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Smartphones and Cell Phones

Matthew Miller
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iPhone Dev Team delivers on New Year's Day and unlocks iPhone 3G devices

By | January 1, 2009, 5:18pm PST

Summary: The iPhone Dev Team has been hard at work on unlocking the iPhone 3G and to celebrate the new year they have now released the yellowsn0w 3G unlock application. There are a few things you need to do on your iPhone 3G before you can install this small utility. Also, this is still an early beta so there are some limitations that you will want to note.

iPhone Dev Team delivers on New Year's Day and unlocks iPhone 3G devicesThe iPhone Dev Team has been hard at work on unlocking the iPhone 3G and to celebrate the new year they have now released the yellowsn0w 3G unlock application. There are a few things you need to do on your iPhone 3G before you can install this small utility. Also, this is still an early beta so there are some limitations that you will want to note.

Many people may ask why you would want to try to unlock your iPhone 3G and I think the main reason is so that you can use it when you travel outside of the country where you purchased your iPhone. Looking at some of the comments on the Dev Team blog it looks like usage in other countries is the most popular need for this capability.

If you are in the U.S. and you don’t travel internationally then I don’t see why you would really want to unlock it and use it on the slower T-Mobile network. I have an original iPhone that I use with my AT&T and T-Mobile SIMs, but most people only have one wireless carrier. I am perfectly happy with my original iPhone and won’t be upgrading to a 3G to unlock and use it on T-Mobile.

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Topics

Apple iPhone, Team, Apple iPhone 3G, iPhone Dev Team, 3G, Cellular Phones, Wireless, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Matthew Miller

Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.

Disclosure

Matthew Miller

Matthew is a professional naval architect by day and a mobile gadget freak at all other times. He purchases his own devices and then sells them on eBay or Craigslist to buy more. Many other devices are sent for review on a 30-day loaner basis and then returned to the carrier or manufacturer. If any are provided as “long term loaner units” this will be clearly disclosed in his reviews.

Biography

Matthew Miller

Matthew Miller started using a mobile devices in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since. He is a co-host with GigaOM's Kevin Tofel on the MobileTechRoundup podcast and an author of three Wiley Companion series books. Matthew started using mobile devices with a US Robotics Pilot 1000 and has owned over 125 different devices running Palm, Linux, Symbian, Newton, BlackBerry, iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems. His current collection includes an HTC Radar 4G, Dell Venue Pro, Apple iPad 2, HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nokia N9, Apple iPhone 4S, MacBook Pro, and many more, along with tons of accessories and classic devices like the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 and Sony CLIE UX50. Matthew can be found on various discussion forums under the user name of "palmsolo".

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RE: iPhone Dev Team delivers on New Year's Day and unlocks iPhone 3G devices
yellowsn0w 2nd Jan 2009
yellowsn0w is in beta, don't forget that! http://www.yellowsn0w.net.
View in thread
0 Votes
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I don't know the details...
msalzberg 1st Jan 2009
but AT&T has an international plan. A friend of mine is in
London right now with his (working) iPhone.
0 Votes
+ -
Contributr
Prepaid SIM cards may be better deal
palmsolo (aka Matthew Miller) 1st Jan 2009
When I travel I use a MaxROAM SIM or buy a prepaid SIM in the country I am in and find that to be quite a bit cheaper than paying the international rates on the US carriers. With this unlocking capability people can now use one of these types of SIM cards with their iPhone 3G.
0 Votes
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Here's Why...
voyager529 1st Jan 2009
1. I have Wi-Fi at home. I have Wi-Fi at work. I have Wi-Fi at school. I have Wi-Fi at church. 90% of my clients have Wi-Fi. The vast majority of the time I'm somewhere where there is no Wi-Fi, I'm probably driving. As such, a data plan for me is an expense that is largely unnecessary. I'm not in a position where it's *that* vitally important that I respond to an e-mail within 30 seconds, and if someone wants to communicate with me that bad, they can -gasp- call me or...wait for it...text me. Spending twice the price of a 1,000 minute T-Mobile plan for 600 minutes and data just isn't worth it to me. Heck, I could throw in an EDGE plan ($20/month), unlimited texting ($15/month), and I'd *STILL* come out on top vs. a 600-minute AT&T plan.
2. Some people may be in an area where the majority of the people they call are on the T-Mobile network, and as such they use less minutes if their T-Mobile calls are baked in.
3. Still others have an axe to grind against AT&T, don't like their customer service, or what have you, and are avoiding AT&T on principle.
4. coupled with #3, it's probably the simplest reason: "Because I Can".
5. T-Mobile might not be able to have an exclusive contract with AT&T, but every time I've called them with a question about using it, they answer "We don't officially support this, but here are all the steps you need in order to do what you want to do."
6. AT&T won't let you tether your iPhone to your laptop to use it as a modem. While you're stuck at EDGE speeds on T-Mobile, they really don't care what you do with your data plan, so you can tether away without getting any love letters from people threatening to cancel your service.
7. If you're an AT&T customer and you jailbreak for things like MMS and tethering (see above), your warranty is already voided and they won't help you anymore. So again, if they wouldn't help me anyway, I'd unlock it on principle just to put the screws to them. Yes I realize that if I were an AT&T customer they'd still have my money, but if it's an opportunity to stick it to them and it wouldn't cost me anything, it's well worth the time investment.

Those are just a few.

Joey
0 Votes
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RE: iPhone Dev Team delivers on New Year's Day and unlocks iPhone 3G devices
yellowsn0w 2nd Jan 2009
yellowsn0w is in beta, don't forget that! http://www.yellowsn0w.net.

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