Firmware 2.0.1 breaks PwnageTool, could render iPhone 3G un-unlockable
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Aug 5th 2008 4:08AM
posted Aug 5th 2008 4:08AM
As some of you already know, updating your iPhone to firmware 2.0.1 means that you've lost access to all your jailbroken apps. That's pretty much expected and should be rectified by the DevTeam soon enough. What's notable from an unlocking perspective, however, is that Apple's 2.0.1 release also updates the iPhone 3G baseband. This puts iPhone 3G owners in a bit of a quandary: update now via iTunes in desperate hopes of the stability and improved keyboard response we've been seeing but do so at the risk of not being able to unlock your iPhone 3G in the future (if and when the DevTeam gets around to releasing it for firmware 2.0). A lot can happen in the course of a 2 year (or longer) carrier commitment. According to the DevTeam, you'll get all the benefits of Apple's 2.0.1 update (without the pesky new baseband) just as soon as they can kick out the updated PwnageTool (current version is 2.0.1) onto the Internets. Decisions, decisions.
This is crap. A good phone should always have the option of being unlocked. Period.
AT&T, Apple, you are a couple of greedy bastards....
FWIW, iPhones in HK and Singapore are unlocked. Just saying...
who's right
I wouldn't be so kind as to call them greedy. Even greedy people have souls. These two mo-fo's are the devil. If you own a working iPhone, you have no soul anymore. :)
phuck apple, I really cant take this anymore.
I'm waiting eagerly for the 5800 Tube to replace my iphone
Nokia, FTW!
Australia offers unlocked iphones.
iphones are also sold by 4 different companies (soon to be 5)
Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Virgin and soon Three
So it seems that Americas phone companies SUCK, and AT&T is the best from a bad bunch
So yes, iphones are being sold unlocked in Australia for around $800 and $900 respectively.
Actually, the carrier has the option to make the iPhone 3G lock or unlock. I've confirmed this information with my contact with 3HK. Apple is very open to the carrier if they want it unlocked. I guess AT&T wanted it locked.
Hey ePic fail, why would we want to visit your ePic fail website to discuss when we already have this place to discuss?
GTFO, troll.
I thought unlocked versions of the iphone were available even in the states? Its just that the $199/299 price tags are subsidized; unlocked adds ~$300 to the price?
Aww. Poor babies. Did Apple spank your scrawny buttocks for being dishonest? That's what happens when bad people tinker with Apple's closed platform.
Still, what's the big deal? In a couple of days, the new firmware will be defeated and then back to business as usual. This cat-and-mouse game will be continued until the iPhone is no longer popular which will be about two years from now.
I don't understand why people buy products or support a company that is constantly trying to undermine their efforts.
Can't find any locked iPhone in Belgium. Seems like the iPhone is a good phone by your standards as it is unlocked overhere.
800 or 900 bucks eh? hmm, could buy a decent laptop or a good computer for that much. I'll stick to my 10% rule. The day I buy a $9000 computer is the day I'll shell out $900 for a phone.
umm phale.
Does anyone else have the desire to see Pineapple Express even more after seeing that Pineapple?
Yes that move looks awesome!!! And yes that pinapple is quite ugly when it's your iphone boot screen (I used the unnoficial windows method for jailbreaking the 1st time, but then the winpwn came out and I got rid of the pineapple) Now I've upgraded to 2.0.1 until it's jailbroken again.
if by desire to see it more, you mean actually kinda wanna see it now... and if by after seeing the logo you mean after seeing more trailers.... then yes.
I FLY LIKE PAPER GET HIGH LIKE PLANES
IF YOU SEE ME AT THE BORDER I GOT VISAS IN MY NAME
i love M.I.A. (they play it on all the pineapple express trailers)
Either your head is up your ass or you thought this was imdb....go AWAY
umm, wt-eph?
I will happily go and purchase legitimate, legal, unlocked iPhone3Gs from carriers in Australia and ship them to the US if anyone wants.
For a small fee, no doubt.
Bwahahahaha !
Rumor has it that they already have a working jailbreak for 2.0.1 but it's not quite ready to release. i think they'll be putting a notice on their blog soon about it.
If it can be unlocked, it will be.
There's no excuse for any phone being locked, EVER, when you are already under contract.
Thats why t-mobile is all the more awesome. If you have had service for 90 days then you can call customer support and they will give the unlock code if you ask.
