iPhone News Updated

Significant iPhone 3G unlock progress, no unlock yet

Significant iPhone 3G unlock progress, no unlock yet

The iPhone Dev Team has announced “significant 3G progress” towards a 3G unlock, modifying iPhone 3G baseband and even running modified baseband code, but the unlock itself remains elusive.

The quest to unlock the iPhone 3G continues with the latest iPhone Dev Team announcement, and while no 3G unlock is yet possible, the Dev Team has made progress.

In a blog posting called “3G Update”, the Dev Team said: “We made some significant 3G progress this week.

On display is text on a screen, part of which says “PWNED PROFILE” above another called “STORED PROFILE”.

The Dev Team says it shows “a 3G iPhone whose baseband has been modified. And even though it’s modified — and fails the integrity check — it’s still running.”

They also ask: “Can you guess where the patch was made?”, although the answer to this isn’t clear.

The team continues: “Running modified baseband code is a very useful ability, but it’s still not possible to accurately estimate how close we are to the ultimate goal,” while a short video of the screen described above can be seen here, at the “homepage.mac.com” address of iPhone Dev Team member and blog forum moderator “MuscleNerd”.

So, while there is no non-Apple software 3G unlock yet, this is the first real sign of progress since the iPhone 3G was released and then jailbroken after a few days, although 2G iPhones have enjoy quick jailbreaks and unlocks soon after each new firmware version is released by Apple.

It’s worth remembering that the iPhone Dev Team is working on the 01.45.00 iPhone 3G baseband firmware, with newer basebands yet to be tackled.

iPhone Dev Team forum reader Hubert asked in the comments section of the 3G progress announcement: “Does this require older baseband firmware to be installed initially? I’ve still got 01.45.00 on mine…”.

iPhone Dev Team member and forum moderator, MuscleNerd, responds: “So far, yes…we’ve been looking only for holes in 01.45 that first shipped with the iPhone 3G.”

Forum reader Jan then asks: “and its not yet possible do downgrade if u got 01.48.02 or newer ootb?” to which there is no reply, although you would hope, if you’d upgraded, that the Dev Team would find a way to either downgrade the baseband.

Otherwise they need to them look to unlock the newer baseband(s), too, which is like starting again.

Forum ready Andy them says: “Awesome stuff! Baring in mind that it is probably far fetched, and vastly different from last time, so this is by no means a quoted question; but how long did it took to go from able to do this on the old iPhone to get to a software unlock?

Member and moderator MuscleNerd responds: “It was about 2.5 months for 3.9BL unlock, and about 3 months for the 4.6BL unlock.”

Andy responds: “Great, thanks! I unfortunately upgraded to 2.0.1 directly via iTunes already, so I’m on the tiny bit newer than 2.0.0 OTB. Hopefully that doesn’t destroy all my chances, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed until more information becomes available :D”

Given the iPhone 3G was released to the market on July 11, it’s been about 3 months and a week since the launch, so at least some progress has been made, as the iPhone Dev Team have shown, although it could be three weeks, three months or even longer before any full unlock is achieved, so we’ll all just have to wait.

The same goes for iPod Touch 2G users wanting to jailbreak their models. Forum reader “navdav” says: “Awesome! I hate to be annoying but is there any way you can tell us how the 2nd ten iPod touch jailbreak is going? Any progress?

“Even if there’s no progress at all a reply would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for all the hard work you guys are doing for us.”

Dev Team member MuscleNerd responds: “iPod Touch 2G is right now taking backseat to iPhone 3G on the dev-team priority list. Mostly because more of us have 3G iPhones than iPod Touch 2Gs.”

So, the waiting game for consumers and the game of cat and mouse Apple plays with hackers continues.

The only surefire way to get an unlocked iPhone 3G is to buy an officially unlocked model or paying the telco’s unlock fee, or figuring out a legal way not to pay an unlock fee but get your telco to officially unlock it anyway.

While the question remains “for how much longer”, at least an officially unlocked model can immediately be upgraded to new firmware, awaiting only jailbreaking for unauthorised third-party app support.

For those already in possession of locked 3G iPhones, whether on a contract or not, all they can do is wait or pay for an official unlock if available, but for anyone yet to buy and iPhone 3G wanting the freedom to use it on virtually any GSM/3G carrier, getting an officially unlocked one (or getting it officially unlocked) is at least an option from some iPhone 3G carriers (not yet AT&T) and the only way to go for a guaranteed and permanently hassle free unlock.

[Thanks: http://www.itwire.com]

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