iPhone 3G SIM unlock demoed on video, zero details given

We've already seen the iPhone 3G got unlocked to function on any carrier (and you can already buy unlocked versions in several countries), but we haven't seen a locked handset get unlocked via software only, and the folks at gsmphone-unlocking have the first video we've seen of Steve's newest baby doing the SIM swap dance without any adapters. Yep, there it is, going from Rogers to Fido. Sadly, the video is more of a shameless ploy for publicity than actually useful information, and until we're told otherwise, we're just going to assume that they've just gotten hold of an early copy of the Dev Team's unlocking tool -- which should be free to the public sometime soon. So, you know: video after the break, but feel free to ignore the obnoxious phone numbers and URLs.

[Rico @ Jul 24th 2008 5:49AM]

Rogers to Fido....they both have contract 3G Iphones....would a sim card swap simply work for this?

[mymaclife @ Jul 24th 2008 6:49AM]

Can't wait to see the video post of paint drying!

[hiko36 @ Jul 24th 2008 7:24AM]

I doubt it. Under that logic, a phone that both ATT and T-Mo carry would be able to simply swap SIMS. Most likely the phone is locked to the specific carrier which sold it.

[jorvay @ Jul 24th 2008 12:02PM]

Sadly no. I used to have a fido plan, and when i switched to rogers, my girlfriend (also on rogers) wanted to use my old fido phone. Switched the sim cards and no dice. Same parent company, same network, different sim locks.

[dzhiurgis @ Jul 24th 2008 3:48PM]

This is definetely fake:
1. iPhone Dev Team hasn't ever ever made up any unlocking tool
2. The only true iPhone unlocler - geohot has clearly stated that iPhone 3G unlock is something impossible.

The end.

[JF @ Jul 25th 2008 1:14AM]

hait to point this out... but where the hell does anybody even see Fido and Rogers (on the top?) Its soo damn blurry, all I see are 2 diff, blurry sim cards going in... I sure as hell dont see no fido or rogers wording.. just a blurr or darkened pixels... :)

[michael.lerner @ Jul 26th 2008 11:57AM]

In theory yes but there is actually a SIM lock for both. While Fido is an MVNO they are still somewhat independent.

Having said that, after weeks of trying to get a Fido iPhone and dealing with the poor customer service, I just signed up for Rogers yesterday.

[Rico @ Jul 24th 2008 5:51AM]

Rogers to Fido....they both have contract 3G Iphones....would a simcard swap simply work for this?

[Saad Rabia @ Jul 24th 2008 5:51AM]

Someone showing their unlocked iPhone, on video! I haven't seen this coming!

[Scott @ Jul 24th 2008 2:56PM]

A windows fanboy complaining about an Apple product. I didn't see that one coming!

[Anto @ Jul 24th 2008 5:54AM]

Maybe it's an Italian device. In Italy iPhones 3G are sold SIM unlocked.

[deyanimay @ Jul 24th 2008 9:09AM]

I doubt it its probably just open to all Italian carriers but locked to any other foreign carrier.

[Jakob Henner @ Jul 24th 2008 9:58AM]

No a Danish mag has tested the Italian phones and they work with any carrier (at least them in Italy and Scandinavia ;)

[Webmok @ Jul 24th 2008 6:00AM]

New mirror here:
http://save.webmok.dk/winpwn_2.0.0.1_Setup.zip

No virus :-)

[Oli @ Jul 24th 2008 6:03AM]

Hmm. Fishy

[avester @ Jul 24th 2008 6:07AM]

You can afford 2k$ for an iPhone, but not 10$ for a tripod...

[w00t @ Jul 24th 2008 6:10AM]

What?!
It's free on contract...

[avester @ Jul 24th 2008 6:16AM]

Yeah, those phone companies pay your iPhone since they love you so much, that they give them for free!

[Rob @ Jul 24th 2008 6:15AM]

FAKE.

Why did they turn the iPhone off? You don't have to do that to swap out a sim card. It's fairly easy to change the carrier.plist file to read fido instead of Rogers. Put a Fido sticker on a Rogers card done. Or use an Italian iPhone which is unlocked already. I don't believe it.

