iPhone 3G unlock revised, now with less beta

The iPhone Dev-Team works in mysterious ways, but it also works in quick ways. Granted, the iPhone 3G's initial unlock took way longer than anyone would've liked, but when reports started surfacing that it wasn't working particularly well after the first beta release earlier in the week, they appear to have worked doubletime to get a better version into circulation. The release is now up to v0.9.4 -- still beta -- but if you tried the first cut and struggled, we'd suggest giving the new version a whirl.

[gabe @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:27PM]

as a tmobile customer this is great news but not helpful considering i'd have to pay an arm and a leg for the phone.

can i buy an att phone and downgrade it to emergency calls only?

[tang @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:34PM]

buy an iphone for emergency calls?

[Spencer @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:41PM]

buy an iphone?

[Graham Wellington (formerly tyrone washington, or marsha goldberg) @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:46PM]

its not too bad, get a refurb for $100 and then an etf for $175.


unrelated but is the antenna still in the bottom of the phone? i always got terrible reception with the iphone 2g, is the 3g any better with regular reception?

[Tonicboy @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:49PM]

It's not so bad. You can buy a refurbished phone (8GB $149), activate it and keep for one month ($70) and then pay the early termination ($179) for a total of ~$400. That's about the going price for an unlocked smartphone.

[Phoenix @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:02PM]

yeah, good price for Smartphones, not a good price for a featurephone like the iPhone though :p

[George @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:08PM]

@ Graham Wellington
The iphone 3g is the 2g iphone. Do you not mean you had bad reception with the 1g iphone?

[Robert @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:33PM]

I don't understand why the iPhone gets such a bad rap. I got one and I love it.

[Graham Wellington (formerly tyrone washington, or marsha goldberg) @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:00PM]

yeah, i was going buy just the data type and not the actual generation. but anyway the 2nd gen, does it have the antenna in the bottom and is the call signal reception as bad as the 1st gen iphone? that was my only real problem with the 1st gen iphone i had.

[Jon Nelson @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:24PM]

@ George

The First-Gen iPhone is 2G, the Second-Gen iPhone is 3G, but this is in the GSM term 3G, not 2nd or 3rd Generation.

[Shugg @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:58PM]

$500 after etf , activation, first month charge etc,.3g phone that would only work onedge speed,.dee dee deee

[noir @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:05AM]

yes, lets avoid his question in every way possible xD

[Jeremy @ Jan 6th 2009 3:34AM]

If You want to unlock ANY iPhone 3G and use it with ANY GSM carrier just buy hardware SIM unlock from http://321iphoneunlocking.com or other... you just put their ultra thin SIM (ITS LIKE PAPER) with your 3rd party SIM and unbelieviably it works.its simple as that people, dont need to "crack" your iphone or anything

[Kris120890 @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:35PM]

A lot of the people who couldn't get it work the first time have said this does work.

[Dan @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:14PM]

No difference here, just as buggy, drops calls constantly and won't let me hang up. This is on the AT&T 3G network, too. The moment the program is uninstalled it's fine.

[Dr.Taru @ Jan 2nd 2009 7:19PM]

@dan uh, this unlock is for using the phone with unsupported carriers, it is not needed at all for using AT&T and will probably cause the issues you described.

[TheCow5 @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:47PM]

the year is now 2009, its now time to move on, the iPhone had it's hurrah.
its competition has shown it to be dated and less than what it once was.

Please lets move on the better phones and stop harping on the past. the iPhone was lets look fordward please.

[Tonicboy @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:52PM]

how about you look whatever direction you want and stop worrying about which way the rest of us want to look. for a start, you can look away from this post. please do.

[Heinz @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:53PM]

Haha, have you ever used one? Best touchscreen around, games are awesome, it revolutionized the "cell phone." Nowhere to go but up from here.

[TheCow5 @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:53PM]

" it revolutionized the cell phone."

you said it, the past, its time to move fordword.
guys have you played with the Touch HD, I have played with an iPhone and its nice, fast and smood but after playing with the Touch HD it takes the iPhone feel dated as it makes other phone I've had

all I am saying is lets not dwell on the past

[Dan @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:13PM]

Honestly, what phone in the US is even remotely as good right now? The Storm? ha.

[Tonicboy @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:19PM]

The Touch HD launched a couple months ago. Why are you looking at the past?

[Shugg @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:59PM]

Let's look forward to macworld starti g Monday

[Giroro @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:53PM]

I thought this is why Engadget Mobile exists.

[Chris Ziegler @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:56PM]

Yes and no... what we try to do is select the widest-appeal mobile stories and bring them to Engadget proper, while mobile enthusiasts can get the deeper material on Mobile.

[DirtyVegas @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:07PM]

@ Chris

Pretty cool. You're probably the only ed on this blog that actually responds in the comments section after posting. Your colleagues should learn from you...

[Hackettman @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:55PM]

Does this mean I can get an iphone for the sprint network? I tried the website for the devs but beside looking rather unsightly it has no simple straightforward info......

