i-phone Questions

[Calculator83]

So my cingular contract is finally over. I'm thinking about selling my soul to steve.

I looked at the plan, kinda expensive for att.

Heard somewhere about T-mobile. I've used them before and they're adaquate for my area.

So, I was wondering if the iphone is still requiring all those hacks/firmware to work with any other provider.

Can someone please bring me up to speed on the stuff? TIA



UPDATE:


I got the Iphone now, I opted to pay the store dude 50bux to unlock it for me cuz i'm under the impression that It takes alot of time, and i'm in college.

So the guy gives me some of what i assume to be BS this morning, he says he needs to order a special SIM attachment or the T mobile sim won't work for the Iphone..

I read the Guide that "pm" talked about and nothing is mentioned this thing..

I'm REALLY frustrated and somewhat PI55ed off at the situation, ,, ok Iphone users plz help me out.. Cuz it's been 3 days since he said he would unlock it and today he gives me BS about special SIM attachment

I'm trying to use Iphone on T mobile,, the guy is trying to screw me, "i think"
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[Wonderful Pork]

yes, you still need to unlock the iPhone for it to work with any other provider except for AT&T.

I'm not 100% up to date but I don't think the 1.1.3 firmware (most current) is able to be hacked yet. I'm not sure about the 1.1.2 firmware either (unlocked). The phones in the stores still have 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 on them.

 

[pm]

I am using an iPhone on T-Mobile, I bought it about a week before the software hack to unlock the phone came out around the first week of Sept. It's been working fine for me - I've been pleased with the unlock and the phone itself.

There's two pieces of firmware to an iPhone - the first controls the software, the GUI, the buttons, etc. The second controls the baseband processor which drives the wireless communication - the WiFi, Bluetooth, and cell service. All of the iPhone firmware is downgradeable - so if you have 1.1.3, you can drop down to the hacked copy of 1.1.1 or 1.1.2.

The problem is that there's only been one copy of the baseband firmware that has been able to be unlocked, and this is the one that was hacked back in early Sept. In about WW47 (approx. Thanksgiving week), a new baseband software came out that no one has figured out how to unlock, or downgrade, using software.

There's a hardware hack but it requires two people with steadily hands, scraping away wires on the PCB and it is not at all for the faint at heart. It wouldn't be too hard to kill the phone - even just taking it apart at all isn't easy. The way it works is that it uses a electrical backdoor into the baseband to enable a reflash back to the original baseband firmware that was unlocked. http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com.../112-otb-unlocked.html

So that's the status. You can buy an unlocked phone on Ebay, but prices are high because supply is low and demand is high - particularly worldwide. You can buy a new one, take it apart, carefully scrape away some wiring, have soemone who doesn't drink a lot of coffee hold it steady while you reprogram the thing on a computer... or you can wait while the hacking team figures out a way to unlock the new baseband... which they've been working on since Thanksgiving... so it could be tomorrow... or three months from now.

The best place for iPhone unlocking details - once you clear through all the silly posts:
http://www.hackint0sh.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=136

edit: there is another way that I always forget about. If you get a phone with the 1.1.2 firmware on it (which is getting harder since Apple released the currently-unhackable 1.1.3 software last week), then you can buy a special SIM card which tricks the phone into thinking it's on the AT&T network. This is called the "turbosim" method. You can Google on it. A "steathsim" or "turbosim" runs about $60-100.

 

[Calculator83]

I got the Iphone now, I opted to pay the store dude 50bux to unlock it for me cuz i'm under the impression that It takes alot of time, and i'm in college.

So the guy gives me some of what i assume to be BS this morning, he says he needs to order a special SIM attachment or the T mobile sim won't work for the Iphone..

I read the Guide that "pm" talked about and nothing is mentioned this thing..

I'm REALLY frustrated and somewhat PI55ed off at the situation, ,, ok Iphone users plz help me out.. Cuz it's been 3 days since he said he would unlock it and today he gives me BS about special SIM attachment

I'm trying to use Iphone on T mobile,, the guy is trying to screw me, "i think"

 

[pm]

No, from the description, he's legit - and $50 isn't bad for what he's doing since the hardware that he's buying costs $30-50 by itself.

The thing that he's doing is one of two "hardware" hacks. He basically is going to add a "Next Sim" or "Turbo SIM" or "Stealth SIM" or whatever brand he wants to use. It's a good way to unlock the latest round of iPhones. Everything that I wrote about were software hacks - I didn't cover the two hardware techniques. The software hacks are getting increasingly complex, so using a "Turbo SIM" like approach is a good way to do it.


The original version of this type of hack was the "Turbo SIM" by Bladox in the Czech Republic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_SIM


Now there's a lot of clones of it that are cheaper than the $100 that Bladox wants for a Turbo SIM, and presumably this guy is getting you one of the cheaper ones off of some place like Ebay.


The only downside to the approach that he's using is that the phone won't be truly "unlocked". As the Wikipedia entry mentions, this technique basically uses a chip to intercept a command so that the phone thinks that it's on one network "AT&T" when it's actually on another "T-Mobile". For the US and T-Mobile this is fine, but there have been reports of it not working as well overseas - so if you are planning on international travel, then you'll have a lot of messing with tape to get the overseas SIM in and then it may not work anyway.

But on the plus side, this approach doesn't put a bunch of hacks into your baseband that are hard to undo and leaves you largely open to adding new firmware upgrades without bricking your phone.

$50 is a good price for an override SIM approach...


Good luck.

 

[Calculator83]

Originally posted by: pm
No, from the description, he's legit - and $50 isn't bad for what he's doing since the hardware that he's buying costs $30-50 by itself.

The thing that he's doing is one of two "hardware" hacks. He basically is going to add a "Next Sim" or "Turbo SIM" or "Stealth SIM" or whatever brand he wants to use. It's a good way to unlock the latest round of iPhones. Everything that I wrote about were software hacks - I didn't cover the two hardware techniques. The software hacks are getting increasingly complex, so using a "Turbo SIM" like approach is a good way to do it.


The original version of this type of hack was the "Turbo SIM" by Bladox in the Czech Republic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_SIM


Now there's a lot of clones of it that are cheaper than the $100 that Bladox wants for a Turbo SIM, and presumably this guy is getting you one of the cheaper ones off of some place like Ebay.


The only downside to the approach that he's using is that the phone won't be truly "unlocked". As the Wikipedia entry mentions, this technique basically uses a chip to intercept a command so that the phone thinks that it's on one network "AT&T" when it's actually on another "T-Mobile". For the US and T-Mobile this is fine, but there have been reports of it not working as well overseas - so if you are planning on international travel, then you'll have a lot of messing with tape to get the overseas SIM in and then it may not work anyway.

But on the plus side, this approach doesn't put a bunch of hacks into your baseband that are hard to undo and leaves you largely open to adding new firmware upgrades without bricking your phone.

$50 is a good price for an override SIM approach...


Good luck.

Thats just it, I was thinking it May have been the Turbo sim thing u talked about,, HOWEVER,, the 50 bux was also an issue, i didn't think they were that cheap.

Another thing is cuz this is a sketchy Phone store, IE They also do Passport photos.""

 

[intogamer]

Hey.... unlocking is a sketchy business

 

[Calculator83]

Ok!! I take back what I've said about the sketchy Cellphone peddler. He is my friend, not foe.

Got the Iphone finally, Works Great, it's my first good cellphone. Dame this thing is just awesome, and So artsy. Wish other things were this sleek. I think i might become addicted to apple, and have to buy more of their stuff.