All Articles Tagged unlocked

Well the news about 1.1.4 is that there’s no news — the apps are the same, the features are the same. The good news is the popular ZiPhone / iJailBreak method of jailbreaking works just fine — for Jailbreaking. Unlocking is apparently still a no-go, but just you wait, it will be.

We’re also hearing reports that the Bluetooth-dropped call issue has been fixed, along with the SMS order bug. Huzzah!

Wired.com

rener points us to this story: that roughly 400,000 iPhones are showing up on China Mobile’s network. That’s 1 in 10. That’s alotta iPhones:

According to China Mobile, the biggest wireless carrierin China, there were about 400,000 cracked iPhones using its cellular network service at the end of 2007, representing one out of every 10 iPhone shipments announced officially by Apple. – In-Stat – Information Alert

We’ve treaded lightly on the issue of the iPhone Gray Market and the question of just how many unlocked iPhones are floating about (and why these missing iPhones matter) – but it’s time to stop treading lightly and stomp: Apple either needs to get more carriers (especially China Mobile) on board with the iPhone to staunch this wound or they need to finally admit that unlocked iPhones are still sold iPhones and the lost revenue sharing ain’t a big deal.

There’s a great article over at Newsfactor about the booming iPhone gray market, it appears that unlocked iPhones (of which there are supposedly as many as a million) are coming out of all sorts of crevices in the standard iPhone market. One big source is apparently iPhones that “fall off the truck” directly from the factories in China. That’s not the only way they get out, though, turns out that people are using an incredible amount of ingenuity to grab the suckers for reselling on the gray market:

Sometimes, it is as simple as asking friends and family members to tap out their limit, which for individuals is five phones at Apple and three at AT&T. One reseller admits he got a friend to print business cards and pose as a small business owner so as to dupe an Apple Store manager into letting him buy 100 iPhones for his “employees.” – Newsfactor

Buyer beware, though. If you’re buying it direct from Apple or AT&T, about the only real risk you’re taking is a precipitous price drop right after you buy it. If you buy one on the gray market, you never really know. And for the resellers themselves, the number of people trying to defraud them is awfully high, as well.

AnySIM, the free software unlock by the iPhone Dev Wiki crowd, now works with iPhones that are running firmware version 1.1.1. The first version of AnySIM, released for 1.0 versions of the iPhone firmware, didn’t unlock the iPhone correctly. So, when folks that unlocked their iPhones with AnySIM updated to 1.1.1, it bricked their iPhones. This version of AnySIM doesn’t fix that issue. They claim that this version won’t cause the same problems as the earlier versions, but it might be a good idea to hold off on unlocking with AnySIM for a while anyway, caveat emptor. You have been warned. Speaking personally, I went crawling back to iPhoneSimFree to fix the broken AnySIM unlock. But, if all of those warnings are of no use to you, you can get the new version of Anysim here.

It is possible to downgrade your iPhone from 1.1.1 to 1.0.2, restoring some functionality of your iPhone. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and last but not least, here. We’ll have a guide up on how to perform this shortly if anyone is still stuck in brickville.

Wired talked to lawyers about the implications of Apple dumping the warranty on unlocked iPhones as it pertains to the Magnuson Moss act, and came out with some unfortunate news. It’s likely that Apple is within their rights to deny warranty claims to bricked iPhones if they were unlocked, as the onus is on the consumer to prove that Apple intentionally bricked iPhones. We wouldn’t be able to figure that out without an inside source or a court order.

figure 1:Apple’s 1.1.1 update is out, and it clocks in at 152.3 MB

Apple released their long-promised 1.1.1 update to the iPhone, and it looks like the update is “all clear” for anyone that has not hacked their iPhone. They also posted another training video to go with the update, starring the same fellow from Apple’s earlier training videos (see here, here, and a creepy but funny mashup here).

I received an email from Wireless Imports in which they advise unlockers wait to apply the update:

We have just received confirmation that it is NOT safe for anyone to update their iPhones software at this time. If you do upgrade the software you will have your phone relocked back to AT&T and there is nothing currently we will be able to do to assist in re-unlocking your phone.

