successful hack, but once unlocked, the device only works as an internet browser and iPod, not a phone. The procedure also requires sophisticated equipment
July 23: A group of security researchers demonstrate how to take control of the phone using its internet connection, and get it to forward on personal information, including text messages and contact numbers.
Aug 25: A New Jersey teenager, George Hotz, releases details of a hack, having spent 500 hours tinkering with the software and rewiring the device with a soldering iron
Aug 29: Two websites claim to be 'days away' from releasing a commercial iPhone unlock service for $50
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2349533.ece
When Steve Jobs and company first envisaged the iPhone, a few things surely came to mind. First, Apple wanted a phone with an appealing design and advanced functionality. In essence, the company wanted a device that was nothing like its predecessors. And while it achieved this feat, Apple was still in need of a carrier. It went to Verizon and others, but it was AT&T that was able to offer it what it wanted: revenue sharing on activations and service plans. Basically, Apple was able to sell the device, make a profit and even capitalize on the iPhone's popularity through AT&T service plans.
And while some may claim the iPhone's real bread and butter is in the AT&T service plans, I disagree. To say that Apple has too much to lose in allowing iPhones to be hacked is a severe misconception.
The rationale for that viewpoint seems to make sense: Apple is getting a cut of every service plan, and with millions of users, the revenue benefits are nothing to scoff at. But what it loses sight of is Apple's real intention.
Steve and his gateway device.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News.com)AT&T is a means to an end. Apple wanted to make a splash in the cell phone business and needed a carrier to do so. The revenue generated from plans is a bonus and was only possible because of the significant leverage Apple wielded before the iPhone's release. The iPhone is not the be-all, end-all of Apple devices--it's a gateway.
More than anything else, Apple is a hardware manufacturer and it relies upon the sales of its core businesses: computers, iPods and multimedia equipment. The iPhone is just another piece of the Apple domination puzzle. Much like the revenue generated from iTunes purchases, the revenue gained from AT&T service plans is a nominal amount when compared to the future benefits of iPhone (and Apple) saturation.
When Apple entered the cell phone market, it had to prove itself. But it was able to negotiate the best cell phone deal in history for one reason: its prior success with the iPod. If there was no such thing as an iPod, would Macs be gaining market share? Would the Apple TV have ever come out? Would Apple be as popular as it is today? No. Much like the iPhone, the iPod was a gateway device that helped catapult the company into other businesses and more beneficial enterprises.
Was it Steve Jobs plan all along?
Prior to its release,
the iPhone was being hailed as a landmark device which, unlike most other GSM
phones, was locked down to one carrier. After all, it made sense: Apple entered
into an exclusivity deal with AT&T (albeit begrudgingly) and was forced to
make the device as "unhackable" as possible. But as we all know, nothing is
unhackable.
Steve Jobs did his part--he locked the iPhone down quite well and kept saying that he was all for AT&T. He even talked up the fact that the BlackBerry does quite well on AT&T's service just to maintain the iPhone's significant buzz.
But Steve Jobs is not a dumb man. He knew that by making the iPhone exclusive, he was losing out on a significant market of people both home and abroad and his vision for the future of Apple included those that were left out. But alas, the exclusivity deal wasn't that hard to swallow. He, like all of us, knew that people would immediately start to hack the iPhone and unlock it for use on T-Mobile and other services abroad. And once that happened, the benefits could far outweigh the costs of such a hack.
Unlocking a cell phone is neither illegal nor in any direct violation of laws. Apple can't stop anyone from unlocking a cell phone, and to be honest, I don't think it really cares. Apple is playing this recent iPhone unlocking news perfectly. If it overreacted and stopped the hack, it could stymie its future revenue gains, but if it endorses such a maneuver, it effectively leaves AT&T out to dry. Isn't it ironic that AT&T lawyers went knocking on the doors of the hackers while Apple lawyers sipped tea at home?
With a new unlocking procedure in place, the iPhone will become as ubiquitous overseas as it is in the U.S. In a matter of days after the best iPhone unlock is released, we will witness a flurry of sales that will create a watershed moment for Apple.
Here's my prediction: the iPhone unlock will be simple enough for both casual and hard-core users alike to use their new device anywhere. From there, those who are not yet Apple fans will realize the ease of use that comes with Apple products and they will pick up either an iPod--if the iPhone's isn't enough--or a Mac, if it is. Much like the iPod, the iPhone will prove to be a substantial long-term revenue-getter for Apple that will far exceed the lost revenue from the AT&T contract. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Mac notebook and desktop sales exploded in the next quarter because of this unlock.