Over here (UK), on all other handsets, O2 supply them unlocked if you are on a contract. All handsets but iPhone. Hmph.
I guess you've never used Verizon or Sprint.
It's to avoid people getting the contract and then paying the ETF. They make more over 2 years of monthly payments than they do from a one time early termination fee.
I just wish they'd update PwnageTool, if nothing else but to add 2.0.1 support for the original iPhone & iPod Touch.
iphone is getting wrose,more worse than windows mobile now.Can't send files,games,apps,office doc etc...
Why not get a Windows Mobile?
I can't really take a liking to the winmo interfaces. And when this is all said and done Iphone will be the most developed for mobile os in the world. Yes along the way people will be screwed over but in the long run I think it will produce some beautiful things.
why? because windows mobile sucks. i just switched from a samsung blackjack II to the iphone, and even with it's problems the iphone is MUCH more of a pleasure to use and more useful to me than winmo ever was. ymmv.
BTW, Mr. Ricker, it's firmware version 2.0.1 (not 2.01). Same goes for the PwnageTool.
Good thing my carrier unlocked my phone for free then. :)
A quick rant..
While I love the browser and smooth interface on the iphone can somebody tell me what makes this phone so f**king special that it deserves mentioning every few posts and in comments on practically every single post? If you're daft enough to buy an iphone and expect to keep it running unlocked / jailbroken permenantly, you have no right to moan about it!
You're no better than people who moan that they were caught downloading illegal copies of movies! We all know the risks!
I love gadgets and technology and I love this site but I dont understand why the engadget "team" love to bend over the apple barrel so much so that they can't see who is bumming them in the ass. There is more in the world than reporting on every single thing to come out of apple and some of which may not even be true..
I want to cry. :'(
Please, for the love of god. Provide some real news about gadgets or rename the site enapple.com..
What? We're no better than people who download movies after we pay for them? What's wrong with us for wanting to use our device however we want to after paying for them?
Hey man, I know how you feel, but face it: Apple has the most popular phone out there.
They have 90% of the music player market, and now they have integrated a phone into their near-monopoly on music players.
It isn't fair. It isn't nice. It's business.
@strider
ALl i mean is that you know the rules of engagement so to speak before you purchase it. Buying a movie with the right to watch it wherever you want is not the same as buying a locked phone that apple does not want you to use outside of its own critieria. It was possibly a poor metaphor however that is aside from the point I'm trying to make, which is that I'm quite tired of hearing the word iphone and it's blatant marketing / spam from the editors of this website.
I want more varied news. I know I should just go elsewhere..
People have come up with better names, such as igadget. I suggest you start crying now because you won't see your alternative request. Engadget does "provide some real news about gadgets" it's just not as frequent as news about the iPhone (That is, there is no one gadget with more posts in recent times than the iPhone; all other gadget news combined must be greater than the amount of news regarding the iPhone). The problem is not the frequency of news articles on the iPhone, but the obviously overworked attempts to connect unrelated news (anything having to do with multitouch, 3G, or a design that resembles and Apple product just because it looks like a generic phone or laptop) with the iPhone or another Apple product.
I feel discriminated against by Engadget: Why does ipubs bastard child's post at 5:11 AM appear before my post at 5:10 AM? I want answers, Thomas Ricker!
"Please, for the love of god. Provide some real news about gadgets or rename the site enapple.com.."
For a second I thought he said Snapple.com...
Prepare to be Lowest Ranked!
Bwa ha ha ha...
Well the update fixed a lot of stuff - I'm staying there until Installer 4 comes out.
If the iPhone really is the best phone ever made, then there would be no phone adequate for those that wish to haver unlocked iPhones. Unlocking a phone makes it better because you can do more with it. Instead of complaining that they don't like how they have to use the iPhone with whatever service provider it comes locked with, some people are taking action and changing that while other benefit from these people's work as well. You suggest that instead of comlaining that the iPhone is locked again or that it has to be unlocked for people to enjoy it, those people should complain that they can't use a phone (since the iPhone is obviously the best and unfortunately the best just isn't good enough for them, so they must settle with nothing). It seems much more logical that they take something that's alright like the iPhone, and improve it by unlocking it. Nice ASCII dick.
I've never really taken the unlocking argument when its applied to a subsidised handset.