//Rob

[mackid105 @ Jul 24th 2008 12:41PM]

I think its safe to say most people turn off their phones when they switch a SIM card to play it safe. I know I do with the two phones I use since they take turns not working. Just because they turned the phone off doesnt mean its a fake

[Shiver @ Jul 24th 2008 6:42AM]

Look at the top of the Fido simcard. This looks like a universal-sim chip that is showing. I ordered mine on Ebay so hope to achieve the same results. So this is a hardware hack with a proxysim and seems to work just fine.

[Shiver @ Jul 24th 2008 6:57AM]

Doh. It even states a link to another similar proxysim solution. Although the evidence from Rogers to Fido is poor, the concept may very well work.

[SteveDUH @ Jul 24th 2008 6:42AM]

In Canada, Rogers and Fido both carry the iPhone... which makes sense seeing as Rogers OWNS Fido.

I'm not impressed by a dude having a Rogers plan and a Fido plan and one phone.

[dan @ Jul 24th 2008 6:47AM]

I live in Canada... rogers and fido are the same company... the phone is locked to that provider so if you put in a rogers sim.... it will read rogers... fido sim.... it will read fido... Its the same network and the device are locked to the fido/rogers network... so its a fake... unless he get another country's sim card ie ATT it proves nothing.

[kurt.tappe @ Jul 24th 2008 12:10PM]

Wrong. Just because they are the same company on paper does not mean they use the same SIM locks.

[Maarten @ Jul 24th 2008 6:51AM]

At 0:33 you can clearly see a chip sticking out, for which some of the plastic of the original SIM was removed. So this is a turbo-sim like unlock, not software.

[Argot @ Jul 24th 2008 7:15AM]

Just buy a real phone to begin with instead.

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jul 24th 2008 8:44AM]

True. He could get a real PHONE and merely end up with some crappy I-call-you, you-call-me handset. Instead he chose to buy the iPhone that is a muthafugging hand-held COMPUTING mobile device that does it all. Who the heck would wait on a four-hour line for some cheezy-ass Nokia/HTC/Neonode/Palm/BlackBerry/LG/Sony/Samsung PHONE?

Well, my avatar might consider waiting in a queue for those crappy handsets if he's offered a few ripe bananas. But then again, he also throws his own dung around whenever he gets upset.

[Number_41 @ Jul 24th 2008 7:31AM]

I say bullshit. I call bullshit.

Even the X-Sim "method" done by the brazilians was pure luck.

Seriously. B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
http://iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1571

[Number_41 @ Jul 24th 2008 11:22AM]

Even though it was low ranked, I would like to point out that testing done by Zf, and others, have resulted that the SIM-alike working are very sporadic. It is highly dependent on the location and service (TMOBILE, Fido, Tim etc) you are using as the 3G S-Gold chip works with some and sometimes doesnt work at all.
And the Brazilian XSIM method...I have no words for that.

[Peabo @ Jul 24th 2008 7:36AM]

I have a Fido 3G iPhone and the SIM will work on both Fido and Rogers cell towers, no unlocking necessary since Rogers merged the two networks a few years ago. My phone will often say Rogers a some points during the day.

[JF @ Jul 26th 2008 12:19AM]

I've had a Fido phone for years, and where I live... It -always- says Rogers. Only time I ever see Fido on my handset, is when I go into Vancouver (Big City). Sooo frankly, seeing as how Fido, is basically a name brand that Rogers owns, and considering the Network belongs and is Rogers, who slaps on a Fido name onto it in certain places, And seeing how it would make no logical SENSE for Rogers to cut up their supply with a certain percentage of iPhones locked to Fido and to Rogers (seeing as its the same network anyways)... This is nothing super. The only thing you would need is to have a Fido & Rogers 3GSIM card (Seeing as how Fido/Rogers' network just turned on there 3G in December '07[?], most people still have non-3g sim cards. I say this because I ordered my iphone today, and the CSR told me that I need to call in and activate my 3g sim card when I get my iphone in 2 weeks, due to the lack of supply/back order). SOooo There you have it! long winded and all!

[wesbos @ Jul 24th 2008 7:42AM]

I live in canada too, and allthough Rogers and Fido are owned by the same people, they are still separate businesses and their phones are locked accordingly.

