Letting the genie out of the bottle

Links


Unlocking the iphone - Letting the genie out of the bottle

There two groups that clam to have unlocked the iphone.

The people over at engaged have been in talks with the iPhoneSIMfree.com and from reading their article sited below it's a done deal.

NEW iPhoneSIMfree.com FAQ

This kid is a genius and has a bright future ahead of him as he heads off to college this fall, but let's admit it his method may be free but it's not for the faint of heart. If you would like to give it a try here are the detailed steps of how he did it.

      NEW iPhoneSIMfree.com FAQ

What is a unlocked Phone? When AT&T Wireless became Cingular, remember that, my newly purchased Nokia 8120 was not able to access the Cingular SIM card after a phone call or two to Cingular support I found out that the Nokia phone I had just purchased from AT&T was locked and would only except AT&T SIM Chips. So off to Google I went to find some solution so that I could use my new phone with the new Cingular SIM Card. After a Few searches I found that I was not the only one this was happing to, but that this has been an issue in Asia and Europe for years. The US has two major GSM providers The "NEW" AT&T and T-Mobile, but there are over 700 GSM Providers across 218 countries around the world.

As of August 24, 2007 the only one wireless provider SIM chip the iphone will accepts AT&T's what about the other 699 Providers. In the Case of my Little Nokia there were plenty of company and plenty of software applications that offered codes that would remove the SIM lock. Some of them work better than others, The Nokia Free Calculator worked great for my model of Nokia. The Calculator is simple you simply pick your mode, the original provider, and the country of origin then press the submit button. Then I entered code in to the phone it beeped and displayed "SIM Lock Removed" and that was it.

Obviously the iPhone will not be unlocked that easily, but who knows, there are two different Groups that clam to developed methods that unlock the iPhone, the first was George Hotz with a fairly complicated hardware and software solution. It involves soldering wires and rewriting software. I am not sure there are many iphone owners that have the nerve to open her up and sticking her with hot pokers. But as far as I have seen it is the only publicly known method of unlocking the iPhone.

The second group is iPhoneSIMfree.com with a pure software unlocking solution that sounds very promising. if you believe what the guys down at engaged have to say about it.
"Again: we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com's software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhones, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhones fully functional for users outside of the US" iPhone unlocked: AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity, August 24, 2007, 12:00PM EDT
If what they say is true this will let the genie out of the bottle, opining the door for iPhones all over the world and closing the door on exclusive provider talks.