[Phoenix @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:03PM]

Umn... no...
Sprint relies on a completely different kind of hardware, called CDMA. The iPhone is GSM. you can use it on AT&T or T-Mobile, or in another country.

[Rich @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:05PM]

No. Sprint and Verizon use CDMA and the iPhone uses GSM. Two completely different and incompatible technologies. These are hardware differences and no software will ever allow one to be used on the other.

Rich

[why not the LS2LS7? @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:18PM]

The iPhone 3G supports HSDPA, which is CDMA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_Downlink_Packet_Access

This allows the iPhone 3G to access some networks in Japan, which use versions of CDMA instead of GSM. Maybe it can be made to work in the US too. It would probably take efforts from Apple to make it work though, I don't think hackers could rig it up.

[cromas @ Jan 2nd 2009 9:10PM]

@Hackettman: No. CDMA is a method of dividing a bandwidth spectrum up into multiple channels. It is used by both cdmaOne/CDMA2000, the network technologies that most people mean when they say "CDMA", and UMTS, which is the 3G successor to GSM. Japan has two UMTS networks, DoCoMo and SoftBank, the latter being the official carrier for iPhone 3G in Japan.

The two technology families share a channel division method. They are otherwise fundamentally incompatible at the hardware level. No amount of Apple software magic is going to make an iPhone 3G run on Sprint or Verizon.

[Shea @ Jan 3rd 2009 5:32AM]

@above replies:
kudos for taking time to explain, find helpful links etc.
i wish more people on here would reply such as this, rather than shooting people down for asking questions.

[mos @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:56PM]

I love iPhone's interface and its shear simplicity and lacks of functionality. However, after a year, iPhone 3G has not prove worthy, at least to me, to throw away my beloved 2G.

[Kelly Lee @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:26PM]

Nice. Glad we have a revision :)

Thanks.

btw... better be careful. I heard a scientist was getting involved in the iphone creation :) ha
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/scientist-creates-iphone-death-ray-app/

[Bryan @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:11PM]

Gotta get me some yellowsn0w.

I actually own a first gen but couldn't help myself.

[V Langs @ Jan 2nd 2009 8:04PM]

whats the point??

bootneuter has been out for ages, yellowsn0w just takes space on your phone for no reason

[digitallysick @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:33PM]

What happened to the law that carriers had to unlock the handsets when you bought them, not being able to tie you to the carrier?

[V Langs @ Jan 2nd 2009 8:05PM]

steve jobs has a way to grab everyone by the balls and will them to do whatever he wants.

that fact is true for every other phone on the market, funny how the iphone got exempt....

[shugg @ Jan 2nd 2009 9:58PM]

iphone changed the law.,the revolutionary!!!!!!!1

[Tired_ @ Jan 2nd 2009 5:41PM]

Hmm. The first version worked fine for me, but the updated version makes me phone get really hot, till it reboots itself. Removed it with Cydia and the heat issue stopped. Looks like there's still a bug or two to work out.

[shugg @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:08PM]

i tried to be cool.,and did this unlock .now i havent been able to use my iphone.,i feel like an idiot.,to make things worse att called me n told me i would get etf cuz i violated terms.,sux 175$ etf n cant even use iphone.i took it to apple store n genius bar wanted to charge me 90$ just to look at it. i havent made a call in 6 days.,i jusr wanted to fit in n not feel like an outcast.nowe i feel like a dee dee deee!!!!!!to make things worse i jusr found out that iphone is not a smartphone but a dumbphone or deedeedeeephone.;( does anyone have any suggestions.?

[Dan @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:12PM]

En Ingles, por favor.

[BJ is Gooder @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:15PM]

My suggestion - be less incoherant.

[V Langs @ Jan 2nd 2009 8:06PM]

my suggestion, stop drinking the haterade...

att can't look into the contents of your phone, they don't have the technology. and running this just to use it on att is plain....stupid.

[Anthony @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:10PM]

Does the 3G unlock work for the Original 2G iPhone?? I have been trying to Unlock my Original iPhone for Months now. Everytime I try and insert the SIM Card, I get a different SIM Detected.

[Dan @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:11PM]

no.

[Dan @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:11PM]

Tried this one and it has the same issue was 0.9.1 had on my iPhone, it makes my AT&T signal drop to nothing randomly - in a 5 bar signal area. Also has weird issues with placing or receiving calls, and this is with my regular AT&T 3G SIM. Uninstalling the hack fixes it immediately.

[Condom @ Jan 2nd 2009 6:12PM]

IPHONE SUCKS JUST GET A VERIZON ENV2 MAN IPHONE 3G IS SLOW AND BUGGY

FIRST COMMENT!

[Daniel S. @ Jan 2nd 2009 7:20PM]

"First comment"

I just HAVE to say it: Epic fail.

[dm @ Jan 3rd 2009 5:17AM]

Wow, if Condom is your name, that probably makes you a dick!