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A Declaration of Independence for the iPhone

Posted 07/04/07 at 01:46:13 AM  by Erin Simon

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In honor of the Fourth of July, here's a little more freedom: Jon Johansen over at http://nanocr.eu/ has figured out how to free the iPhone from AT&T's tether. You can buy the iPhone wihout a contract, but it will sit there very expensively on your desk, holding your papers down, and that's it. When you sign up for the contract, iTunes sends an activation code to the phone to enable all the neat non-phone features like wifi and iPod functionality. Jon sniffed out the activation code iTunes sent to the iPhone and even wrote up a handy app to activate the phone without signing up for a 2-year AT&T contract. Note that this won't enable you to use the iPhone as a phone, it'll just unlock all the software on the device. So if you want a handheld web-browsing plus-size iPod nano-like gadget, or if you just like thwarting The Man when he tries to lock you down, DVD Jon has your back again.

COMMENTS:7
TAGS: news iphone apple hack
COMMENTS
avatarre:

Submitted by jones2158 on Wed, 01/02/2008 - 11:26am

I know! It's crazy how quick they crack the code. Nothing is impossible really. I think it's only a matter of time as well.

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avatarRE:

Submitted by ttrujillo@super... on Wed, 01/02/2008 - 11:05am

cool

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avatarIphone and 3G

Submitted by Exlipse on Fri, 07/06/2007 - 7:53pm

While AT&T may have better 3G coverage, it really doesn't matter, the Iphone runs on the EDGE network and is not 3G. Just another reason why I'm not getting one.

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avatarThe reason that you can not

Submitted by canis187 on Fri, 07/06/2007 - 3:28pm

The reason that you can not use the iPhone on Verizon or Sprint/nextel is because of the radio circuitry inside the phone. Cingular/ATT and T-Mobile use the GSM bands (900mhz, 1900mhz, 1800mhz and one other overseas frequency), Verizon, Sprint, and nextel use CDMA (800MHZ and a few others). In order to use a Verizon phone on ATT you have to completely replace the radio module inside the phone (something not possible on civilian cell phones), it's not just a matter of the SIM chip.

That said, I wonder if it would be possible to buy an iPhone without a contract, get a T-mobile SIM and use the phone on T-mobiles network? Don't know why you would do that when ATT/Cingular has the better 3G coverage though...

EDIT:: Read the post above mine and it appears you can make it work with T-Mobile. Nifty.

Still not paying $500 for an iPod/cell phone when my Video iPod has more memory, and my Razor phone still works fine.

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avatarNice

Submitted by Gigahertz17 on Wed, 07/04/2007 - 12:26am

These guys always cease to amaze me, how fast they can crack something. So this code he wrote bypasses the activation and unlocks all the features on the phone, but you can't use the phone on another network like Verizon or anything right?

It's probably just a matter of time until you can buy the phone and then switch it over to Verizon/Cingular or whatever your carrier is. I don't know much about cell phone technology but I bet it's just a matter of time.

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avatarG4 TV interviewed a T-mobile

Submitted by dustindoe08 on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 12:34pm

G4 TV interviewed a T-mobile sales associate and he said he already unlocked his new iphone to work with T-mobile because they also use GSM towers and sim cards, the phone will not work off of CDMA towers like Verizon,Sprint, Ect...

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avatarNice but...

Submitted by mustangguru on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 6:21am

It's a different sim card altogether, although maybe possible to get it to switch networks, At&T has the exclusive rights to the iphone from apple for the next 5years. So I wouldn't bank on being able to change it to another network.

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