[Peabo @ Jul 24th 2008 6:28PM]

Right, I was just referring to how you don't have to unlock the phone to switch it reporting 'Fido' or 'Rogers'. My phone is indeed still locked to my Fido SIM, but the iPhone itself will connect to both 'rogers' and 'fido' networks depending on which tower it connects to. So someone can easily create this video showing a the phone switching networks without unlocking.

[has128 @ Jul 24th 2008 7:42AM]

Come on guys... its already mentioned at the end of the video that this solution is provided by Yessim, now whatever that is, this is there website http://www.yessim.com and it seems just another turbosim-like solution.

Just watch it till the end!

[Jai Molloy @ Jul 24th 2008 7:50AM]

The Rogers iPhone 3G is locked to MNC-720 (Mobile Network Code) where as the Fido one is locked to MNC-370. Yes it is a TurboSIM type of device (it is actually a YESSIM). The first thing I tried to do when I got my hands on the Rogers iPhone 3G was to stick my Fido SIM in it, no dice. it doesn't complain about the SIM, but it also doesn't find a network. once we used the YESSIM, it worked just fine, only thing we had to do we add the APN/UID/PWD to the iPhone so we could use the 3G/EDGE.

As to the turning of the iPhone off, I didn't know at the time that I could do it with it on, the last time I tried to hot swap a SIM, the phone crashed (granted that was quite some time ago). But once we started working on more of the devices, I found out you could leave it on, I am sorry about that.

At any rate there will be a better quality video up either tonight (I am too tired to do it now) or tomorrow (Friday).

For more information on YESSIM please see: YESSIM.com

[Jash Sayani @ Jul 24th 2008 7:50AM]

Thats YESSIM, just like TurboSIM with 3G SIM support. Pretty cheap though, just US $ 50. I had got my TurboSIM for US $70 !

[Dave Sousa @ Jul 24th 2008 8:43AM]

whats that black thing at the top of the sim tray. im pretty sure there's a sim adapter there. i just left fido a few months ago and my family is still on fido and none of them have that black thing at the top, that's either part of the 3g tray or that's a chip much like the turbosim

[erickenobi4 @ Jul 24th 2008 8:44AM]

Where could I get an unlocked iPhone 3G without having to buy four or more of them at a time?

[guoruiwu1994 @ Jul 24th 2008 9:23AM]

why did you hack your iphone for it to run on fido? the iphone officially supports fido as you can see on the apple website. http://www.apple.com/ca/iphone/buy/

[guoruiwu1994 @ Jul 24th 2008 9:26AM]

why did you hack your iphone for it to run on fido? the iphone officially supports fido as you can see on the apple website.
http://www.apple.com/ca/iphone/buy/

[pirrup @ Jul 24th 2008 9:29AM]

Why is he hiding the back of the iphone? What i think is that the iphone is the old version and not the 3G...

[eLMafUDd @ Jul 24th 2008 10:11AM]

Except the speaker, the metal buttons and stuff give it away as being a 3G.

[Yakman8875 @ Jul 24th 2008 9:53AM]

i see you can order 1 for $50, but 10 for $100
good del to buy direct

[Håkon Strandlie from Norway @ Jul 24th 2008 10:58AM]

Rogers and Fido.

Which dog-loving human own those two companies?

"Here boy. Good dog!"

[blindeyex @ Jul 24th 2008 11:01AM]

http://www.gsmphone-unlocking.com/product.php?productid=3570&cat=0&page=1

[Andy @ Jul 24th 2008 11:02AM]

Good work

[john @ Jul 24th 2008 11:20AM]

rogers owns fido, some of the current in market handsets are carrier locked to both rogers and fido, and the iphone 3g may be no different.

[Darren @ Jul 24th 2008 11:48AM]

Unlike the old iPhone you can't get an iPhone 3G without locking into a big fat contract with your carrier, so what's the point of unlocking your phone before your contract expires?

[webterractive @ Jul 24th 2008 12:42PM]

I think you might be able to switch Fido/Rogers sims with each other since the both companies are owned by Rogers. Wrong proof of concept, now would've been AT&T with TMobile then it would be interesting. I'll look into this today with my sister's iphone.