If I'm a network and I'm shelling out cash to reduce the cost of a handset to the consumer, you bet ill make sure you can't use it with anyone else. My shareholders dont want me spending company money to allow one of our customers to use the handset with a competing network. I may as well just send my rivals a nice cheque in the post. Once a consumer comes to then end of a contract then fair enough I'll unlock it for them. Hopefully I will do my best to entice them to stay with better tarrifs etc.
In the UK for example you pay £150 ish for the 16gb hamdset on O2. Technically you enter into an agreement with O2 to abide by the terms of contract. The consumer agrees not to use the phone on a rival network.
As for Jailbreaking....well i guess thats personal preference. I cant help but wonder if most people that do it do so because its cool rather than because they need to. Wy do people get so indignant if a manufacturer has created a device designed for specific tasks and they can't run an application of their own....It's the equivalent of buying a device with an embedded web browser (such as the Samsung Fridge) and complaining that it does not run your favourite plugins etc.
Going back to the carrier analogy from earlier... I certainly would not entertain ANY support calls whatsoever from customers who came to my store, signed up of their own free will and then bricked their handset because they used "some software of the internet", or more as likely sit there pretending they had not doen anything.
Frigtards!
Apple fucking blows hahaha can't even buy a fucking phone and do what you want with it. Pretty soon Jobs will be telling people who they can and can't call. Fuck these companies, the whole lot of em!
if you can't take how things are in society, you should do us all a favor and go 'off the grid'. no but seriously, get the fuck outa my face.
Funny, I bought the phone and I can make phone calls, browse the web, download cool applications, listen to music, watch movies.. pretty much everything I want to do.
How is this new? Every firmware broke unlocks\jailbreaks.
This isn't actually true... The firmwares never wrote over the baseband, so once the dev team came out with Pwnage, which unlocks the baseband directly, it seemed like the phone would be permanently unlocked even through firmware upgrades... But apple can is apparently going to be writing over the baseband too now... But, like anything, it will be hacked, eventually. People are insanely resourceful, and no slab of hardware is unhackable. If it was engineered by a few people, 1000 hackers the world over will eventually be able to figure out what was done.
You can't stop the signal.
-Taylor
it took me a while to confirm the comment..
Hmmm... so you posted before me, then I posted, then you confirmed your post... It makes sense, but Engadget should either change the order, make the timestamp reflect when the comment was posted instead of when it's confirmed, or suffer the extremely infrequent occasions in which people complain of such apparent time paradoxes. I think I've posted way too many times in this article, way too many times off topic, and way too many times in the past hour...
Why buy a broken device that you have to fix yourself?
Stop bitching about the iPhone. Face it the iPhone us pretty much one of the most innovative things to happen to cellular devices in a long time. It has changed the way we think about a cell phone. It has challenged other phone companies to step there game up, and it has also brought about some competition in this oligopoly that we call the "Big 4". It brought in gadgetry to the masses. Samsung sold what, like their 100,000,000 unit last week, yeah well apple is hoping to have 40,000,000 iphone units out in hands this year they are official a big player in my book. So you have to give the damn thing some credit. I'm a blogger and I have stories on the iPhone all over the blogisphere and 9 times of 10 the story has an ass load of hits. People care about the iPhone, even when they say they don't care they care. It gets pages hits and that's essential what they want. You can't just ignore it, it's here to stay.
If we stopped bitching about the iPhone, that would be ignoring a very important aspect of it: what's bad about it. You can post only good news about the iPhone and get mostly fans to view the news along with a few people who don't like the iPhone or "claim" to not care, or you can post bad news and expect many more people who don't like the iPhone and maybe even more fans to take interest in the article. In order to get the most hits and make the gadget appear successful, bloggers should post both the good and the bad, and yes, that includes bitching.
They love the iphone bc it is a nice tool however that DOES NOT excuse its monopolistic trade and its tyrant company. Someone is a bit naiive...
To all the people to tell the people who are complaining to stop complaining:
Shutup.
It's good to see the problems of it coming to light as it gains in market share and whatever. Mkay?
Actually they had to go for phones if they wanted to increase their profits because mobile phone manufacturers where going to eat mp3 market totally at some point. Example Nokia has 71% of all mp3 player capable devices sold globally.
Iphone is popular that's for sure, but in sales it's not really even close to one single S40 phone(example 6500 slide). Many of these blogs have pretty big affect on what will people buy and pages like Engadget surely are doing their job. Iphone missing this amount of news in Asian and European market did take some of the magic from it.
i guess i'll have to go get an iphone from austrailia or something...screw AT&T, those bastards......
