How exactly does this work? Did he solder a chip for use with CDMA phones too or just make it compatible with T-Mobile? With the lack of Visual Voicemail and having to reset everything every time an update is sent out I really don't see a benefit of this phone. Plus, the signature ruins the aesthetics.
Nerd in basement buys phone for $540 spends a couple of hours on it then sells it for at least $1575. Probably does this several more times before getting a job offer with a salary that would make your eyes water. Silly, silly nerd.
The nerd that did this is in HIGH SCHOOL!!! Or just entering college. He's off to school so he said on his blog he'll be too busy to keep doing these. i think he did this just to do it, not to make it into a business. Definately bright future after he graduates, whatever he decides.
How exactly does this work? Did he solder a chip for use with CDMA phones too or just make it compatible with T-Mobile? With the lack of Visual Voicemail and having to reset everything every time an update is sent out I really don't see a benefit of this phone. Plus, the signature ruins the aesthetics.
The market for this phone is most likely anywhere except the USA. Note the Worldwide availability for the auction. Visual voicemail is just one of several features. If someone in Europe buys it that feature will probably work when the carriers over here are finally signed up and have enabled the feature. Meanwhile the purchaser gets bragging rights to the first/only iPhone working in Europe for months to come.
But I think the joke will be on them because I suspect the phone that will be sold outside the US will be 3G and not the same model at all.
Given how desperate many Canadians seem to be, it might be purchased by one of them, but my bet is they will all be outbid by some drug dealer in Naples with so much hot money he doesn't know what to do with it all but could use some bling.
The signature is a great idea, it gives it historical value and authenticity.
Hopefully this encourages Apple to start offering unlock options in the near future so when they launch locked phones in new countries they aren't compeating with cheap eBay auctions for hacked phones that work with any sim.
Most likely Apple has a binding contract, which they could break for an enormous amount of money, or have geeks buy iPhones and unlock them via GeoHot's method and sell them on eBay. Both options guarantee hardware sales for Apple. The former loses Apple a big chunk of cash, the latter loses Apple whatever shared profit Apple typically gets from the AT&T, if any.
Most likely Apple has a binding contract, which they could break for an enormous amount of money, or have geeks buy iPhones and unlock them via GeoHot's method and sell them on eBay. Both options guarantee hardware sales for Apple. The former loses Apple a big chunk of cash, the latter loses Apple whatever shared profit Apple typically gets from the AT&T, if any.
If it's the case of a customer not buying one because they don't want to deal with AT&T, then I don't think Apple even necessarily loses that shared profit, because without the hack, they wouldn't have gotten it anyway.
Under the DMCA technically makes this illegal, but Apple and ATT will not have the balls to sue because it would bring a ton of publicity to something that the cell companies dont want in the open in the media, what about people that cant get ATT Cell phones? why should the whole state of VT be shut out of the greatest peice of wireless phone tech since the startac just because of carrier lockin...we need one network managment company and the carriers should be the middle man, paying the network company for access to the network, It would provide full coverage of every provider in every area that gets a cell signal. This would also solve roaming
This sort of stuff is what Europe does and they dont have many of the cell problems that we have
I'll assume you posted this response before you'd read all the posts in this thread. But just to make sure that FUD doesn't get the last word on the subject...
The Library of Congress, as the arbiter of all Copyright issues in the USA, has the power to set up specific exemptions to the DMCA. And one of the exemptions that it has currently enacted is a requirement that firmware modifications which are undertaken with the sole intent of allowing a cellular telephone to operate in another carrier's network, are NOT violations.
Now, since this modification requires a soldering iron, I suppose that it might not be protected by the LoC exemption. But macrumors is reporting a firmware-only hack is apparently available too.
[edit] But then again, once the hack is finished, the hardware will end up in exactly the same state that it was in before the hack. Only the contents of Flash will have changed, and in my understanding that means that the only tangible thing different between a locked iPhone and an unlocked iPhone is firmware.
Oh also, I wouldn't want to crack this baby open and go to town with a soldering iron!
I hope it's just a big joke and people end up breaking their phones.
Why exactly would you hope that people end up breaking their phones? Are you jealous?
This is a great step forward in making the iPhone a truly potent contender in the marketplace worldwide. Think AutoCAD back in the 90's, or Microsoft in China right now.
My son and his buddies, when younger, were always trying to modify their Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox with a bootleg chip that supposedly allowed you to run copied/pirated games. I don't have to tell you what the outcome of their tinkering almost always resulted in, do I?
