Apple no longer cares about Unlocked iPhones?
Remember that exciting game of cat and mouse Apple was playing with hackers of the 1st gen iPhone? Each and every iPhone update, in addition to some bug fix or throw away feature, also broke the ability of the device to be jailbroken and unlocked for use on other carriers.
Well, although with multiple international carriers and the new app store there is less reason than ever to jailbreak your iPhone, faithful French Macenstein reader le Mac claims his unlocked and jailbroken 3G iPhone is working just fine after the latest 2.01 firmware update on an non-official iPhone carrier.
“Here are pictures of my iPhone 3G unlocked and running 2.0.1. I downloaded the upgrade today and nothing happened to my unlock and jailbreak so there you go. Maybe apple isn’t bricking 3G phones?? I’m using my phone on SFR while the official carrier here in France is Orange.”
Well, “Just fine” may be a bit of an overstatement, as while his iPhone may or may not still be jailbroken, he can’t load any apps onto it until the PwnageTool get’s 2.0.1 certified. But it does seem to be working fine on the SFR network.
did I miss the boat on this one, how are people getting unlocked 3g iphones? I am leaving for Japan in a month and I need my iphone unlocked asap
This is assuming he does not have an officially unlocked iPhone. France is obliged to sell them with an unlocked option. If so then… well done to him and epic fail to Apple.
Coincidentally i’m in France at the moment, roaming from O2 in the UK so of course i have the choice of three carriers on France’s amazing cellular infrastructure (3G and full EDGE in even the most rural areas)…. it’s rather ironic.
Does it make any difference to apple whether its unlocked or not anymore? they sell the phone to the carrier, the carrier sells you a contract when you get it so even if you do jailbreak it you’re still tied to their contract for however many months/years! Probably not worth the effort of trying to lock it down anymore
Apple is currently selling unlocked iPhones 3G in select few areas actually….
Check this out:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937
I got my 3G iPhone from Hong Kong and it is 100% unlocked by default. No mods, hacks or whatsoever.
In certain countries (Australia, New Zealand, Germany and possibly France are just some examples) you can unlock the iPhone legitimately by contacting your service provider. The request takes a few days (apparently the carrier has to contact Apple, and it is they who actually do the unlocking) but eventually your iPhone unlocks!
This is possible because of the laws in these countries state that a phone is not allowed to be locked to a certain carrier (and if it is it must be un-lockable).
So basically, of course an update to the F/W of a legitimately unlocked iPhone is not going to cause a problem! As for the fact he claims his phone is Jailbroken – there is no evidence in any of the images that it is… where is Cydia!?
Well, Pwnage Tool 2.0.1 actually DOESN’T unlock 3G phones,it just jailbreaks them. So this french iPhone is probably one of the “officially unlocked” ones sold in some european countries (like Italy, for instance)…
if you pay enough you can get an unlocked iphone (e.g. it’s $880 in australia)
Same thing that 1.1.4, unlock resists, so it is not an argument.
Well as you can see from the list of Carriers of the iPhone it shows that in France it’s locked to the carrier. As of now, there are about 15 unlocked iPhone 3Gs in France all sold by one place (not Orange). Where they get them from, I don’t know. Whether they unlock them or the phones are unlocked by default, I don’t know. All I know is this is the first evidence of an unlocked iPhone 3G running 2.0.1.
Also, there are reports that Orange provides unlocked iPhones for a higher price. NOT TRUE. You have 2 option. 1-Contract and 2-Pay-As-You-Go (Mobicard).
Well, I have an unlocked (pwned) 1st gen. iPhone and it survived the 2.0.1 update. Still completely unlocked, but I lost the Jailbreak (no Cydia). I don’t really care, I never used non-official apps.
In south of France some shop sells what you need to unlock unofficially the iPhone for 20 euros or less :
http://forum.frenchiphone.com/index.php/topic,22756.0.html
Orange does sell officially unlocked iPhone 3G. I got one myself. The one you buy isn’t unlocked, but in hours you get a mail from Orange to explain you have to connect the iphone to itunes and have some manipulation. And boom officially unlocked 🙂
I can’t corroborate what Booba is saying but if it’s true then I stand corrected : )
it is only a .0.1 update. i feel that apple was more concerned about customers dealing with a 6 second type delay than a few people using it on T-Mobile.