iPhone Unlocking - Cat and Mouse Game

Giant companies, Apple and AT&T, have both been working hard to find ways to keep the iPhone technology exclusive to just the 2 companies. Right from the beginning, the Apple iPhone was meant to be for AT&T customers only. This was, and still is, part of their business strategy to acquire market share, and to prevent competitors to enter into the space.

The problem with this strategy is that it's not very popular among iPhone fans. The deal meant that an individual cannot use the iPhone with any other carrier except AT&T. So that leaves thousands of consumers in the marketplace stranded - i.e. they can't buy the iPhone unless they switch carrier.

However, it wasn't long before someone discovered a way to unlock the 2G iPhone. Soon, software was released to perform similar functions. The development team became so efficient that they are able to release software that can be installed with a few simple clicks.

For sure, Apple and AT&T business executives wouldn't be too happy about that. But due to sheer demand, it is almost impossible to stop iPhone fans from unlocking their iPhones. It's something like buying your own computer but you are forced to use a proprietary operating system. To the fans, that meant a loss of freedom. They want the iPhone badly, but they also want the freedom to use it with any carrier that they want.

The unlocking solutions came along rather nicely, and thousands of iPhone fans flocked to unlocking websites to see if they can unlock their iPhones.

Before long, the 3G iPhones were released. Many were speculating over whether the new generation of 3G would be unlockable. They didn't have to wait long to find out the answer. Within a few short weeks, someone had found a way to unlock the 3G iPhone. This time, to the surprise of everyone, it came as a hardware unlock instead of a software unlock.

Most people would be expecting the unlocking solutions to be software based. It is more common to see developers come up with some sort of hack for software. Very few people expect the unlock solution to be hardware based. To unlock the 3G iPhone, you have to attach an additional card to the existing SIM card. The card will "fool" the iPhone into believing that it's connected to the official network, when it's actually not.

But the solution didn't last long. In recent news, it was announced that Apple released new firmware (version 2.2) that actually updates the baseband, rendering the unlock solution useless.

The baseband is like your computer modem, and it is used for internal communications. Just like your modem, you may download new firmware to get upgrades or to patch bugs.

It has been confirmed that the unlock card cannot work with the new 2.2 firmware. So fans are urged not to upgrade for the time being. They are advised to wait until the release of the next iPhone unlock solution. The game of cat and mouse continues.