Apple blogger legally unlocks iPhone
Thanks be to 'benevolent carrier'
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An iPhone blogger has revealed a way of legally unlocking the device after paying off his mobile contract.
TheAppleBlog.com’s Olly Farshi claimed he legitimately unlocked his two-year-old iPhone 3G by taking advantage of what appears to be a European loophole.
He simply paid off a two-year contract with his carrier, Sonera. The Finland-based firm then forwarded the request to Apple and the next time Farshi synched with iTunes he was prompted to install an official carrier update.
“When upgrading to the iPhone 3GS, those same customers are given the option to pay off the remainder of their original 3G contract. Paying off the contract, and thus completing the two years prematurely, entitles the customer to have their iPhone 3G unlocked,” he wrote.
An official message popped up confirming that his “iPhone had been officially unlocked”.
Farshi described Sonera, which is the exclusive iPhone distributor in Finland, as a “less-repugnant version of AT&T”, before adding that the telco had “turned out to be a somewhat benevolent carrier”.
He claimed that “going the legit route was a much more painless process than using a proxy SIM or the Dev Team’s unofficial unlock”.
According to Farshi the unlock is permanent, allowing him to keep updating the iPhone’s OS, as well as being able to use any carrier SIM in the device.
Apple and Sonera could not immediately be reached for comment at time of writing. ®
COMMENTS
@Prodigal Rebel
The reason people spend gazillions of money on iPhones is because they are actually usable as mobile devices, so you do go online for more than a few minutes every month. It is now -- finally -- not alone in this respect, with the latest batch of Android phones providing strong competition and the Palm Pre doing many of the same things almost as well, but during the life of the original and 3G iPhones, there was no competition. Certainly not from Nokia's n Series.
@ Prodigal Rebel
You can copy mp3s directly in mass storage mode... in fact, I think in PC suite mode you can also drag and drop to the music folder in explorer.
Either way the tracks will show but you might just need to do a library refresh on the device.
Also, Google maps works great. GPS takes a bit longer to lock on but works a treat for me in Stockholm and the AGPS it spot on over here (usually within 5-20 metres).
Unrelated: My N95 8GB is still going strong after nearly two years and countless drops... try that with a touch screen!!
iPhone down under - carriers must unlock for free!!
As a UK ex-pat there is one thing you gotta love about Australia, (apart from the sunshine and winding up the locals about the cricket) - the anti monopoly laws.
I have a nice shiny new contract iPhone and on the day I took out the contract I requested that it be unlocked so I can use a travel SIM for when I am abroad or back in the UK. This involved a ten min phone call from the phone shop (Optus) who put me through to iPhone support. They then registered it with Apple and that was it.
An hour later I got an SMS saying my unlock request had been completed. One iTunes sync later and hey presto - one unlocked iPhone thats only 2 hours old :o)
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