For patching the baseband in update 1.0.3+ to undo the unlock, what is the case for and against for Apple to do this?

For:

- Preserves relationship with AT&T
- Stops US customers migrating to T-Mobile
- Prevents loss of $11/month revenue sharing for customers who break 2-year contract
- Preserves relationship with three European partners for November launch
- Prevents loss of 10% revenue sharing from European networks

Against:

- Turns people off buying iPhone so sales decrease
- Angers Apple customers if their iPhones stop working
- Destroys "halo effect" eg, broken iPhone customers won't buy more expensive MacBooks, iMacs
- Some customers may even become anti-Apple, eg some of the "ripped-off $200" customers were threatening never to do business with Apple again
- Most overseas buyers will wait for local availability / warranty / support anyway, so why bother
- Enough bad press from the price drop, wouldn't want to tarnish iPhone image further
- It's actually legal to unlock your own phone under the DMCA, so what grounds would Apple have to justify relocking without permission
- With Nokia and others coming out with competing models, Apple needs all the iPhone supporters it can muster
- May recognize that overseas buyers who have gone to considerable expense and time to import, research, and unlock their phone, should be allowed to use it
- Screwing with the baseband to try to prevent future unlocks may have bad side effects for the many legitimate customers, further eroding confidence
- Hackers will find an unlock again anyway, so again, why bother

Reply

This is a test comment. TUAW people may delete it if they wish. Thanks.

Reply

This is why there are no successful Mac viruses: there are far more fun and rewarding things to hack.

Reply

@reg -

i know where youre coming from, but i dont really agree.

1) there are numerous provider specific phones, sure they can be unlocked, but you lose features, such as here, you lose some of the main selling points.

2) if they hacked their phone, im sure they wont be too surprised if an official update breaks something unofficial. you cant break something that isnt there, right?

3) again - the people with 'broken' iphones will be the ones who know what happened and wont blame it on the hardware. this wont effect sales of computers

4) the whole feeling ripped off thing is crazy. people made the decision, they just got the short end of the stick price wise, lesson learned. again, if they blame apple for 'breaking' something that is not supported, they are in the wrong boat to begin with.

5) you kind of counter your other statements here. as you say, most customers will wait it out and get the legit package

6) bad press to whom? people lined up outside the door after the price drop. "theres no such thing as bad press"

7) they arent saying you cannot unlock it, and i dont see how 'locking' it here would be illegal considering you did it through an undocumented method. if you were to do it with their/att provided code then yes. but doing it through some crazy method, what if you do it in a harmful way, are they never supposed to patch that method?

8) what does capitalism have to do with hacking the iphone?

9) so if i spend the time figuring out how to break into your house and rob you, i can have your stuff and youre ok with it?

10) i dont think 'legitimate customers' care about hacking an iphone

11) so dont run a firewall, virus protection (in windows) and leave your doors unlocked

again, i have nothing against hacking the iphone, but i wouldnt say its our right to do it. its like a drivers license, its a privilege, not a right

Reply

I think -against TUAW's opinion- this is a great thing, because of all the people outside the US who want a working iPhone. Here in Chile, I'm not willing to wait 1+ year to get an overpriced iPhone, so I'm probably gonna get one from the US and unlock it.

Reply

The trouble with releasing it as open-source is that it makes it easier for Apple to patch it.

Reply

Hey just one question,
all these unlocking hacks for the iphone, they all use firmware v1.0.2
What happens when that is updated does everyone who unlocked their iphone get shafted or does it not matter and they will be able to update their (unlocked iphones) firmware as well?

Reply

@tim, interesting list, but sort of misses the point, which was an attempt to work out what's in it for Apple to deliberately relock an unlocked phone, as that's now a very valid concern of everyone who applies an unlock solution.

What are you not agreeing about? That there aren't fors and againsts for Apple to decide?

That people who find their phone relocked won't or shouldn't be upset because of your reasons?

