Slash LaneCommenting on Apple's statement Monday about unlocked iPhones, American Technology analyst Shaw Wu said the matter is likely to impact only a small percentage of iPhone customers, namely "hackers." Representatives for the unofficial iPhone Dev Team, however, disagree.
The analyst said Apple was likely compelled to take a strong stand on iPhone unlocking — which enable the handsets to run on unauthorized carriers — for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, he said, the company wants to ensure its mobile phone platform remains stable and secure.
Apple also has a an obligation to meet its contractual obligations with AT&T (and other European wireless carriers), Wu explained. Then, of course, there's also a financial incentive on the part of the iPhone maker to keep users on its authorized carriers, as it receives a portion of the monthly fees from iPhone users signed up with those carriers.
Not surprisingly, representatives from the unofficial iPhone Dev Team — a group of programmers responsible for one of the most widely distributed iPhone unlocking solutions — disagrees over the scope of the matter.
In statement released Tuesday, the group said download totals from its own iPhone unlocking tools suggest that "several hundred thousand" people have unlocked their iPhones in recent weeks.
"The removal of the lock, a bug, was a major step forward in the iPhone development," the group wrote. "It made the iPhone free and useful to anyone, not only to those in certain countries."
The Dev Team claims that iPhone unlocking tools do not cause "damage" as Apple would like some people to believe. Nevertheless, the group said it plans to release a tool in the next week that will enable unlocked iPhone users to restore their phone to a factory-like state. In the meantime it advise users against updating their unlocked iPhone with the upcoming Apple iPhone software update.
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49 Comments
It seems to be a continuing misunderstanding between jailbreak and sim unlock. From the reports I've read this warning only applies to sim unlock, not jailbreak. I am, and would recommend, restoring the phone before upgrade but, again, I believe this warning is with respect to sim unlocking, which it not a 'bug'.
So which is it? If the combination of iPhone OS changes and SIM unlocking do not cause any damage to the phone's function, then there's no need for relocking software nor to recommend that people not upgrade to Apple's newest feature additions.
How can they KNOW the new features won't break anything until they try? Sounds like they themselves feel there is a chance of something breaking (which of course there is, with or without Apple giving fair warning).
"While this announcement may cause some controversy and create headlines, we believe this impacts a small group of users, namely hackers,"
Wu, Master of the Obvious
I went ahead and restored and re-"shackled" mine anyway just to be sure. I lost my NES.app (just Tetris really...) and I think I can live without it for a while longer.
=)
It is all FUD, from both sides. Apple is trying to discourage people from unlocking the phone by putting fear on them, and the hacker community is trying to get more people to unlock, so they claim the problem would be very serious.
At least Apple gave people a warning before the release of the software.
Please update, im buying brick-ed phones at $0.10 each to build a new brick wall.
LOL