back to article iPhone hack project aims to open up device

Efforts to open up the functionality of Apple's iPhone to users disinclined to sign up to expensive two year contracts with AT&T are growing. Following the publication of a technique to get the iPod and Wi-Fi features of the device working without signing up to AT&T by reverse engineer DVD Jon, a new group has picked up the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anton Ivanov

    Already stalinized

    Impressive, quite impessive. That was less than 5 minutes between posting the link and the website being stalinized of the face of the internet.

  2. Neill Mitchell

    Erm. What about the SIM card

    This seems pretty pointless. Unlocked phones are only useful if you can then insert your own SIM card. The iPhone has this locked away inside (the only phone in the world to do this). It has been demonstrated that you have to destroy the case to open it up. So if you can't change the SIM what's the use in unlocking the device?

  3. Dillon Pyron

    Warranties? We don't need no stinking warranties.

    It's the same with any consumer product in the last 20 odd years. Start futzing with it and the warranty is no good. But the people cracking them open are probably more competent than the people on the other end of the support phone.

    Back in the 1980s, I was in DEC software services (DEC SWS, pronounced deck swiss). We had a customer order the microcode for a VAX 11/780. We canceled their software and hardware support contracts. They just said "sure".

  4. David Webb

    Just wait a while

    Grab the O2 version when its released here, then ring up O2 say "I wanna unlock this mobile please" pay the £35 and have a fully unlocked iPhone. Or better yet, get a Nokia.

  5. Paul

    Neill Mitchell...

    What are you on about?

    The SIM can be removed very easily thanks to the helpful little slide-out tray on the bottom.

    Instructions and photos:

    http://www.maclife.com/article/how_to_remove_the_iphone_sim_card

    There are many reasons to criticise the iPhone, there is no need to make them up.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SIM card

    It's not locked away, it's in a drawer which you open using a paper clip...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf9oHGzLF_M

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Paul

    To be fair, I originally heard somewhere that the battery *and* sim were both sealed inside. Was only later that I saw a youtube vid showing how to take it out that I was like...."oh, ok then"

    Dont think he was intentionally making it up, but perhaps only heard the early reports about the phone.

  8. Neill Mitchell

    SIM card

    "It's not locked away, it's in a drawer which you open using a paper clip..."

    That's actually made my day 'cos that means the idiot in the review I read who destroyed his iPhone to get at the SIM card did it for nothing! LOL.

  9. Andy Silver badge

    Reverse Engineer

    You mean that DVD Jon is a reenigne?

  10. Nix

    'Warranties'

    Psssh, what's an average eletronics warranty now anyways? 30 days? A year at most? In the age of 'Screw the consumer' I hardly fear the thought of losing my precious warranty which doesn't even cover the screen.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why would Apple care?

    "Last year, the US copyright office ruled that it was legal for consumers to unlock their mobile phones in order to use them with other carriers, a decision AT&T and Apple may seek to contest..."

    I can see that AT&T would get their panties in a twist about unlocking the iPphone, but Apple has no downside if it gets unlocked. It is extra demand for their very profitable hardware, with no support cost. I'm assuming they had the foresight to make this a warranty voiding activity. If they did, then iPhone unlockers would be the most profitable customers out there for Apple.

  12. Paul

    more sales for apple subsidised by AT&T

    let us assume that Apple get a hefty kickback from AT&T when people buy the iPhone and sign up, then Apple don't really care if the security is cracked provided they are not in breach of their deal with AT&T (no doubt there is some clause requiring Apple to have made appropriate locks and done approved testing, and also to enforce after-sales patches and fixes). Thus, if sales boom on the hope of a security breach, provided Apple play their cards right then they win twice, once from the jump in AT&T kickback/subs, and secondly from the jump in sales of the device and possible jump in iTunes revenue.

    who loses? AT&T! Does Apple care? Probably not.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Warranties

    "Psssh, what's an average eletronics warranty now anyways? 30 days? A year at most? In the age of 'Screw the consumer' I hardly fear the thought of losing my precious warranty which doesn't even cover the screen."

    Most EU countries have a 2 year statutory implied warranty on consumer electronics - the UK is one of the few EU countries that has yet to implement it (just 1 year here) though warranties are transferrable within the EU - eg I'm in the UK but have just had my 18month 3rlod Xbox360 fixed free by MS as I bought it from Amazon.de.

  14. Haku

    Re: Erm. What about the SIM card

    I think the title of "SIM locked away inside mobile phone" crown goes to the ZTE F866 3G mobile, they epoxy'd the damn thing into the phone to prevent people buying en-masse and flogging them abroad with new SIM cards..

  15. daniel

    re: Warranties

    1 year in France on parts & labour on consumer electronics, extendable depending on shop and support options. It's software - generally US - that seems to start having have a "30 days or until packet is opened or until luser leaves the store, whatever comes first" guarantee...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: French Warranties.

    "re: Warranties

    1 year in France "

    I heard that in France if your phone breaks pixies come and whisk you away to a magical land where they sit you down in a comfy chair while you select from a series of phones not even released in teh rest fo the world while swilling pixie wine and scoffing pixie cheese of course the big bad americans make the software which ruins everything..

    I bet they even warranty the screens, well, except for the ones made in the evil nasty black creeping horror that is the US of course.

This topic is closed for new posts.