I doubt it.

Some of the guides are so detailed, it is basically holding your hands on the step-by-step procedure. YOU DONT NEED to be a 1337 hacker to do this, if you can follow instructions, you can do this. They are practically a no-brainer, noob-friendly. The only way you can make this any easier on yourself is if they come up with a single-click unlock applications.

Nope, didnt claim claim for the life of me to be any semblance of a hacker. In fact, im like you, i have no prior experience whatsoever unlocking a phone. What i did was to understand the WHY they did it, instead of "okay, you do this first, do this next, etc etc...". There are options out there if you care to look. For example, that OpenSSH step you mentioned. There is an easier way using a program called Putty for WinXP for feeding command lines into the iPhone after you have located its IP address. The guide at http://iphone.unlock.no basically have this as one of its steps. All if you care to look more thoroughly and weigh all your options. In fact, im more inclined to trust and feel more comfortable with the guide at that link i provided than the myriad other options that wants you to dropbear or drop Installer.app via AppTapp, since you are basically relying on the already unstable iPhone you have just jailbroken to do the SSHing for you INSIDE the iPhone, instead of a stable platform like WinXP OUTSIDE the volatile internals of the iPhone.

So, nope, im not a hacker nor am i an unlocker. I merely ask the right questions, WHY, instead of just following orders, coz if you just follow orders and things go wrong, who do you go to then? With better understanding of what's going on, you can do some troubleshooting and deduction by yourself and retrace your steps to see where you went wrong instead of what most of the others who did the step-by-step thing and things went horribly wrong with them, did what they are inclined to do: whine and bawl their eyes out. You should have been there the first two weeks when the free unlocking applications were made available. Endless threads of people who had no idea what they are doing, came bawling, crying and bawling their eyes out, whining that they have bricked their iPhones for doing the unlocking by themselves with no clue whatsoever what they are doing, other than blindly trusting a guide from someone they have never known or met. Like i said before, if im that evil, i could just write one of these unlocking guides of my own, but with malicious intent of bricking every single iPhones that uses my guide.

Im curious, do you have any restraints or doubts in your mind that these guides may hold such malicious intents? If you answer "yes", then what is stopping you from researching further for other guides and authenticate the validity of these guides? If you answer that you did had a look at other options, ........well, i guess you have never came across the guide i have linked above, that provides a pretty much "iPhones Unlocking for Dummies" method that requires nothing but for you to simply FOLLOW them. I have done the HARD PART for you, that is authenticating that this method works , all that is left is literally to follow the hands-holding guide. Nothing wrong with it, but to me, it pays if you go the extra mile to make sure you dont end up with an expensive brick. Dont you think so?


Paranoia i can understand, but what guarantees can you get if you let others do it for a fee? Let say the guy says he can do it for RM150. If he somehow bricked it, can he "guarantee" you a fresh virgin iPhone, should he bricked it in the process of unlocking? If such service exists, i'll be the first in line, nobody likes to be responsible for such a burden, including me! Which is why, im not inclined to even offer such services with a fee, because i simply cannot guarantee that i will not brick your iPhone in the process.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Oct 6 2007, 02:07 AM

The unlocking scene went in parallel with each other, be it Mac OS X or the WinXP. When there is an app for the WinXP, the same alternative to do the very same thing is also available in Mac OS X. I simply dont bother looking at the Mac OS X solutions or guide, simply because i dont operate it on my computer. I am willing to bet however, that the very same guide that has that very same "hand holding quality" exists for the Mac OS X as well. iBrickr in WinXP, iFuntastic/INdependence in Mac OS X....... Putty in WinXP, iPhuC in Mac OS X, i believe? In fact, i believe those who had WinXP as their unlocking platform took more risks in doing such unlocks, than the Mac OS X folks, since we are dabbling within two OSes here, unlike the Mac folks.

Again, your assumption was to think it was "easy and hand-holding" for me, and im here to explain that it is not. However, it is not as complicated as going brute-force on a 128-bit encryption, as the community does provide guides for both sides of the OSes. In fact, the very first attempts, were born out of the works of Erica Sadun who dabbles exclusively in Mac OS X. Which im sure made it a much more irrefutable notion that guides were made available for those with Mac OS X first than the WinXP.

Sometimes, it's a matter of your own personal comfort zone. I went in , almost headfirst when the first unlock methods for WinXP was available. A risk im willing to take, but i cant say the same for others. As for your comment on needing 3 days to get the unlock done, was it for gathering the necessary applications to do the unlock or was it for documentations? If your unlock was done recently, then i guess you were looking at the wrong places. I can simply type in "Unlock iPhone Mac OS X" in Google, and look what is the first search return came up? Once you get that out of the way, it's a matter of getting comfortable with your conscience, and accepting the risks. Maybe you took 3 days contemplating that instead of gathering intel and apps? Not that there's anything wrong with that.......

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Oct 6 2007, 03:22 AM

Im glad we are on the same page here. Im even more pleased to see that im conversing with a fellow user who certainly knows what he's doing with his devices. Saves the time explaining and responding to the endless questions you see in the iPhone thread which can easily be answered by a little Googling.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Oct 7 2007, 11:22 PM

You brought great insights into the whole mix as well, sshark. Perhaps you'd care to join in the discussion on the iPhone thread? We need more well-informed members such as yourself in there.

Definitely more than EUR399, and the news is vague as of fully unlocked or unlocked only to French carriers only.

In the end, you pay more than the present RM2500 to get a possibly locked (to French carriers) iPhones. Early adopters with the tons of third party apps available now continue to giggle and snicker at those who waits. It won't be EUR399 folks, with the current Euro rising, you may pay up to RM4000 when it arrives here. Unlocked to all French carriers like T-Mobile ,Orange or Vodafone, but locked to other carriers. Premature celebration ,anyone?

While most of us here already caressing our iPhones, some continue grasping straws and pipe dreams. Whatever happens to waiting for the so-called Singaporean launch?

Dont get me wrong, i want it to launch locally as well, but with the current Apple's business model, i dont see it happening soon. "Soon" here being, optimistically at the end of the Apple's longest telco contract, which is AT&T's 5 years agreement. Which makes it 2012. Then you will see a fully legitimate unlocked iPhone. Otherwise, if Apple launches anything that resembles an unlocked phone, it will eat into the other launched markets, since everybody wants to stay with their favorite telco, and not locked down with a binding contract with telcos they dont like.

If that happens, then expect Apple to be sued left and right for breaching their own agreement with these telcos. Remember, they also took profit from all this telco binding agreements, so it's a stupid move for them to breach their own agreement, dont you think?

In the end, unless you see some really shocking news that Apple's gonna fully open the iPhone to all, regardless of telcos, you will not see it happening.

Right back at ya.

Words may say much,but one picture says it all!



EURO999!? Enjoy your RM5000 unlocked iPhone! Muahahaha!

I knew that unlocked phones are more expensive, but damn!