*yawn* This is the N95...
;)
It is amazing how much MARKETING can make one want a product that is very limited in functionality, pricing, contract, upgrading/updating and repairing. Apple and their carriers control EVERY ASPECT of this product, yet people are willing to sign up to be screwed.
Consumers are stupid and guys like Jobs prove it.
RAZR?
What the hell are you blabbing about.
Well, they don't call them:
iDiots
for nothing.
I really have no sympathy for Apple users that are getting screwed, because half the time they are too ignorant or too oblivious to even know it.
You're an idiot on so many levels.
Ok I'm sorry... what the hell is a baseband and what's wrong with it being overwritten? Wikipedia just has an article on modulated frequencies or something and I have no idea what that has to do with firmware.
I found this: http://www.unlocksiphone.com/
Someone knows this site or if this unlock really works with iPhone 3G as they say??
Would changes to the baseband help with reception?
Ran the update now my iPod Touch is bricked. There was no hacked software installed. Just shows the apple icon and iTunes locks up when I try to connect to my desktop. I feel like this software is still beta and we are all here as a test lab.
Android sounds better and better as more iPhone "news" gets posted
For the European and Asian members, FYI, it's common practice in the USA for carriers to lock a phone to their network for an amount of time. When the original Razr was launched in the USA it was locked to Verizon and it was a long time before it was launched on with other vendors. What happened was that people would travel to the Europe pick one unlocked and come back to the USA and use it on ATT or T-Mobile.
So now you have the Verizon users complaining cause they want it but can't have it. Even if you picked up an unlock iPhone in Europe there are only two companies in the USA that can run it ATT and T-Mobile, what the Verizon users want is a CDMA version.
2.0.1 broke all downloaded apps from the App Store -- they crash immediately on load.
Haha,
Bottom Line: less than 5% of iPhones (in the US) will be unlocked and it will be in 70 countries by the end of the year, once they add China unlocking WILL disappear. Remote is probably the coolest piece of software I've ever used and makes everything else look like crap.
Oh yeah, unlocking VOIDS THE WARRANTY! That alone should keep people from doing this....the current Apple/ATT deal runs out in 2010, but it seems like ATT will hold on to this as long as they can (I've been a subscriber for years, anyway)
If you want an iPhone, ATT is it. Deal
bottom line is this: In America, like it or not, cell carriers have the right to lock the phone to their networks. Apple has NOTHING to do with locking phones, other than upholding a contract with AT&T.
Unlocked phones are great, and available for a cost. The fact of the matter is most people don't care. Most people don't travel internationally, and in the US, T-Mobile is the only other nationwide GSM carrier, so there's not really a lot of choice anyway.
If you choose to jailbreak or unlock your phone, you can. I do, and I know the risks. I wait on Apple updates until a new jailbreaker is ready. It's a choice I make. I could hit eBay Australia and spend a grand or more on an unlocked phone, but I choose not to.
It's all about choice. If you don't like iPhones, don't buy them. If you don't like AT&T, go get a Treo or Blackberry from somebody else. If you don't like iPhone articles, don't click on them. And for God's sake, don't comment unless you have something constructive.
[off topic] While on the subject of comments, what happened to our language? I can understand international readers losing something in translation, but there's really no excuse for poor grammar and bad spelling. Vulgarity and ALL CAPS do not work. It doesn't make you sound angry or loud, it makes you sound immature and uneducated. Phor whut itz wurth.
Best iPhone comment ever. Thank you!
You are definitely correct. I at least make sure the the majority of my spelling is correct (thanks to firefox). You just summarized up the whole issue with people, fanboys, and haters all in one comment. Nice Job.
I updated my phone forgetting that i had pwnaged it. all it did was just get rid of the pwnaged and went back to a iphone standard setting. oh well.
1.1.4 FTW fwahaha
To those complaining about the iPhone 3G being locked, Does it matter? Yeah unlock it and now you can use the iPhone on T-Mobile... oh yay! No Visual Voicemail and no 3G. WTF is the point...
The main reason at&t locked the device was not because of fear from regional carriers but fear of losing alot of the devices to people over sea. See the dollar is worth shit (thanks bush) and they would be able to buy the device cheaper here then in their home country... thats why its locked and requires activation instore.