The really funny nonsense coming from these hackmeisters is that their work will result in millions of additional iPhones being purchased by like minded individuals who wish to throw off the bonds of Apple and the evil entity known as at&t (the new company is lower case by the way). Utter nonsense. Just look at how retail sales of OS X took off after it was hacked to be able to be run on standard PC hardware. Yeah, right.
Unless and until Apple officially unlocks, frees up, or whatever, the iPhone this useless trick will remain an oddity known only to nerds who live in their parent's basements.
And of course there's the little matter of iPhone updates.
Your son and his little friends were simply inept with the soldering iron. Many game store businesses have thrived on providing mod-chip services for these consoles.
Even now, there are services available to unlock your Motorola, Nokia, Sony phones, for a fee. You're a fool if you think this market is not ready to explode.
Now, since this modification requires a soldering iron, I suppose that it might not be protected by the LoC exemption. But macrumors is reporting a firmware-only hack is apparently available too.
[edit] But then again, once the hack is finished, the hardware will end up in exactly the same state that it was in before the hack. Only the contents of Flash will have changed, and in my understanding that means that the only tangible thing different between a locked iPhone and an unlocked iPhone is firmware.
It's really hard to say. There was some speculation that talking about the sharpie trick or the shift key trick on the Sony root kit CDs was against the DMCA. As far as I understand, bypassing copy protections and such yourself isn't against the DMCA, but selling the work or telling people how you do it, without this exemption, might have been against the DMCA.
So on these hacked iPhones, what does that mean for the iPod part of it? I know that with un-hacked iPhones, once you end your at&t service, the iPod stops working which sucks as your are left with an expensive (but nice looking) brick.
If this hack frees up the iPod part of it so it'll work forever without service from at&t, this might be a useful hack. And I bet many people in a few years will be looking to get the iPod part of their iPhones working.
My son and his buddies, when younger, were always trying to modify their Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox with a bootleg chip that supposedly allowed you to run copied/pirated games. I don't have to tell you what the outcome of their tinkering almost always resulted in, do I?
The really funny nonsense coming from these hackmeisters is that their work will result in millions of additional iPhones being purchased by like minded individuals who wish to throw off the bonds of Apple and the evil entity known as at&t (the new company is lower case by the way). Utter nonsense. Just look at how retail sales of OS X took off after it was hacked to be able to be run on standard PC hardware. Yeah, right.
Unless and until Apple officially unlocks, frees up, or whatever, the iPhone this useless trick will remain an oddity known only to nerds who live in their parent's basements.
And of course there's the little matter of iPhone updates.
1. bootleg chips work, and very well. at least here in mexico they are very popular and they are installed at flea markets. i think your son and his buddies did it wrong.
2. hobbyists do it because of the challenge, just to prove it is possible or just for fun. just to see if they can. they don't do it to spur sales.
3. those nerds who live on their parents basements are making a pretty penny on ebay as we speak.
Nerd in basement buys phone for $540 spends a couple of hours on it then sells it for at least $1575. Probably does this several more times before getting a job offer with a salary that would make your eyes water. Silly, silly nerd.
The bid you see on eBay is a fake. The seller has lost all hope of selling it because the buyer will never pay that much.
Same thing happened to me when I sold my PSP online. It got bit up to $1000 very quickly and then the buyer never contacted me. I had to request a final value fee reimbursement after three weeks of waiting.
eBay is NOT the place to sell expensive electronics like this. Their system is not secure enough. Anyone can create an account there with the sole intent of ruining auctions this way and there's nothing that eBay can do to stop it before it's too late.
Craigslist works pretty well from my experience. And if you choose to sell locally, then you usually don't even have to pay for shipping. Just meet up and exchange merchandise for cash.
The bid you see on eBay is a fake. The seller has lost all hope of selling it because the buyer will never pay that much.
Same thing happened to me when I sold my PSP online. It got bit up to $1000 very quickly and then the buyer never contacted me. I had to request a final value fee reimbursement after three weeks of waiting.
eBay is NOT the place to sell expensive electronics like this. Their system is not secure enough. Anyone can create an account there with the sole intent of ruining auctions this way and there's nothing that eBay can do to stop it before it's too late.
Craigslist works pretty well from my experience. And if you choose to sell locally, then you usually don't even have to pay for shipping. Just meet up and exchange merchandise for cash.
Well that is interesting, the auction has been ended early due to an "error in the listing"
I think the usual translation for that is someone made me a ridiculously high offer to end the auction now.