Personally, I'm not one of the "ripped off over the price cut" crowd (unlike Erica and all the other TUAW commenters stirred into a frenzy!) but there are certainly people who feel hard done by Apple over that issue. I was pointing out the same would be true if Apple reversed the unlock.

That could genuinely flow on to how they feel about Apple in general, and if they want to continue supporting the company by buying its products, especially if they are existing PC users impressed enough by the iPhone to consider other Apple products.

Part of the reason I'm interested in what Apple does is that I'm outside the US, and the only way I've been able to use my June 29 iPhone is to unlock it. Are you saying I shouldn't be allowed to use the iPhone I bought? Ever? (Not coming here for a long time.) Even thought there is no technical reason I can't?

The issue of overseas customers choosing to wait was simply identifying that MOST will probably prefer to have a warranty, support, and local vendor to go back to. But SOME are willing to go to the trouble of importing and unlocking. As the MOST will outnumber the SOME, Apple shouldn't really need to care from a lost revenue point of view, so that is an argument against Apple relocking it.

As for breaking in and robbing the house, well, if I'd bought the house, I wouldn't be robbing it would I.

Capitalism? Privilege vs right? Sorry, you've lost me. I don't think they're relevant arguments here.

You're also not clear on the technical details: forcing a firmware restore which undoes iFuntastic type hacks is quite a separate issue from patching the baseband to prevent unlocking.

At the end of the day, I'm sure it will come down to the bottom line, and that's what I was trying to work out - which way Apple will go.

Reply

@Danny, it is likely for the foreseeable future that any iPhone firmware update will remove all hacks and applications that you've added, simply because iTunes does a checksum on the firmware, and any slight change forces a restore.

This isn't because Apple hates the hacks, just the way of ensuring firmware integrity during the risky process of reprogramming a device's brain. (Restore is often used to reset a corrupted iPhone or iPod.)

So far, it's been easy to just reapply the hacks each time. The hack authors can make minor changes if needed to support the new firmware.

The unlock is different to a regular hack: it changes the baseband, which is deeper into the phone. An unlocked phone actually survives a Restore, and can potentially survive a 1.0.3+ update unless Apple patches the baseband. Even if they do, reapplying an updated unlock should still work UNLESS Apple makes a deliberate effort to prevent unlocking.

That's the issue, and it's Apple's choice to make.

Now, you can choose to stay at 1.0.2 firmware forever, though the way iTunes is structured it makes it hard to ignore firmware updates (preference defaults on), and even if you do, as far as I know it doesn't allow a Restore without checking for new firmware first. So if your iPhone becomes corrupted from running a not fully debugged VNotes etc and you need to restore, you'll be forced up to the later firmware.

Reply

I'm just laughing my behind off at the kids over at iPhoneSIMFree... they must be pooping their pants. "Hey, we're about to get a HUGE revenue stream... ahh FUCK!"

Reply

Reg, what if I disconnect my Mac from the internet, when performing the Restore? iTunes just wouldn't find out if there's an updated firmware.

Reply

@reg -

again, i dont think apple will or should block any hacking or unlocking, im just saying that i dont see that its necessarily in their best interest either way. its like the appletv, it doesnt effect them if you do it, it only possibly effects the end user.

i just dont think people who alter the original state of an item have the right to be upset if things change. its not an argument over legitimate unlocking, if and when it comes, because apple just WONT reverse it, theres no debating that. but until its 'official,' there is no reason for them NOT to undo the unlocking if they write it into their updates.

you do make a good point in your 3rd post, that since its on the baseband and not on the firmware, they would have to intentionally do it, but what if they have a good reason to? what if att changes their network structure and apple needs to accomodate? im not a mobile phone expert, but i would imagine that would require some updates to the lowest levels of the system, and if they arent officially breaking anything, why should they care?

my points about capitalism are because you say things as if hacking is the way apple will stay ahead of the competition. i feel that apple will do just fine on their own. and privilege/rights mean that its a privilege to be able to hack/unlock our system, that apple doesnt stop us, as opposed to being our right (i know unlocking is legal, thats not what im saying here).

