When buying an iPhone in the U.S., you must subscribe
to a 2 year service plan of AT&T, you are basically
denied the opportunity to choose another carrier, whose
pricing practices would be more suitable. Apple of course
gets millions of dollars from AT&T, just for bringing
new and new customers when selling a new iPhone. Those
who buy an iPhone, have to activate the phone, through
AT&T, to be able to use all the applications, the media
player for example, otherwise, the phone is useless.
It is therefore quite obvious that attempts have been
made to unlock the iPhone, to connect it to different
carriers and use it in Europe as well.
Earliest Attempts at Unlocking the IPhone
As soon as September, after its release in late June,
methods and softwares were in existence as to how to
unlock the iPhone. Making use of different methods,
many hackers, or groups of scientists have managed to
unlock the iPhone. Jon Lech Johansen, one of the first
to succeed, claimed to have unlocked the iPhone as soon
as July, being able to use all the applications but
without having to connect to AT&T. By the end of August,
George Hotz, an American teenager was also able to unlock
his iPhone, with the combination of software commands
and disassembling his phone, which though voids the
official warranty. Then around the same time separate
teams, Uniquephones, Gizmodo and a group from iPhoneSIMfree.com,
were all working on developing a software unlock for
the iPhone, with considerable success. Unlocking has
become quite general since then, and a number of iPhones
sold worldwide are unlocked ones. For example in Germany,
there was a brief time period when iPhones were officially
sold unlocked because of some legal issues that were
not in accordance with the American practices.
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Dangers of Unlocking the iPhone
So, iPhones can be unlocked quite easily, especially
nowadays. There are innumerable offers on the internet
that are advertising the safest or easiest way to unlock
your iPhone. Meanwhile, Apple is obviously trying to
stop this, they have a lot to lose, they are bound to
AT&T to basically make the customers stay with them
and they have a lot to lose moneywise as well. So if
you unlock your iPhone not using an appropriate sofware,
it can happen that your iPhone is rendered useless right
away, or if Apple is clever enough, it can happen that
your iPhone is rendered useless with the new Apple software
update that you are just to download to improve your
iPhone. By all means, wait before others download the
update, as otherwise you may have a shiny and trendy
but quite useless object worth several hundred dollars.
This information was supplied by iphone-head.com.
Providing all the best hints, tips and advice for everything
concerning your Apple iPhone. |