The problem with ebay is not the lack of protection for sellers - they get plenty - but the lack of protection for buyers.
Anyone care to speculate what recourse the owner of one of these hacked iPhones has in the event of failure. Oh, let's say the home button stops functioning. Can the owner, who theoretically paid over $600 for the device, take it to an Apple store for repair under warranty? Can they get it repaired by the hacker they purchased it from? Can they just kiss their $600+ goodbye?
I'll tell you what they CAN do. They can get on a forum and start bashing Apple for refusing to stand behind their products. They can claim they didn't know their iPhone had been modified and continue bashing Apple for not making an exception in their case. They can do a whole lot of things to make Apple look bad and they don't even have to admit they have a modified device. "Those S.O.B's at Apple told me they wouldn't fix my iPhone. They said it had been modified and I was out of luck. Don't do business with those crooks at Apple. They don't stand behind their crappy products!" I can read it now.
It is shear foolishness to think this will become mainstream and widespread. Complete nonsense.
"Those S.O.B's at Apple told me they wouldn't fix my iPhone. They said it had been modified and I was out of luck. Don't do business with those crooks at Apple. They don't stand behind their crappy products!" I can read it now.
It is shear foolishness to think this will become mainstream and widespread. Complete nonsense.
Paranoia in the first degree. You need meds dude. Look, If I wanted to make the mod and was willing to take a chance i would do it and that's that. If it got broke then I would eat it.
AFAIC, I'm not willing to either buy the phone or modify it because I hate ATT and I'm not lucky with mods so that's that.
Now if someone did the mod and provided me the working phone with my sims card that i could see work I may take a chance but only then. I would still be afraid Apple would somehow change software to eliminate the open architecture though so I wouldn't pay much for it anyway.
I agree we need to hear from Apple to see what they want to do about this before any of us get too excited.
Unless and until Apple officially unlocks, frees up, or whatever, the iPhone this useless trick will remain an oddity known only to nerds who live in their parent's basements.
I dunno. Phone unlocking shops do a roaring trade. (I passed by one on the bus today, with big glossy banners stating "We now unlock the Nokia N95".)
If a software unlock comes out, then independent phone shops will start unlocking iPhone. I know a fair few people who've said they won't buy an iPhone unless it can be unlocked (often for travelling over Europe, or simply for preference of a certain network operator). These people wouldn't do an unlock themselves, but would utilise the service of such shops.
Of course, this all depends on a software unlock. I don't think the shops would touch a hardware one. At least, not for the £20 they usually ask for
Comments
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=230164884672
How exactly does this work? Did he solder a chip for use with CDMA phones too or just make it compatible with T-Mobile? With the lack of Visual Voicemail and having to reset everything every time an update is sent out I really don't see a benefit of this phone. Plus, the signature ruins the aesthetics.
Nerd in basement buys phone for $540 spends a couple of hours on it then sells it for at least $1575. Probably does this several more times before getting a job offer with a salary that would make your eyes water. Silly, silly nerd.
The nerd that did this is in HIGH SCHOOL!!! Or just entering college. He's off to school so he said on his blog he'll be too busy to keep doing these. i think he did this just to do it, not to make it into a business. Definately bright future after he graduates, whatever he decides.
How exactly does this work? Did he solder a chip for use with CDMA phones too or just make it compatible with T-Mobile? With the lack of Visual Voicemail and having to reset everything every time an update is sent out I really don't see a benefit of this phone. Plus, the signature ruins the aesthetics.
The market for this phone is most likely anywhere except the USA. Note the Worldwide availability for the auction. Visual voicemail is just one of several features. If someone in Europe buys it that feature will probably work when the carriers over here are finally signed up and have enabled the feature. Meanwhile the purchaser gets bragging rights to the first/only iPhone working in Europe for months to come.
But I think the joke will be on them because I suspect the phone that will be sold outside the US will be 3G and not the same model at all.
Given how desperate many Canadians seem to be, it might be purchased by one of them,
The signature is a great idea, it gives it historical value and authenticity.
Hopefully this encourages Apple to start offering unlock options in the near future so when they launch locked phones in new countries they aren't compeating with cheap eBay auctions for hacked phones that work with any sim.
Most likely Apple has a binding contract, which they could break for an enormous amount of money, or have geeks buy iPhones and unlock them via GeoHot's method and sell them on eBay. Both options guarantee hardware sales for Apple. The former loses Apple a big chunk of cash, the latter loses Apple whatever shared profit Apple typically gets from the AT&T, if any.
I see no problem with the present arrangement.
