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Hacked iPhones Confirmed As Bricking With Latest Update
mhollis writes "Field experience has confirmed that if you have a hacked iPhone, it will become an iBrick if you use Software Update to install the latest update on your iPhone. The BBC reports: '[Apple's] warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update. Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the United States but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.' The only 'solution' is to unhack your iPhone."
I've read that it's also happening to non-hacked phones too.
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It reminds me very much of the hacks that went on with the PSP a while back, whereby you could "brick" your shiny new console if you didn't know what you were doing with firmware updates. That one was finally solves by a hack involving accessing the service mode via a modified battery of all things!
This is reminiscent of DirecTV's Black Sunday - if I remember right, they put out an update on Superbowl Sunday that killed hacked receivers, and a good portion of unhacked receivers in the process.
A bricked iPhone can be returned for a full switch... Correct me if I am wrong, but its not like they can tell the phone has been "unlocked", as I have not opened this phone in any way, and as such have not voided any warrenty on the hardware.
In fact I think I will install this update, I have a small scratch on my iPhone driving me insane, which is not enough to warrent an exchange. A bricked iPhone on the other hand from a corrupt firmware, would...
I will have to explain to my family that they should *not* update the firmware if they want to keep using t-moble, at least until someone else figures out how to unlock the phone. Or I will simply install my backup copy of the current firmware, no harm done and all.
I mean, being able to play a few games while in airplane mode, having free personal ringtones ripped from our own media, using t-mobile, an ebay tracker, an application that uses cellphone triangulation to calculate your location on the map, an AIM client, a digital recorder for lectures and meetings, a quickbooks app, an ebook reader, and a NES emulator; are all worth more to us then having an itunes store on the phone that lets us know what songs are playing in our local starbucks... I mean with the tmobile 'total internet' package (for $19.95 a month), I can use the tmobile hotspot in my local starbucks, for speeds faster then EDGE.... A greater convinence in my mind.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
it doesnt brick the phones, it just re-locks them... doing this would make the phone unusable in the UK, but definitely not "bricked" in the classical sense.
Engadget is reporting that most phones are being re-locked, not bricked. Seems like that'd be the expected behavior: re-install the OS and it acts like a clean OS. Then if you want to hack it again you can hack it again.
Well, I've read that pink unicorns are real. That doesn't make it true.
Please provide a link to backup your statement. Otherwise you're just spreading rumors.
This isn't Digg-- please try to backup your assertions.
I've read that it's also happening to non-hacked phones too.
Yes, that was covered in the linked article. From TFA:
1) There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones.
2) Some owners are reporting on technology blogs and Apple's own forums that the update is deleting contacts information, as well as photos and music, on iPhones that have not been modified in any way.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I think the article makes a poor distinction between actually bricking as in breaking the iphone, to returning the unlocked iphone to out of the box settings.
It seems to me there are two significant end results from updating your unlocked iPhone to firmware v. 1.1.1.
1. Your phone is dead, non function, inactive, incapacitated and irreparable damage has been done that cannot be undone.
Or
2. Your phone has been returned to the "requires activation screen" when synchronized with iTunes, thereby returning the phone to it's 'out of the box' settings.
From all the posts that I've read on HowardForums, Engadget, and Gizmodo, I find that #2 for the most part, has been the only outcome. Option number two then basically means, your phone is no longer unlocked, but if you follow through with the activation via iTunes and enter into a two year contract with AT&T, you have yourself a fully functional iPhone.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
They _do_ have to pretend to care that you want to go with a carrier other than who they have a contract with (AT&T).
Wow, you drank the Kool-Aid. It seems AT&T pays Apple for each subscriber on a monthly basis, how much and what for are in dispute. In your twisted representation, Apple would love nothing more to allow you to go elsewhere but for some other reason, AT&T would cry. Based on my reading, I see that Apple wants the single vendor relationship for its own benefit. The reality is Apple would lose the monthly fee for every subscriber not using AT&T. With at least 1 million phones and a few bucks a month ads up to a decent monthly income for Apple. If you do not think that is the reason, you need to take off the Apple glasses and look again.
Here are some links
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=133945
http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/07/19/piper.iphone.income.share/
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9747031-7.html
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/14997/
You can search for Apple revenue sharing AT&T and read more. To think that Apple would not pursue similar kick back deals in other countries would be naive as well.
Until Ma Bell was broken up the only place that sold phones was the phone company. You could rent phones from them or buy them outright. It was illegal to connect a non-phone company provided phone.
It wasnt until the 80s when you could buy and connect your own phone. So hopefully cellphones progress quicker, I don't want 60 years of being tied to the phone company to get my phone.
Look up the Carterphone Decision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carterfone). Until then, all phones, phone lines, equipment, networks, everything that had anything to do with phones was owned by...American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). And, yes I remember those days.
AT&T Wireless was bought by Cingular, which was then bought out by AT&T after the SBC buyout, and renamed AT&T Wireless.
AT&T: Same familiar name, but now with new, enhanced crappiness from SBC and Cingular.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
That's not what's happening. If you actually read reports from people who actually have iPhones and who actually unlocked them and then actually applied the update, you'll find that the "bricking" effect simply means that the SIM is locked again, and turning on the phone yields the activation screen which asks you to purchase cellular service from AT&T. It doesn't "utterly render the phone useless", it just kicks it back to factory defaults which -- since it was allowed to go on sale in the US -- presumably comply with US regulations.
All of this talk of being "required" to sign a contract is bogus. You can activate an iPhone without signing up for a 2-year contract.
I have a co-worker who did exactly this; he was told how to do it by a sales associate at the store he purchased it from. This is not illegal in any way; AT&T lets you do month-to-month on all of their plans in this manner, if you buy the phone first. Given that the iPhone price is not subsidized by the contract in any way, shape or form, why tie yourself into a contract?
When you activate the iPhone in iTunes, enter all 9's for your Social Security number. You'll fail the credit check (duh!) and you will be told you can either go to an AT&T store to talk to a representative or you can go month-to-month.
Given how much whining people have done about being "forced" to sign a with AT&T contract in order to use an iPhone, you would think that month-to-month thing would be being shouted from the rooftops. Are iPhone-bashers just ignoring inconvenient facts?
That is, if this quote is accurate. Anyone with a hacked iPhone in the UK had better ensure it isn't (*#06# is the standard GSM code for display IMEI on most handsets). The other angle, if US law is so very different to ours, is what stops AT&T from putting 004999010640000 on the stolen handset blocklist, thereby denying service to anyone on any network nationwide? The IMEI and IMSI (the phone and SIM serial respectively - IMEI is International Mobile Equipment Identity and IMSI is International Mobile Subscriber Identity) are transmitted to the BTS (cellular Base Transceiver Station) when logging on to the network. There's no way you could hide the IMEI from a network operator.
Gut feeling tells me this report of IMEI cloning is mistaken. If it isn't it's a very crude kludge, not a true simlock release, and is easily defeated without resorting to nasty surprises in firmware.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
1) Link please.
2) You are totally making this shit up. Link please!
3) The new firmware does not brick "hacked" phones. It does, however, brick "unlocked" phones. If you can't figure out the difference, then please turn in your nerd badge.
4) Tell us something we don't know.
Oh yes, all analogies must be exactly the same in scope.
Idiot.