as for the breaking into your house analogy, let me change it to something more suited to this topic. if i find a way into your wireless network and youve done things to try to keep me off of it, just because i did the research to break it, should i be able to use it?

and of course people who unlock their phones this way would be upset if they were locked again, because nobody wants their work undone, but what grounds do they have?

as to you being out of the US, id love for you to be able to use your iphone. i want as many people as possible to use apple products, but until they officially release it there, everyone who uses the unlocked system needs to understand they are on thin ice and should be ready to lose it at any time.

forgive me if i jumble my words here, its hard keeping my thought in a little box ;-)

Reply

I didn't take the time to read through the previous posts, but I can confirm that this worked without a hitch for me (the iUnlock procedure). Just google for a tutorial and you'll find one.

I'm now using Telstra Mobile in Australia. the EDGE works just fine, and Youtube works too after hacking it a little (google, again).

There is one sucky thing though, and it's probably coz the iphone isn't really meant to be working much outside the US.

When someone on a mobile in Aus calls, it doesn't pick up the +61 code, then the 4, then the number for the mobile. It just uses the common 04xxxxx (x's are rest of number). However, having added the +614 into all my address book contacts for when i'm overseas, the iphone now doesn't figure out that +614xxxx is the same as 04xxxx and so caller id doesn't work properly.

Even more annoyingly, it works just fine for SMS.

Does anyone know if theres a haxie for this apart from manually adding 04xxxx numbers to all my contacts?
I suppose this is a problem everyone who has an iPhone outside the us will encounter. It will probably be addressed by Apple in a firmware update as they ready for Europe's launch. But i'm scared that since i have the US version of the iphone, that this firmware will not be available for mine.

Perhaps TUAW could look into it?

Thanks guys.

Reply

Personally, I paid for the unlock because it gives me many more options. Primarily, I'm not locked into AT&T outrageous billing practices due to Apples mistakes with the iphone. What it gives me is the option to put a working prepaid SIM T-Moblie or even T-mobil Germany, VodaFone, etc into my fully paid iPhone. I even do my part to reduce the annual ENRON style profit that AT&T is making. they must be NUTS to think we'll gladly fork over FOUR THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED United States Dollars for a 2 week trip to Europe and the phone is shut off. Additionally, I can choose to keep my iPhone at 1.02. Hey it's a working phone and a heck of a lot better than the series of Palm Treo's that I suffered with over the past 5 years.

Reply

While plenty of users are going to trudge through this complex hack, iPhoneSIMfree is still going to make plenty of cash with their "it just works" solution. Time is money for many people, and it's a lot easier to spend $99 than to work through this messy open source hack.

Reply

This has me wondering now... will iPhoneSIMfree lower their price to 66$ and give previous owners a 16.5$ credit?

As I'm not owning an iPhone and I also wonder what happens if a new update is out and I choose not to install it. Will iTunes bar my access to th iphone or some features making it compulsory? If not, all ppl have to do after a patch comes out is wait a week or so and it will be re unlocked again. My guess is it will be less than a week anyway.

Reply

I tried to use the unlock software and instructions last night and it all worked without a problem. Here is the picture of the unlocked iPhone connected to Canadian Fido network:
http://softwaretrenches.com/2007/09/iphone_is_unlocked_1.html

Reply

Do you still need to activate thru AT&T before applying the hack? Can I just purchase an iPhone on ebay and never give a single penny to AT&T? (I want to try this on Fido (Canada))

Reply

Alright,
I read posts above and was just wondering, I live in Canada and i would love to purchase the iphone via online US store and then just unlock it, but does anyone know of a way to "re-lock" it so to say. So that when it is released in Canada I would not have to worry about update problems?

Reply

This unlocking tutorial worked really well for me...
http://iphone.unlock.no/
If anyone has questions, feel free to contact me Rando1103@gmail.com

Reply