-Clive
Most likely Apple has a binding contract, which they could break for an enormous amount of money, or have geeks buy iPhones and unlock them via GeoHot's method and sell them on eBay. Both options guarantee hardware sales for Apple. The former loses Apple a big chunk of cash, the latter loses Apple whatever shared profit Apple typically gets from the AT&T, if any.
If it's the case of a customer not buying one because they don't want to deal with AT&T, then I don't think Apple even necessarily loses that shared profit, because without the hack, they wouldn't have gotten it anyway.
Under the DMCA technically makes this illegal, but Apple and ATT will not have the balls to sue because it would bring a ton of publicity to something that the cell companies dont want in the open in the media, what about people that cant get ATT Cell phones? why should the whole state of VT be shut out of the greatest peice of wireless phone tech since the startac just because of carrier lockin...we need one network managment company and the carriers should be the middle man, paying the network company for access to the network, It would provide full coverage of every provider in every area that gets a cell signal. This would also solve roaming
This sort of stuff is what Europe does and they dont have many of the cell problems that we have
I'll assume you posted this response before you'd read all the posts in this thread. But just to make sure that FUD doesn't get the last word on the subject...
The Library of Congress, as the arbiter of all Copyright issues in the USA, has the power to set up specific exemptions to the DMCA. And one of the exemptions that it has currently enacted is a requirement that firmware modifications which are undertaken with the sole intent of allowing a cellular telephone to operate in another carrier's network, are NOT violations.
Now, since this modification requires a soldering iron, I suppose that it might not be protected by the LoC exemption. But macrumors is reporting a firmware-only hack is apparently available too.
[edit] But then again, once the hack is finished, the hardware will end up in exactly the same state that it was in before the hack. Only the contents of Flash will have changed, and in my understanding that means that the only tangible thing different between a locked iPhone and an unlocked iPhone is firmware.
I wouldn't want to lose visual voicemail.
Oh also, I wouldn't want to crack this baby open and go to town with a soldering iron!
I hope it's just a big joke and people end up breaking their phones.
Why exactly would you hope that people end up breaking their phones? Are you jealous?
This is a great step forward in making the iPhone a truly potent contender in the marketplace worldwide. Think AutoCAD back in the 90's, or Microsoft in China right now.
My son and his buddies, when younger, were always trying to modify their Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox with a bootleg chip that supposedly allowed you to run copied/pirated games. I don't have to tell you what the outcome of their tinkering almost always resulted in, do I?
The really funny nonsense coming from these hackmeisters is that their work will result in millions of additional iPhones being purchased by like minded individuals who wish to throw off the bonds of Apple and the evil entity known as at&t (the new company is lower case by the way). Utter nonsense. Just look at how retail sales of OS X took off after it was hacked to be able to be run on standard PC hardware. Yeah, right.
Unless and until Apple officially unlocks, frees up, or whatever, the iPhone this useless trick will remain an oddity known only to nerds who live in their parent's basements.
And of course there's the little matter of iPhone updates.
Your son and his little friends were simply inept with the soldering iron. Many game store businesses have thrived on providing mod-chip services for these consoles.
Even now, there are services available to unlock your Motorola, Nokia, Sony phones, for a fee. You're a fool if you think this market is not ready to explode.
Do you own at&t stock by any chance?
Now, since this modification requires a soldering iron, I suppose that it might not be protected by the LoC exemption. But macrumors is reporting a firmware-only hack is apparently available too.
[edit] But then again, once the hack is finished, the hardware will end up in exactly the same state that it was in before the hack. Only the contents of Flash will have changed, and in my understanding that means that the only tangible thing different between a locked iPhone and an unlocked iPhone is firmware.
It's really hard to say. There was some speculation that talking about the sharpie trick or the shift key trick on the Sony root kit CDs was against the DMCA. As far as I understand, bypassing copy protections and such yourself isn't against the DMCA, but selling the work or telling people how you do it, without this exemption, might have been against the DMCA.
If this hack frees up the iPod part of it so it'll work forever without service from at&t, this might be a useful hack. And I bet many people in a few years will be looking to get the iPod part of their iPhones working.
iPhone video
My son and his buddies, when younger, were always trying to modify their Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox with a bootleg chip that supposedly allowed you to run copied/pirated games. I don't have to tell you what the outcome of their tinkering almost always resulted in, do I?
