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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.
Why would you pay that much money for a PDA, when you can get other devies whose only purpose it to be a PDA for less?
This is Slashdot! Give me the latest gadget, bug, or OS project! This ain't english class so don't confuse the two!
Why is it assumed that phone functionality must be sacrificed? Why can't another SIM be used?
So "unbricking" the iPhone means losing cell phone ability. What kind of unbricking this is?
How about a guide how to free my PC from Internet security vulnerabilities. By blowing up my modem with a hand grenade.
On the day of the iPhone launch Steve Jobs confirmed that OS X is also in "some iPods we've been working on."
> there are people who want an iPhone to use it as an iPod and WiFi device without having to enter into a 2-year AT&T contract).
Just wait a few months and get a bug-fixed OS X in an iPod video with the same screen and Wi-Fi and Safari and 100 GB disk.
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/20061124-828
No - it runs BSD (Mac OS X).
Why would Apple care if these devices aren't being subsidised, they still get their sale. If anyone is to sue it'd be AT&T.
On its own this development will only cater for those who are not interested in the phone component, but if he can find a way to unlock it then it'll be a lot more useful.
I am much more looking forward to unlocking the iPhone so you can use it with any GSM card - including those up here in the great white north.
The guy is a modern-day Robin Hood. You still have to respect his "stick it to The Man" talents, regardless of what he calls himself or who is today's choice for "Sherriff of Nottingham"...
1. Buy the phone 2. activate it through Apple 3. Cancel the plan within 2 days
Like anyone can even know that
He earned his name long ago. He has no need to 'justify' himself to anyone, and he certainly doesn't owe us anything. He can do whatever he damned well pleases, and you should be thankful for anything that happens to help you, instead of disrespecting him for the stuff that doesn't.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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.
If it happens widely AT&T will either drop it entirely or start selling it at its full price. At the moment they make a loss every time someone does this. If it's half a dozen slashdotters wanting to turn their new phone into an overpriced 4GB ipod then that's not going to affect much. If a full hack comes out and thousands of people do it... then expect AT&T to react.
You're saying people are already bricking their iPhones?
Technoli
Something else then. Someone gathered the activation codes. Either way, not unbricking.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
Couldn't you just buy the iPhone and not activate it? Now all you slashdotters will be able to get girls phone numbers and have an excuse when you don't call them!
I'm interested in a hack that allows tunring my nano into a phone. Let me know when this happens...
Voice quality is quite good in the phone itself. The quality of network varies depending on your location. I've been in the Washington D.C. area and it was clear. In Toronto, roaming with Rogers has also been great.
I doubt that most will cancel their service.
-Stu
Looks like nanocr.eu is groaning under the ./ effect.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
Who's taking a loss? Apparently the mark-up on the 8 GB version is 55%.
Genius, so you take a phone and "unlock it" thus meaning it is no longer a phone.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
He earned his name long ago. He has no need to 'justify' himself to anyone, and he certainly doesn't owe us anything. He can do whatever he damned well pleases, and you should be thankful for anything that happens to help you, instead of disrespecting him for the stuff that doesn't.
Showing your gratitude means you're weak. You gotta hate things. Hate Windows, hate Oracle, hate IBM, hate Intel, hate RIAA, hate Exxon. Hate the government, hate DVD Jon. Hate some guy who made a million by selling pixels on his home page and so on.
It's a survival technique. Now, of course, I kinda like Linux. I contributed a brightness adjustment to the "paste" icon in the KDE file manager, so by extension this puts me in the same group with the guys who created the Linux kernel.
But I'm not gonna tell you I like Linux. I'll just instead tell you you're an idiot for not using Linux, otherwise it means I'm weak.
I'll take one!
We came,we saw, we kicked it's ass!
We don't even have their "service" here, not till 2012.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
would a voip webapp be feasible? then the iphone would be pretty cool even whitout gsm functionality
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
Well, he does have an interest in Apple products...
In order to justify his name he should do Blue Ray and HD DVD stuff.
Totally agreed. And he better do it quick, I'm on the phone talking with the head of the Name Giving Commission, and they're seriously considering taking his name back.
However, what to do with the 2 year contract you signed at the time you bought it???
You don't sign a contract at the time you buy it. Have you been ignoring all of the previous iPhone discussions?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Because HD formats aren't worth anyone's attention.
You forgot step 2... Pay $200 to get out of the contract you signed with AT&T.
Yes, taking from the evil technology innovators and giving to the impoverished geeks who can't survive without the latest gizmo delivered on their terms. Robin Hood my ass!
I hate you cause I'm alpha.
Cancel within 4 days and you get the activation fee refunded; and since you are within 30 days there is no early termination fee.
Essentially you are buying a very expensive iPod/WiFi web browser.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Wow, way to comment without actually reading the source material! You have, IIRC(this may also depend on the state) 14 days after signing to cancel out of a cell phone contract for whatever reason(most people do it because they get crappy service in their area) without paying a termination fee.
Monstar L
Gah! So you're responsible for that travesty?!
(hehe, captcha is 'abhors')
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
Freedom is the freedom to say that 2 + 2 = 4
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
That said, I fail to see how AT&T stands to lose from morons turning their expensive toy into an iPod. They still have to pay their monthly fees. If I were AT&T, I'd encourage that behaviour. Talk about free money!
It involves an elastic band, a free cell phone from the carrier of your choice (look around. They all have at least one model that's free) and your nano..
