It has not been confirmed yet, but I believe the iPhone has a SIM lock that prevents you to use SIM-cards from other carriers than AT&T.

I'm pasting from Wikipedia:
"AT&T Wireless, never unlock handsets, even after a customer has fulfilled their service contract.[citation needed] Other providers, for example T-Mobile and more recently Cingular will unlock phones if the customer has an active account in good standing for at least 90 days."
That means that we have to unlock our iPhones ourselves.
And I'm guessing that many people wants to unlock their iPhone, and that is legal, right?

The reason why I made this topic is for iPhone owners to share their progress in unlocking iPhone.
(...and for me, in Norway, to get a chance to buy a unlocked version from eBay. I'm willing to pay over 800 USD for a unlocked 8GB version of iPhone.)

So.. How do we start?
(First, the iPhone has to be released, but it's good to be prepared.)

actually this is cingular but they just changed their name to AT&T

Here is something interesting, though... kind of...
This is from the iPhone FAQ at Apple.com:

Not a very suprising quote, but maybe Apple mean that you CAN use a SIM card from other carriers, but you SHOULD use the one that came peinstalled because then you get Visual Voicemail.
(because Steve Jobs said that Visual Voicemail is an innovation that required both Cingular/AT&T and Apple to do, or something...)

...or am I just going crazy here, waiting for an iPhone to come to Norway?
(it should be in Europe HOPEFULLY by Q4 of 2007, Steve Jobs said. And that is why I hope I can by an unlocked version soon.)

You're not the only one. I'm still waiting for some good news about the iPhone in europe. Right now i can't wait another five or six months and so i'd really like to buy from U.S. I don't care about the localization, we just try to understand if it is possible to change the AT&T sim card with another one ( not phisically of course ). I'm italian and i have a vodafone sim card, i hope we'll get some good news as soon as possible.. Stay tuned

According people first analyzing the tech specs, the chip is incorporated (U.S. at least), and the battery is not replaceable unless you take it to Apple (kinda like the iPod.

I read this: http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/29/3g-ipho...nounced-monday/
Sure 3G is good, but I'm more conserned about EVER getting one. If that europe-iPhone-rumor is true, it will NEVER get to Norway, because we don't have Vodafone or T-Mobile here.
I'm about to kill myself

you better hope someone unlocks it then, although i highly doubt that theyll go 3g for europe because theyll just produce one standard iphone, it would be dumb to sell 2 gen 1 products with one being better than the other. it wouldnt work out buisness wise.

So.. Now that people have that sweet iPhone candy bar, please try to ... erhm... unlock it..

From the time of this posting, some sites started offering Unlocking solutions for iPhone. And, if what they claim is true, we'll be seeing unlocked iPhones anytime soon...

1. This website requests your e-mail for elegibility of unlock your iphone via Imei unlock code they decipher...


2. This other website will be selling unlocked iPhones that work with most of the US and Canadian carriers.

EDIT: Second site offered the unlocked iPhone back in March, so i doubt this one is true.

Rgds.

lol, just some sites to steal an email..

here is iPhone Unlock Contest

For everyone interested in helping hacking the iPhone, come and visit the Wiki at

http://www.hissomnia.com/wiki/

and of course join the IRC channel!

Sounds like a bunch of people are working to unlock this baby! As soon as it's possible to unlock, I will buy one.. Can't wait till they ship iPhone to europe.. Damn Apple Inc.!!!

Do not "damn" Apple Inc!
DAMN AT&T!

but some functions will only work with the special carrier.

and having an iphone without a special carrier makes no sense.
think of not having a web flatrate... using iphone could then be very expensive.

one problem could also be how that thing works together with the carrier......


but i wouldn't buy one yet. according to what i have read, they do have the feature of "scratching" very easy.
same thing with my 1gen ipod nano, pesky little bagger got scratches all around

damn apple.

What would be nice is to be able to use one of these with NO service. What if I don't need a cell phone, but just want one SWEET PDA. This thing has built in wifi. Built in bluetooth. Camera. This would be an amazing product WITHOUT the cell at all. Imagine then even writing on a Skype app.

The iPhone will take any AT&T SIM card, but will reject any other vendors' SIM cards. The quote simply means don't pick at the SIM slot cause it's just easier to leave the preinstalled SIM in. It won't read contacts or other info from the SIM, so there's really no use to swapping it out with another.

The iPhone cannot be used without activation through iTunes. Until you activated it, you were stuck staring at a pretty picture of the Earth and a slider that read "Slide for emergency call". It's why when the activation system was bogged down people were really pissed off.

Unlocking seems difficult...there doesn't seem to be any diagnostic menu, which means sense considering how it integrates with a computer. I would think an unlocking program would be more feasible that finding some switch on the phone itself. Of course, the release of the phone's firmware will probably help towards finding the bits needed to unlock it, if it's even part of the code. In truth, I would not surprised if there is no unlocked mode at all coded into the phone. It's not like OS X works outside of Macs without a lot of custom code, right?

First of all, I damn Apple because of thier one carrier strategy. Because of that we have to wait in europe till Q4, and get an "older" Product in the end. 3G will not be included, i think, don't make any sense to upgrade a product for an other market..
What I really can't understand is that Apple will make money with the contracts from AT&T, and close every opportunity for other costumers that have an other carrier and can't change it.