The really funny nonsense coming from these hackmeisters is that their work will result in millions of additional iPhones being purchased by like minded individuals who wish to throw off the bonds of Apple and the evil entity known as at&t (the new company is lower case by the way). Utter nonsense. Just look at how retail sales of OS X took off after it was hacked to be able to be run on standard PC hardware. Yeah, right.
Unless and until Apple officially unlocks, frees up, or whatever, the iPhone this useless trick will remain an oddity known only to nerds who live in their parent's basements.
And of course there's the little matter of iPhone updates.
1. bootleg chips work, and very well. at least here in mexico they are very popular and they are installed at flea markets. i think your son and his buddies did it wrong.
2. hobbyists do it because of the challenge, just to prove it is possible or just for fun. just to see if they can. they don't do it to spur sales.
3. those nerds who live on their parents basements are making a pretty penny on ebay as we speak.
Nerd in basement buys phone for $540 spends a couple of hours on it then sells it for at least $1575. Probably does this several more times before getting a job offer with a salary that would make your eyes water. Silly, silly nerd.
The bid you see on eBay is a fake. The seller has lost all hope of selling it because the buyer will never pay that much.
Same thing happened to me when I sold my PSP online. It got bit up to $1000 very quickly and then the buyer never contacted me. I had to request a final value fee reimbursement after three weeks of waiting.
eBay is NOT the place to sell expensive electronics like this. Their system is not secure enough. Anyone can create an account there with the sole intent of ruining auctions this way and there's nothing that eBay can do to stop it before it's too late.
Craigslist works pretty well from my experience. And if you choose to sell locally, then you usually don't even have to pay for shipping. Just meet up and exchange merchandise for cash.
The bid you see on eBay is a fake. The seller has lost all hope of selling it because the buyer will never pay that much.
Same thing happened to me when I sold my PSP online. It got bit up to $1000 very quickly and then the buyer never contacted me. I had to request a final value fee reimbursement after three weeks of waiting.
eBay is NOT the place to sell expensive electronics like this. Their system is not secure enough. Anyone can create an account there with the sole intent of ruining auctions this way and there's nothing that eBay can do to stop it before it's too late.
Craigslist works pretty well from my experience. And if you choose to sell locally, then you usually don't even have to pay for shipping. Just meet up and exchange merchandise for cash.
Well that is interesting, the auction has been ended early due to an "error in the listing"
I think the usual translation for that is someone made me a ridiculously high offer to end the auction now.
The problem with ebay is not the lack of protection for sellers - they get plenty - but the lack of protection for buyers.
I'll tell you what they CAN do. They can get on a forum and start bashing Apple for refusing to stand behind their products. They can claim they didn't know their iPhone had been modified and continue bashing Apple for not making an exception in their case. They can do a whole lot of things to make Apple look bad and they don't even have to admit they have a modified device. "Those S.O.B's at Apple told me they wouldn't fix my iPhone. They said it had been modified and I was out of luck. Don't do business with those crooks at Apple. They don't stand behind their crappy products!" I can read it now.
It is shear foolishness to think this will become mainstream and widespread. Complete nonsense.
"Those S.O.B's at Apple told me they wouldn't fix my iPhone. They said it had been modified and I was out of luck. Don't do business with those crooks at Apple. They don't stand behind their crappy products!" I can read it now.
It is shear foolishness to think this will become mainstream and widespread. Complete nonsense.
Paranoia in the first degree. You need meds dude. Look, If I wanted to make the mod and was willing to take a chance i would do it and that's that. If it got broke then I would eat it.
AFAIC, I'm not willing to either buy the phone or modify it because I hate ATT and I'm not lucky with mods so that's that.
Now if someone did the mod and provided me the working phone with my sims card that i could see work I may take a chance but only then. I would still be afraid Apple would somehow change software to eliminate the open architecture though so I wouldn't pay much for it anyway.
I agree we need to hear from Apple to see what they want to do about this before any of us get too excited.
Unless and until Apple officially unlocks, frees up, or whatever, the iPhone this useless trick will remain an oddity known only to nerds who live in their parent's basements.
I dunno. Phone unlocking shops do a roaring trade. (I passed by one on the bus today, with big glossy banners stating "We now unlock the Nokia N95".)
If a software unlock comes out, then independent phone shops will start unlocking iPhone. I know a fair few people who've said they won't buy an iPhone unless it can be unlocked (often for travelling over Europe, or simply for preference of a certain network operator). These people wouldn't do an unlock themselves, but would utilise the service of such shops.
Of course, this all depends on a software unlock. I don't think the shops would touch a hardware one. At least, not for the £20 they usually ask for
Amorya