Give it up apple. Trying to stop jail breaking is futile. You'll probably just end up like the PSP, in which case after years of trying, sony has basically just given up...
Every single firmware that apple has released has been jailbroken. So I would not put it past my mind if they do it again.
I got to say, there is some powerful people out there with hacking skills to break into firmwares and things and hack it. Way way way beyond what I certainly know.
Adderz, don't you get it? Us Americans DON'T want to spend $900 for an unlocked iPhone. We want it for $199.00 Unlocked with NO contract!! We are kind a wacky like that (expecting AT&T to pick up the remaining $500+ *** as he ex hails the bong dust ***)...
OK, pardon me for being ignorant/an idiot, but can I still downgrade back to 2.0.0 and have my jailbreak/future unlock?
thanks!
the only reason people are mad about the iphone not being unlocked or all in the news every five seconds is because they either a) dont have an iphone or b) they dont realize that the iphone is being sold by a company thats only reason for existing is to make money....its not for fun or to push the curve or any of that...its to make money as quikly and effeciently as possible and for as long as possible...thats it.
if they made it perfect the first time they would all sell out and everyone would have one yes but then that would be it....while if they make it just good enough to buy this time and then fix one or two things then we will all buy it again and then they fix a little more and then they sell out again and copy and paste over and over (pardon the choice of words there since the iphone doesnt copy and paste lol)
thats business and it makes loot......mo money mo money mo money
help here
After the update 2.0.1 on my computer (windows xp) was unable to download on m iphone says now you iphone is in recovry mode ,I hit restore error message appear what happen? help
Well, there's a shock.
ugh
so then i says to mable i says
Some people act like all phones aren't locked when you buy them from the Carrier. If you buy phones unlocked they are super expensive. I've had a lot of "smart" phones. The Sidekick, MDA lots of Blackberry's. All of them were locked. As far as Windows Mobile, I don't know about you guys, but my MDA sucked SO HARD. It was so slow and unstable. I mean sure it had a few options that the iPhone did not, but if it's slow and clunky who gives a crap right? Oh well I've been w/ Tmobile for 5 years. I'm on a Family plan w/ 4 iphones unlocked and t-zone hacked for $300 a month. ( unlimited every thing.) That same plan w/ AT&T would be almost $500 a month.
OUCH.
A few things NOT mentioned by the article which I feel should be pointed out:
- this has absolutely NO effect on the first-generation iPhone; not only have the DevTeam said that it is virtually impossible for Apple to ever permanently lock the 2G iPhone, but I have a Pwned phone now and was able to update to 2.0.1 with my phone remaining unlocked and activated.
- the 3G iPhone hasn't even been unlocked yet. I could see if this update changed the baseband and locked all the phones that had already been unlocked, but since no one has cracked the 3G iPhone yet, it doesn't really matter. It was locked before and it is still locked. I see this as a robber planing on robbing a bank. He's making his plans and then he finds out the bank put a second vault inside the first vault. This doesn't change anything, he still doesn't have any money, it just means it will take him a little longer to break in than he thought.
Upgraded to 2.01 - Broke the Jailbreak as expected, didn't break the unlock (although it was done through the vendor [and apple] for a fee - so I doubt any update will break it). Although the jailbreak created a huge instability in app-store downloaded programs, it would cause them to crash back to the home screen on startup.
@ Taylor
Apple has frequently updated the baseband with firmware upgrades. Its the BOOTLOADER they didn't touch. New basebands aren't new or antipwning specifically.
You guys have been really doing your homework but I'm surprised that none of you guys posted this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUWtQHykeTI.
iPhone 3g remains unlocked even with the updated software of 2.0.1.
There guys are certainly not a bunch of sitting ducks.
calculate the total costs of a AT&T 24 month plan and you see that this is a rip-off.
Luckily hardware unlock is now super cheap and easy. And not illegal as you are not modifying the iPhone itself. Just slide in the Universal Sim card adapter together with your sim card and the iPhone is instantly unlocked. check the video footage showing how quick it is to unlock a Vodafone card and that it can also unlock 3G functions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbD-92cta-M
I bought the iPhone 2g. I got it un-locked with iDemocracy than I accidentally upgraded to 2.0.1. So, I paid $40 and got it un-locked. From iPhone infused. on there website they said it now un-locks 2.0 iPhone. Than they send me an e-mail that states, "it only works for MAC!"
I sent them a nasty e-mail. Don't use iPhone infused!