UK company says it's close to unlocking iPhones
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Want an iPhone but don't want to use AT&T?  A UK company says it soon will offer a service to help owners unlock their iPhones for use with other cellular operators.
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Apple's iPhone is locked to AT&T's telecom service, but now that the device is finally available for sale, a number of hackers are working to unlock it. The prognosis is promising.
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A video showing the founder of a Belfast, Northern Ireland company unlocking the iPhone hit the Web early Wednesday U.K. time as proof that software exists that can unlock Apple Inc.'s device for use with carriers other than AT&amp;T Inc.
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With the U.S. rollout of iPhone behind it, Apple is set to announce that cellular operator O2 will sell the device in the U.K., according to newspaper reports.
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InfoWorld - Hackers are&#160;working to unlock Apple&#39;s iPhone, but the job appears to be more difficult than initially expected.
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With plans to enter Europe by the end of the year, Apple could be ready to announce who gets to carry the iPhone.
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O2, part of Spanish telecoms giant  Telefonica , and European mobile phone retailer  Carphone Warehouse  have clinched a long-awaited deal to  bring Apple&#39;s  prized iPhone to Britain.
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(InfoWorld) - A hacker group released a free, open source unlock for Apple's iPhone late Tuesday, just a day after a commercial company started selling something similar for as much as $99 through a network of online resellers. The iPhone Dev Team, a dozen programmers who began their attempts to break the iPhone's reliance on AT&T in early July, have posted their hack on download servers. According to several sites, including Gizmodo and Engadget, the iPhone Dev Team unlock exploits the same iPhone bug as the for-money iPhoneSIMFree hack to do its magic. The two groups, however, came up with their solutions independently. But the process isn't for the faint of heart. "This unlock is not for everybody!" the iPhone Dev Team warned. The procedure involves several separate programs -- some of which must be obtained elsewhere on the Internet -- and requires that iPhone owners execute commands from a shell screen on the Mac or PC. Even so, reports have been posted to the team's site from users in more than 40 countries that the unlock hack works, and after a swap of the iPhone's included SIM card with one from another cellular service provider, that they've been able to access more than 90 different carriers. The iPhone's distinctive Visual Voicemail, which lets users select voice-mail messages rather than listen to them in the order they were received, is missing after an unlock; that feature relies on AT&T's back end. Some users have also reported that the iPhone's connection to YouTube no longer works after the hack is applied. The iPhone Dev Team is already working on a one-click tool sporting a graphical interface that will unlock an iPhone, but it had not been released as of this morning. "A new version of the GUI tool is almost complete," the group said on its site. It's likely, however, that any unlock will be undone by the next iPhone update, which Apple has said will be issued sometime this month to give the device new capabilities, such as Wi-Fi downloading from iTunes. The iPhoneSIMFree group, for example, has hammered the caveat into potential buyers' heads: "We cannot offer any guarantee should Apple Inc. choose to re-lock the phone after a future update," it stated in a FAQ. Resellers of the iPhoneSIMFree hack, who have priced the unlock as low as $45, have repeated the no-guarantee mantra. Apple has repeatedly refused to comment on the various iPhone unlock hacks -- paid versions or free ones.
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Science & environment: Mobile operator insists few customers are hacking their phones, despite evidence that unlocking is rife
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Blog: Group claims it can unbind the iPhone from a specific carrier to "expand the functionality" of the device.
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Users eager to get their hands on an iPhone may have June 29 circled on their calendars to mark the mobile device&#8217;s announced ship date.
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(InfoWorld) - One of the groups that claims it has developed an unlock hack for Apple's iPhone is now saying it will only offer the software to resellers, not to individuals, a popular technology blog reported Monday. According to an e-mail message sent to interested volume sellers -- and posted by Engadget Monday -- iPhoneSIMFree said it would not sell the unlock directly to iPhone owners. "iphonesimfree.com is a wholesale only company," read the e-mail. "Although we could, we do not and will not sell directly to end-users because we want to work together with our valuable resellers as a team and not interfere in their business." Late last month, iPhoneSIMFree said it had created software that would let iPhone owners make calls on mobile networks other than AT&T, the smart phone's official and exclusive carrier in the U.S. Unlocking the iPhone is contrary to Apple's intent; according to the company, iPhones must be activated only with AT&T, and buyers must subscribe to a two-year AT&T calling plan. Even so, Apple has made no public announcement about iPhoneSIMFree or any other of several unlocking schemes that have been publicized. iPhoneSIMFree's e-mail also outlined the unlock process and spelled out its pricing structure. The unlock requires that a file be installed on the iPhone and a connection made to the iPhoneSIMFree servers; the latter, said iPhoneSIMFree, links the specific iPhone to the unlock. Resellers will handle part of the process. Prices will range from $25 per unlock (in lots of 5,000 or more) to $36 (in lots of 50). The company, which has no mailing address, has kept its composition and the identity of its developers, under wraps. Its Web site, for example, uses an anonymity service to cloak the usual address, phone number, and contact person information searchable via WHOIS. iPhoneSIMFree also said it would not guarantee that the unlock would work in the future. "It does currently work on all firmware versions, up to and including, 1.02," said iPhoneSIMFree in the e-mail quoted by Engadget. "We will naturally try to provide our resellers an updated version of our software for each firmware update, it is in our interest, but we do NOT guarantee that we will be able to do so." Apple's iPhone updates have required users who installed hacks or work-arounds to restore their devices from scratch, which erased the modifications. The most recent update, 1.0.2, however, did not cripple most hacks as had the first firmware update. An Irish company that announced another unlock has been silent on the subject for a week. UniquePhones last mentioned its iPhone unlock on Aug. 28 when it posted video of an unlock in progress. Prior to that, UniquePhones had said it would start selling its unlock Aug. 25 but backed off after receiving a phone call it said came from a California law firm representing AT&T. Another unlock, a Czech product dubbed TurboSIM, is currently unavailable; its maker's Web ordering site had been inundated, and now sports messages such as "Sorry, temporarily closed" beside the unlock product. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Hackers have already succeeded in cracking the iPhone's activation process, a step towards unlocking the iPhone.
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LONDON -- Apple Inc.'s iPhone will go on sale in Britain on Nov. 9 have the O2 network as its exclusive carrier, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Tuesday.
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A UK firm is hoping a cell phones   security system it has developed which sets off a high pitch   scream, permanently locks the handset and wipes all data if   stolen, will halt the spiraling rise in phone theft.
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Apple fan boys may soon discover which UK network provider they must switch to in order to secure an iPhone. An online source has reported that O2 may tomorrow announce a deal with Apple for the much-hyped handset.â¦
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Mobile phone operator O2, a unit of  Spain&#39;s Telefonica , is poised to clinch a deal to be  the exclusive network partner for Apple Inc.&#39;s  iPhone  in the UK, newspapers said on Thursday.