iPhone Unlocking

Dev-Team member planetbeing has demonstrated the first unlocked US-purchased iPhone 4 in the world. With a custom-cut Rogers SIM card and some coding magic, his iPhone dialed Rogers customer service and displayed the Rogers carrier logo on the home screen.

MuscleNerd and planetbeing are working simultaneously on two different unlock solutions, and plan to release the best one when the time is right. Apparently the software needs work even though the end result is functional. Dev-Team may wait until Apple releases iOS 4.1 before making the iPhone 4 unlock public.

Blacksn0w RC2 is now available for those looking to unlock their iPhones running firmware 3.1.3. Beware however, this will not work with the latest baseband version 05.12.07. If you've updated your iPhone to 3.1.3 using Apple's official firmware you are out of luck.

Those updating their jailbroken device to iPhone OS 3.1.3 using PwnageTool 3.1.5 have taken advantage of Apple's battery fixes without altering the baseband from its current unlockable version, 05.11.07. In this case you can now download blacksn0w RC2 from Cydia.

The Dev-Team could be working on an unlock for iPhone users who have already updated to official firmware 3.1.3 and find themselves stuck with no unlock options at the moment. Sherif Hashim has discovered an exploit that could be used to unlock the current iPhone baseband so the iPhone can be used with carriers other than AT&T.

This exploit was verified by Dev-Team's own MuscleNerd as a legitimate and working exploit. It's possible the Dev-Team would wait until the release of iPhone OS 4.0 on the next generation iPhone before revealing the exploit to Apple with a new unlock, however the new iPhone isn't expected to ship until later this summer.

Reports have surfaced that unlocking your iPhone for use with another carrier will disable application push notifications. There is some debate over whether or not Apple is simply ignoring the problem, or if it's something they intend to fix in the near future.

The problem was discovered by PoweryBase, the developer of a push-enabled "to do" list application called NotifyMe. According to the developer, five percent of users (those with unlocked iPhones) generate 80 percent of their customer service requests, claiming the app doesn't work as advertised. These dissatisfied users are also driving NotifyMe App Store ratings down.