Free the iPhone from AT&T

Acererak was one of several readers who noted that DVD Jon has released information on unbricking an iPhone. You sacrifice all cel phone functionality of course, but you have an iPDA that will work on your WiFi. Currently the hack is windows only but it doesn't look very complicated.

Comments

Re:Right

[arivanov]

If I understand the idea correctly this allows you to use it without activating it and having a mandatory contract. This does not remove the SIM lock though. If a hack comes out to unlock the SIM lock these two will make a total unlock possible. Anything else aside, this allows you to use the iPhone for something without registering for 2 years contract while you are waiting for the second hack.

The latter is only a matter of time, after all you do not expect a device with a general purpose OS where everything runs as root to last long, do you?

Re:Why "Of course"?

[mzwaterski]

The iPhone doesn't use SIM cards.

It doesnt? http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305 746

Unlocking a Cell Phone is LEGAL

[MCSEBear]

From Ars Technia -- November 24, 2006

The newest list of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is out, and the Register of Copyrights is recommending six exemptions this time around. If you've been hankering for the legal authority to remove Sony's rootkit or to unlock your cell phone, then this will be big news. If you were hoping for the ability to make backup copies of your legally purchased DVDs, you're (still) out of luck.

Exemptions are allowed for 1) the educational library of a university's media studies department, in order to watch film clips in class; 2) using computer software that requires the original disks or hardware in order to run; 3) dongle-protected computer programs, if the the dongle no longer functions and a replacement cannot be found; 4) protected e-books, in order to use screen-reader software; 5) cell phone firmware that ties a phone to a specific wireless network; and 6) DRM software included on audio CDs, but only when such software creates security vulnerabilities on personal computers. You are allowed to unlock your cell phone no matter what Apple or AT&T think about it. They can't sue DVD Jon for breaking their bullshit attempts to control hardware that they have sold. The purchaser can do what they want with their own phone.

Whole article is at: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061124-8280 .html

Re:Unlocking a Cell Phone is LEGAL

[IamTheRealMike]

It's not a legal thing, it's a commercial thing. SIM locking makes a lot of sense and is one of the features that allowed for such a massive and fast rollout of ubiquitous GSM communications. Essentially it means the providers can heavily subsidise the price of the phone, making an advanced piece of electronics extremely cheap (and therefore affordable to lots of people), while still turning a profit. Everybody wins. But without locking, subsidising such a phone is equivalent to simply giving away money - so robust locking (a form of DRM in a way) is pretty important if you value everybody having a mobile phone. As phones usefulness is very much related to how many people have them, I'd say that's pretty important, especially as many countries now have laws around how long a phone can remain locked for and on some contracts (like mine) after you've had it for a year you own the phone and can get it unlocked.

Now, in this case, there are some things that aren't really clear. The first is how much AT&T are subsidising the cost of the phone. My Sony Ericsson W800i, which is now about 2 years old and has most of the features (if not the nice ui) of the iPhone cost me 30 UK pounds when I bought it on contract (locked for a year), which is about $60. But the high end iPhone costs 10 times that. I can well believe it's more expensive to make, as it's newer, has a nicer screen etc, but is AT&T subsidising the cost at all? If they are then I guess Apple have serious problems with the manufacturing price. If they aren't doing so then the original rationale for allowing locking (which is otherwise an unwarranted distortion of the free market) disappears, and it should be looked at closely.

Re:Unlocking a Cell Phone is LEGAL

[MCSEBear]

I think you're a bit confused because you're used to living in the EU where regulators actually force companies to refrain from bending over and ass fucking their consumers quite so much. Here in the US the telecoms are so certain they have Congress in the palm of their hands that telecom executives actually brag about it in public speeches!

"The former CEO of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, had some interesting remarks to make about Net Neutrality during his parting speech. Choice quotes include his plans for getting anti-neutrality legislation through: "Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will -- cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' http://slashdot.org/articles/07/06/06/1220258.shtm l

Here is information on AT&T's failure to subsidize the iPhone and the progress being made to break the Sim lock on iPhone.