Lest we forget, Apple is a company that thrives on hardware sales. Its main business model is to develop appealing products and release them to the public in a way that will make consumers want more Apple devices. Think of how many Apple products there are and consider how many of these products are specifically designed to complement each other. The iPhone is no different--it welcomes us all to the world of Mac OS X--albeit in a stripped-down way--and makes everyone wonder about the benefits of owning other Apple products. In essence, it puts Apple into another realm of our subconscious.
Steve Jobs is probably one of the most intelligent and forward-thinking CEOs who has ever graced the tech industry. Jobs understood that AT&T service plans were a disposable by-product of iPhone sales and realized that the iPhone was just another piece in the puzzle of Apple's complete domination of this industry.
Apple anticipated consumers' next move and did so in a way that would make any businessperson proud. The iPhone was never meant to be a standalone product, it was designed to make Apple the most complete technology company in the world. And with an unlocked iPhone, this could very well become a reality.
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13506_1-9767325-17.html
August 28, 2007
By David
Needle
By one measure, Apple's iPhone has received the highest of compliments: It's drawn the attention of hackers and tinkerers working non-stop to unlock the features that tie the phone service to AT&T.
A New Jersey teenager took a hardware approach with tools that included a soldering iron in order to replace the iPhone's SIM chip with one from T-Mobile. He then showed how he was able to make calls on a T-Mobile account, bypassing AT&T. George Hotz, 17, detailed his efforts, which he said took most of the summer to develop, on his blog. And in the end, the founder of CertiCell, a supplier of new and refurbished OEM and after-market handset parts, offered to trade Hotz a Nissan 350Z for the hacked iPhone. He accepted.
While the hardware hack is time-consuming and perhaps imprecise for the less-technically adept, other simpler, software-based unlocking schemes emerged on the Web, as well. Contacted by internetnews.com both AT&T (Quote) and Apple (Quote) said they had no comment on any of the schemes. The FAQ section of both companies' Web sites raise the question of whether it's OK to use a different SIM card than the one pre-installed in the iPhone.
The AT&T answer is direct: "No. iPhone must be activated before it can be used. iPhone includes a pre-installed SIM card for your convenience."
Apple's answer is a bit less definitive: "You should use the SIM card that came pre-installed in the iPhone."
The immediate impact of these schemes to bypass AT&T is hard to measure at this point. Analysts and security experts expressed greater concern about what might come next. The first significant public hack of the iPhone came earlier this month at the Black Hat security conference. But the security researcher behind that effort gave Apple a heads up about how it was down, and Apple subsequently issued a patch.
Now there's concern others will build on these recent efforts to create a consumer-friendly product or system to easily bypass AT&T.
"This is a big deal for AT&T if the software hack is even remotely easy to use," Gartner analyst Mike McGuire told internetnews.com. Ironically, McGuire notes Apple might even see a spurt in iPhone sales to European consumers who could use the software trick to make the iPhone work on their networks even though the device is not yet available for sale there.
"Apple can issue a software update to deal with some of this, but hacking is an issue AT&T is going to have to deal with," said McGuire.
Mike Dager, the CEO of Arxan, said software updates are only a short-term solution. "Every solution provided by the vendor is an another challenge to the hackers," he told internetnews.com. "Basic cell phone hacking has been going on for years, but the iPhone is a high-profile device."
Arxan specializes in intellectual property protection for embedded devices by fortifying the code against attacks, and Dager claims its technology would make the latest unlocking schemes "virtually impossible" if implemented.
But Dager also thinks Apple faces a more serious threat than SIM-swapping and that is companies reverse-engineering the iPhone and offering a cheaper alternative. "Some Chinese company will come out with an iPhone-like device they claim is their intellectual property, and sell it for $50," he said. "Millions of people in Asia buy it and poor Apple will be sitting there trying to compete with these knock-offs."
Analyst McGuire strongly disagrees. While he thinks some features similar to what Apple offers may appear in other mobile phones, he notes that Apple controls its operating system and offers a unique mix of technology expertise.
"There are very few people that can come up with the software and user interface that's as useful and compelling as the iPhone," said McGuire. "A lot will try. I do hope that Nokia, Microsoft and others keep innovating on the UI because competition is good."
http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/3696601
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