The wizards at the iPhone-Dev Team have just about cracked the iPhone baseband which means carrier unlock is almost upon us. What does this mean? Sadly, not much. The iPhone is still physically – at least in theory – locked to purchase and activation at AT&T and Apple stores so those heady days of buying an iPhone to crack at home are long gone. It is my suspicion that lots of 3Gs will soon be falling off the back of trucks around the world, especially in Russia and Asia, as folks dedicated to one G.S.M. carrier or the other decide they don’t want to switch.
Baseband unlocks essentially cede control of the phone’s telecomm portions to hacked code. Usually it’s impossible to run hacked baseband code but the iPhone Dev folks have patched the baseband without alerting the phone itself, resulting in the Great iPhone Unlocking of 2007 and the future iPhone unlocking of 2008/2009.
If there is anything to be learned from the hacker scene, its that you can’t beat them. As we have seen countless times (PSP homebrew scene, comes to mind), people will eventually crack your software and modify it.
What are companies supposed to do?
Haha… maybe companies Apple should start selling phones directly to consumers ;)
>>It is my suspicion that lots of 3Gs will soon be falling off the back of trucks around the world, especially in Russia and Asia, as folks dedicated to one G.S.M. carrier or the other decide they don’t want to switch.
All the iPhones in Russia are unlocked. 16Gb costs about $1000, 6Gb – $850
huh. I did not know that. So there you go.
And all iphone sold in HK and singapore are unlocked as well.
iPhone 3G was unlocked for a while. Even in poor country like Vietnam, a lot of my friends are using iPhone 3G with Vietnamese carriers without any problem. Price for an unlock 3G, 16Gb is about $730 – $800
Google Calendar users in the US can now add new events, invite attendees, and see daily and monthly views of their agendas from the iPhone.
New Google Calendar features for the iPhone !!
Strictly speaking, Russia isn’t the case – as I heard (and read) 3 major providers support iPhone 3G in Russia, and even though a bunch of small independent providers do not, it doesn’t really change the picture, as Big 3 covers somewhat about 90% of mobile market.
You should understand that selling locked phones in Russia is against the law. So the iPhone prices are the same at every provider’s store. All they can do is to offer several subsidised 1- and 2-year tariff options.
Uuuh, am I missing something? I’ve been running a cracked 2.1 3G iPhone for a coupla months now, in an Asian market with zero approved iPhones. That sure seems kinda cracked to me ….