Efforts to unlock Apple's iPhone continue, with hackers claiming "very significant progress".

The locked iPhone only works with AT&T's EDGE network, and cannot be used with mobile services from other providers. Locked phones are generally used to help operators recoup the cost of subsidising handsets for their customers, but AT&T is not subsidising the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599 (£250 or £300), depending on the model. Instead, the phone is locked because AT&T has a five-year agreement with Apple to be the sole iPhone provider in the US.

Unlocking the iPhone would be a boon for users locked into a contract with another US carrier, or for users outside the US who want an iPhone. While initial signs indicate an unlocked iPhone is possible, hackers must first overcome several challenges. One of those involves circumventing the authentication process in iTunes that both lets users register for an AT&T service plan and turn on the phone's features, including its camera and music player.

By Monday evening, US time, hackers had made headway towards circumventing the activation process. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing.

"We have been fairly successful in spoofing iTunes activation processes. This should allow us to activate the phone," poster gj wrote on the iPhone Dev Wiki, one of several websites tracking efforts to unlock the phone. "It may in fact also prevent the SIM locking from occurring in the first place ... though we haven't verified this yet."

These advances allowed hackers to set and read data on the iPhone, including the ability to query whether a phone has been activated. "The rest of our work is legwork really, in understanding how certain functions operate with the rest of the phone," the site said, adding hackers are close to the ability to browse system files on the iPhone, a key step towards unlocking the handset.

Once the activation problem has been overcome, hackers will be faced with other questions. For instance, does iTunes have the ability to recognise a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react?

After these questions are resolved, hackers can focus on unlocking the handset itself. That task is made easier by the iPhone's use of a removable SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of one that was hardwired into the phone. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can likely be cracked. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=9 956

It's also been reported in many places that AT&T is giving Apple a portion of it's revenue from monthly iPhone service plans. I don't think either company has confirmed that, but it would explain why Apple was willing to give AT&T a five year exclusive on the iPhone even though AT&T does not pay any part of the cost of the device for consumers.

Re:HEY

[Anonymous Coward]

No - it runs BSD (Mac OS X).

Re:Yeah make it worthless, then I can afford one!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tapwave Zodiac :)

Cool factor > Still looks cool to this day!

User interface > Yup its pretty nice touch screen interface

Wifi > With an SDIO card yeah

Almost full featured browser > yup got that too

Full screen > tis a pretty big screen

Video player > hardware mpeg4 decoder built in :D

plus it plays emulators and has tonnes of over features :)

f*ck the iphone get a Zodiac off ebay now!

Re:Why "Of course"?

[linuxci]

The iPhone doesn't use SIM cards. You have to "activate it" via iTunes.

It has a sim card, but it's a weird one. No it's a standard SIM card. The phone is just locked so it can't accept other SIMs. Once you have your AT&T account setup you should be able to use your iPhone SIM is any unlocked GSM phone.

Or...

[dwightk]

1. Buy the phone 2. activate it through Apple 3. Cancel the plan within 2 days

Apple cares because they get a slice of the...

[Anonymous Coward]

monthly fees from AT&T for all subscribers on the iPhone plans.

That's one of the many reasons Verizon told Apple to go pound sand.

Re:A better idea

[Magneon]

You can't use it for anything at all without activating it... ...without this hack.

Re:DVD Jon is really asking to be sued again

[yellowcord]

Who's taking a loss? Apparently the mark-up on the 8 GB version is 55%.

Windows Only?

[srwalter]

There doesn't appear to be anything windows-only about this hack. The Phone Activation Server is written on .NET. If this is anything like DVD Jon's other .NET programs, it will have no problem running under Mono in Linux. The only other part to the hack is to redirect a hostname to 127.0.0.1, which is also easily done in Linux.

I'd be happy to verify this theory if someone wants to send me an iPhone ;)

Re:Windows Only?

[larry bagina]

Hex editing the windows iTunes binary.