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
My hope is that the iPhone would bring into the limelight how restrictive all mobile phone service providers are. They do nothing but restrict progress and rip off the consumer. I think they're responsible for why phones in the US market lag behind the rest of the world in terms of technology. If US consumers had access to what's available elsewhere I think people would generally be less impressed by the iPhone.
To me the activities the US carriers engage in is just as bad if not worse than DRM. It's a big problem and unfortunately I don't see many people calling attention to it.
It's stupid to try and price an item by the price you think the components cost, ok.But it's a nice number to guess, with 1 or 2 signifcant figures.
Development does have a marginal cost of 0.
When you are trying to know the benefit of a sale, it would be price - marginal costs. The development cost is a sunk cost, so it is irrelevant to each sale, because it won't change. That said, I fail to see how AT&T stands to lose from morons turning their expensive toy into an iPod. They still have to pay their monthly fees. If I were AT&T, I'd encourage that behaviour. Talk about free money!
Feeling negative today?! Relax, eat a hotdog, drink a beer; it's independence day!
damaged by dogma
GP has offended apple by not reading source material !! omgWTF.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
This sounds right.... :) ... Bastards...
What is hard to understand is, why they thought it was sensible to tie the phone to one network. Evidently they did not need to do this to generate sales. So why did they not simply allow people to buy and register with whoever they wanted? The margins seem to be high enough, the demand was there? What was the point? In fact, would they not have sold more if they hadn't locked it to one network?
Its true they control the customers' network choice. But why do they care which network he/she chooses? Does anyone have a simple explanation of this?
If there's wi-fi available I'll use my iBook thank you very much (it's always in my purse). If there's not wi-fi I want a cell phone with 3G.
To be precise, it's "OS X" (Apple dropped the Mac prefix on the iPhone according to the crash logs (http://daringfireball.net/misc/2007/06/MobileMail -2007-06-29-204206.crash)
Why would Apple sue him, and why would you consider it to be funny?
Here's the audio. It's from the movie: South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut (Animated)
I'd like to use the iphone as an ipod and a phone and save $20 /month on the data plan. (save $480 and not give up that much) Any hacks for that?
I think I saw that, anyways, you cannot get to iTunes with this hack.
Well, it only rocks when I play the right MP3, but it does almost everything that the Apple phone does except connect with the cellular network. The webbrowser isn't as nice, but it's really pretty good. And it's only about $250 now. The Nokia 770 and 800 are also quite nice. I've seen the 770 for $140 these days. I have to agree. If you don't want a phone, there are many other choices that are pretty nice.
Will it get me the iPoon?
Dont you still have to sign a 2 year contract when you buy it? Sort of hard to 'free' yourself from that part. And with how most people that buy these things, in 2 years they wil lwant the new nice shiny model anyway, instead of releasing it from ATT.
( and last i heard, a "brick" was a totally hosed device, being tied to a single provider doesnt make it hosed, just restricted )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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 $50 you can get that done as well.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
You get an iPhone without the phone part. Gee, DVD Jon, can you figure out a way to make my computer play tunes, but not do Excel or Word? If somebody can actually figure out a way to use it with another provider, great. Until then, there will be an iPod-only varieties in this configuration sure as shootin'.
Because he is a way-cool internet lolster, who substitutes glibness for the insight he lacks.
They gave away the store with this AT&T deal.
I don't think Apple is that dumb. We know they have a 5-year exclusive for the iPhone on AT&T. But I really doubt they have a 5-year exclusive on any device that uses a mobile network. e.g. the iPod Mobile. It seems clear to me that Phase 2 is already in progress.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They policy is to unlock phones if the full retail price was paid for the phone. That policy may have changed as of a month ago but I doubt it. Why don't some of you people call in just ask them to do it.
So, you are telling me that ATT is going to tell me how to use a Sprint SIM in an iPhone?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That question is just dumb. It would not be possible at all with sprint because sprint is cdma/EVDO and At&t is GSM/edge,hsdpa. ... [list of other non free trivia, failures and rudeness]
As if such a divide was reasonable and inevitable instead of anti-social and intentional. The spectrum belongs to everyone and things should just work. They would work if the spectrum were reasonably reallocated.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
No. Sprint is going to tell me how do i Sprint SIM in an iPhone after throwing out AT&T SIM.
Anyway Sprint service is far better than AT&F crap.
(FYI: Sprint is CDMA, so no SIM is inolved.)
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
In normal shops mind you, no need to go to Ebay for that. They are expensive, but that was to be expected.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Like Skype for Windows Mobile? Works great.
Da Blog
It was a bone thrown to AT&T so they could sell fat text messaging plans, or gather fat fees from people who go over their limit and end up paying per message.
Maybe someone with an iPhone can see if this works.
I can confirm that it worked with an earlier AT&T-only phone on the pre-Cingular version of AT&T Wireless (circa 2002 version).
The phone is the Siemens S46. The unlock technique is simple.
Find somewhere without a cell signal. In my case, this is a corner of my basement, as long as the phone is in an old coffee can.
Turn off the phone.
Remove the AT&T SIM card.
Replace with a different SIM card.
Turn the phone back on.
Confirm you have no signal.
Dial 911.
Because the phone, by law, MUST make 911 calls, even without a SIM, the phone will eventually unlock and seek other GSM signals. With this phone, the Siemens S46, you can then stop the outgoing 911 call, attach the T-Mo signal, and you're in.
There you go.