I hope that someone will be able to unlock it. Services?! I don't care about this mailbox service that will only work with AT&T.. The other services should work.. Now, that's it.

Update: http://hissomnia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Break_Activation

New tip I've seen around...if you enter your social security number as 999-99-9999 (recommended by an AT&T rep to a TUAW blogger) then your account will go into pre-paid mode and bypass the contract completely. it'll activate the phone for all features except voice and internet until you pay into your account.

While this isn't exactly unlocking the phone, it is activating it without a contract and will let you know the non-phone/internet features of the phone. FYI...if you have WiFi, EDGE is not needed, so it's possible to use the internet features if you're near a WiFi network.

Sounds good but id like to make calls too Lets see was the future brings..

UPDATE: It seems like the big part is done and it will be working unlocked soon!! http://hissomnia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

they're under heavy load, so what did they say? As long as it wasn't the news that they think they might know how it works...

Quote:

2 July 2007 8:27AM Eastern update

We know how unlocking of the phone occurs with a reasonable degree of confidence. We cannot yet trigger this unlocking or verify whether we are right but speaking for myself, i'm pretty sure I know how to do it and that the phone has the capability from some things i've seen in the firmware so far. The real question is, once we unlock the phone, will iTunes detect the unlocking and flip out. I can't answer this yet.
I think anyone claiming to sell you an unlocked phone right now is just tripe. I think we are farther along than anyone. I wouldn't buy an unlocked phone for any more than $599 if I were you until you have more updates from us.
There is a lot of focus around attacking either the DMG itself (using iTunes gdb) or the activation process with a patch. We have been relatively successful in knowing how the phone "gets" activated and what exactly the phone has on it that tells it it's activated. This is great news.
We know there are three "modes" that occur during restore - Boot-DFU-iPhone SW. We are working on compromising all of these modes simultaneously. We definitely have a great idea and even some empirical data showing how the process occurs, from "hey I want to restore this" to how the software gets onto the phone.
We really, really, really, really need someone who knows Ruby and Ruby's DL::Import functionality. If you can help with this, contact gj! No halfsteppin'.
--gj

Following this thread closely, I live in the UK but I'm going to Orlando mid-august.There's 9 AT&T stores in the area so will be buying an iPhone to 'hopefully' use in the UK.
One idea I've had is, when you manage to unlock it, some forums are saying it could be locked again via iTunes. Could we just not transfer music via bluetooth ?? A lot slower I know, but saves connecting it to iTunes.

Good luck guys...... :-)

Does any other carrier have the infrastructure of AT&T when it comes to internet over the phone?

News about unlooking?! Have someone already registered to: http://www.iphoneunlocking.com/ is a site from unique phones, a phone unloocking company from the uk..

Well I hope we get the iphone unlocked and soon. After it gets unlocked I hope successive generations of iPhones don't correct the exploits At any rate I hope that this team accomplishes the end goal of using 3rd party apps on the iPhone; things like skype could then be used, and of course the sky is the limit at that point.

we must support iphone dev team! with donation or our ARM programming skill

One reference to a commercial site is enough. More than one is considered spam. Take note.

I'm sorry.. Of course I don't want to advertise! I just want to know if there are some news reguarding iPhone unlocking!!

Geohot Says iPhone Unlocking Proof Of Concept Video Is On The Way

In response to the claims at http://blog.iphoneunlocking.com/ that they would release a POC (Proof of Concept) video soon proving that they have the ability to unlock the iPhone, noted hacker Geohot announced that he was going to work on his own POC Video that could be released as early as tonight but might take up to 2 days.

The iPhone Unlocking website has been considered a scam to collect email addresses in the iPhone dev community since it first went up right as the iPhone was being released. This did however seem to get Geohot riled up. He said that he picked up a 12 of Red Bull and that the video could happen before he goes to sleep. Depending on when he goes to sleep, the video could be released anytime between late tonight (early tomorrow morning) and sometime tuesday. This is good news for all of us iPhone owners living with iPhones that aren't phones yet.

For all of the latest news on the iPhone hacking information, you can visit the iPhone IRC Channel, or the iPhone Dev Wiki. We will also try to keep you posted on the latest news from the IRC channel.

Kallis, where do you have picked up this news?! I read an interview from geohot, few days old.. Now, the iPhone dev Wiki do not mention that they will upload a POC Video.. Hope it will released soon with the hack!!!! iPhone for all, WORLDWIDE!

give me an iPhone to do that for you!

to do what? unlocking?

You will eventually be able to unlock the iPhone to any GSM carrier, just not any CDMA or TDMA carrier like Verizon.

it's on the road...
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/19/uk-iphone-r...-with-vodafone/

no actualy i mean f*#king

take it easy !MP..

There is a significant progress on the unlocking. If there are some superbrains around with experience on SIM cards, visit this tread:

http://hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1744

It's all about mod the SIM card (SuperSim or Silvercard, etc..) and one user has done something with proxy SIM and is able to place cals on this local network..

Ebayer with over 600+ feedback says he can do it and it only costs 8.95

I'm totally skeptical but why would they jeopardize their ebay account of over 600 feedback?

I'm very sceptical, too. But I ask mysel if I should try..

It a no-no, check his feedback

Yup, he didn't have that feedback when i posted earlier. Good thing i waited to pull the trigger!