Re:Yeah make it worthless, then I can afford one!!

[Lumpy]

Nokia N700 or the new N800 does all of that.

No it does not play DRM locked iTunes music but it does everything else including play doom.

Oh and it's been out for far longer than the iPhone.

does it have the yuppie metrosexual iconic look? No but in a way kinda, every time I use mine with my phone (BT data) or for other reasons (far bigger screen than the iphone so movies rock and makes websurfing very tolerable) I get tons of questions about it.

Re:Why "Of course"?

[l-ascorbic]

Pretty much all phones in the UK are sim-locked. It's legal to get it unlocked by a slightly dodgy bloke on a market stall for a tenner though.

Re:voip

[extrasupermario]

Talkety does not use VoIP to connect to the iPhone, but a call back mechanism that connects two or more phones via normal phone lines. VoIP is only used in between. You will still need the AT&T contract to use Talkety

Re:Why "Of course"?

[K8Fan]

Which begs the question - if this hack unlocks it, does it also remove the sim lock? And if not, could it.

This hack doesn't do anything about the phone part of the iPhone. All he did was patch around the activation step and fool the rest of the iPhone into thinking it has already been activated. But I'm pretty sure that someone will take the software apart and figure out how to use it as a standard quad-band GSM phone via the SIM card. The question is if it will have web access via the carrier's data network...and if it would be any faster than AT&Ts EDGE system. The real tragedy would be losing the very cool "Visual Voice-mail". I wonder if Asterisk could be made to serve a Web 2.0 emulation of it?

Re:Yeah make it worthless, then I can afford one!!

[Sparks23]

I admit, from toying with one that a friend picked up, the N700/800 tablets look quite nicely usable. They do not, however, look like something I can slip into my purse, or the pocket of my jacket, for easy transport as a phone. (Especially as they need a Bluetooth phone to use for GPRS connectivity, and don't do normal GSM calling.)

I haven't taken the plunge and enslaved myself to AT&T for an iPhone, but I know that my desire for it is a tradeoff of several things. Windows Mobile just plain feels like I'm fighting with my PDA most of the times (I will spare you my rant on the astonishingly poor UI design of the Connection management screen in WM5), and most of the more-usable PDA-type devices are, like the N700, just too darn BIG to carry around conveniently for me, especially if I also have to carry a phone with me.

So all flashy 'woo' factor aside, the iPhone seems to have a very usable interface, do most of what I actually want from my PDA-phone (with, alas, the exception of IM... what were you THINKING, Apple?) and would fit in my jacket pocket much more conveniently. It's just that (ugh) AT&T requirement that's kept me from taking the plunge; T-Mobile's been fairly good to me.

Re:Yeah make it worthless, then I can afford one!!

[sethstorm]

Depends on if you like some Symbian based smartphones (N91,N92,N93i,N95, 9500/9300 Communicators, some of the E series). They range from just as expensive, or the price of some small laptops- but are usually not iCrippled.

Re:Why "Of course"?

[russ1337]

>>>I rather doubt $500 is the full price of the phone, but rather half price.

People who do this for a living came to a different conclusion

FTA's:

Portelligent estimates that the cost of the materials used in the iPhone add up to about $200 for the 4-gigabyte version, which sells for $499 and about $220 for the 8-gigabyte version, which sells for $599. Their estimate doesn't include costs of final assembly, but it does give some insight into the gross margin on the device. Historically Apple's gross margins have run ball park of 50% plus or minus a few points. "We had taken a speculative stab at what the costs would be back in January, when the phone was first announced and we were pretty close to the mark,"

Why risk it?

[NMerriam]

Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just use 999-99-9999 as the SS# when signing up for AT&T, which allows you to buy a prepaid phone plan? Then you pay $30, get access to the iPhone, have no AT&T contract, and can even use it to make phone calls if the mood ever strikes you. You also don't miss out on the software updates and new features Apple has already said are coming, and someday when someone offer unlocking for $50 you can get that done as well.