iPhone Unlocking

After weeks of anticipation, yesterday the iPhoneSIMFree software unlock solution became the first software of it's kind to become publically available. Gizmodo had exclusive access to some of the experiences of the first customers to purchase a retail copy of iPhoneSIMFree and attempt to use it to unlock their iPhones. Unfortunately, the news wasn't very good.

Based on the experiences of three customers who attempted the iPhoneSIMFree unlock, numerous road blocks may exist to keep the average user from a stress-free unlocking experience. Several of the initial

Though many people thought that purported legal pressure and/or simple fear was going to prevent the iPhoneSIMFree software, which performs a full software unlock on the Apple iPhone, from ever seeing the light of day - think again. After reports earlier in the week that the iPhoneSIMFree program was purchased by third party, the software is now available for purchase worldwide.

Currently, four different online retailers are selling the iPhoneSIMFree software, and all at a different

It was announced yesterday that a second company was preparing to provide software that would unlock the Apple iPhone and allow it to be used on any GSM network worldwide. The announcement, which came from mobile phone unlocking company UniquePhones, promised the software would be available to consumers today (August 25th), for a price between $25 and $50.

The initial team, which proved their iPhone unlocking software works, iPhoneSIMfree.com has not yet publically released their software. They have, however, unlocked phones for press outlets. Their delay in releasing would have made the Uniquephones solution the first publically available unlocking tool.

Unfortunately, alleged legal warnings from AT&T via a law firm out of Silicon Valley, have seemingly put a halt on the process. According to the project's blog

We all knew it was only a matter of time. For some it has taken longer than expected while others are shocked at how rapidly hackers were able to tear apart the reportedly impenetrable Apple defenses on the iPhone. Regardless of your level of surprise, the fact of the matter is that the iPhone is now fully unlocked, and the iPhone can be used on any GSM carrier anywhere in the world.

The unlock is here, without question, though it might not be from the source most people were expecting. The iPhone Dev Wiki team, which has been behind the vast majority of progress in hacking the iPhone, and who have been knocking at the full unlock door for weeks were not behind the unlock. Though it's unclear whether or not their efforts contributed to the unlock (it is incredibly likely that it did), the unlock announcement came from another source.

With last week's development of the TurboSIM unlocking method, it was likely only a short matter of time before seeing "unlocked" iPhones for sale for use with other providers both inside and outside the United States. As reported by PhoneDaily, this is now the case in Hong Kong.

The following video shows a TurboSIM unlocked iPhone being used to make calls on Hong Kong's

Not long after we updated you about a major milestone on the road to an unlocked iPhone, one which brought an unlocked iPhone ever closer, hackers have unlocked the iPhone for use in Europe.

Though this does not appear to be a "true" or "full" unlock, as the method requires the creation of a new SIM card using a SIM card reader/writer, it is also more significant than previous SIM card hacks. This latest achievement has resulted in fully working (with the exception of YouTube and Visual Voicemail in some cases) iPhones operating on European carriers.

So far, users have reported iPhones working in

The team behind the iPhone Dev Wiki, which has become the foremost camp of hackers attempting to unlock the Apple iPhone, has hit another major milestone in their efforts. The team released news recently that they have successfully extracted the full content of the NOR memory (from the S-Gold2).

Although the Wiki team hasn't released the source code or the dump of the NOR memory at this point, they have released a binary which will allow others to dump the content of their iPhone's NOR memory as well.

Don't know what that means? Join the masses. The important thing is