At this time we do not know if you will be able to use your AT&T sim card with the phone even though it is locked back to AT&T.

Again we ask that you DO NOT upgrade to the new software under any circumstance.

We will send you another email when we have more information on this matter.

If you unlocked via AnySIM or the terminal unlock methods, it’s probably also not a good idea to update the iPhone. If you’ve unlocked your iPhone, it is probably best to wait to apply this update.

Unsurprisingly, if you’ve hacked your iPhone, Apple has broken 3rd party applications and re-locks iPhones that were previously unlocked. Applications that were installed on the iPhone remain on the iPhone, although there isn’t a way to launch those applications until hackers jailbreak the iPhone again.

Unfortunately, Apple’s language in the patch update indicates their willingness to dump the warranty on anyone that’s unlocked their iPhone and thereby saw it bricked with this update. If you hack your iPhone in the future, you will want to get used to waiting a few days or more past an update to see how the update could affect you. Let someone else be the hero.

[via]

figure 1: Magnuson Moss Esq., lawyer extraordinaire and warranty expert. He drafted the language of the Magnuson Moss act of 1975.

As far as I can tell, this article was written by someone that understands the Magnuson-Moss Act very well. I’ve never even heard of it, but it governs the aspects of a limited warranty and sets what you can and cannot do in terms of legally limiting a warranty and for what purposes. The legal mumbo-jumbo is strong in this one — the phrase “I am not a lawyer” really hits home trying to read this, but if you’ve got an eye for the law-talkin’ boilerplate, then it’s worth a read.

To the best of my understanding, the iPhone unlocking situation is analogous to using 3rd party ink cartridges in printers. Or buying a 3rd party garage-door opener for your garage door. Also, Apple could require you to re-lock your iPhone before they’d provide any kind of warranty service.

Otherwise, there could be a bit of trouble for Apple if they ditch warranties on iPhone unlockers:

The conclusion here is simple: Apple has, at least in a minor and reversible way, violated the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Apple should take action to correct their policy, and require that iPhone customers seeking warranty service, return their iPhone’s to locked condition. Apple could also release a software tool that aides in this process, though legally they are not required to… it would make the job of the Genius Bar easier to have such a tool in-house.

Everybody hold your breath for the next iPhone lawsuit.

The iPhone Dev Team, the same folks that have set the stage for 3rd party applications and more recently, the free iPhone unlock methods, released a statement via Erica Sadun of TUAW about Apple’s positioning on the iPhone unlock and the possible bricking of iPhones. Their statement is to wait to install the patch if you’ve unlocked your iPhone; if you really need the update, they have a tool in the works that will restore your iPhone to its factory condition. The ‘restore-to-factory-condition’ tool would be useful for anyone that wanted to sell their iPhone and be assured that there’s no personal information on the iPhone. The text of their statement is reproduced below:

9/25 Statement from the iPhone unlockers

Based on download numbers, the iPhone Dev Team believes that, worldwide, several hundred thousand people have unlocked their iPhones. That number continues growing every day. The removal of the lock, a bug, was a major step forward in the iPhone development. It made the iPhone free and useful to anyone, not only to those in certain countries.

Apple now announces that the next firmware update, expected later this week, will possibly break the handset of all of us free users in the World. It speaks of “damage” done to the firmware and “unauthorized access” to our own property, The removal of those firmware problems, which were built in in favor for AT&T, does not cause “damage” as they want to make us believe.

We will provide you with a tool in the next week which will be able to recover your nck counter and seczones and even enables you to restore your phone to a Factory-like state.

In the meantime we advise you not to update your free iPhone with the upcoming firmware. Wait for the next version to be fixed to work properly with your carrier and not break your phone.

Again, it goes without saying, If you’ve unlocked your iPhone, wait a while before applying the patch. Before you apply the patch, search for news of if the update is bricking locked phones. If it is, you’ll want to relock your phone before you update, if you choose to apply Apple’s update at all. The relocking instructions aren’t exactly for the faint of heart, but they’re not out of reach either. I believe that this could find its way into Installer.app one of these days…