The free version of Open-Xchange has eventually been released for different Linux distributions. Binary versions are built using the OpenSuSE Build Service and are currently provided for
Open-Xchange contains groupware functions like eMail, calendar and administration of contacts. It is based on Java and uses an Ajax webinterface. It is provided under the GPL.
A quick install guide for our Debian users can be found here.
Eventually Apple sues Psystar for having broken license terms and having committed copyright infringement of MacOS X 10.5 Leopard and Leopard Server. Psystar offers PCs pre-installed with MacOS X Leopard. As reported in german media heise.de Apple claims these points:
Apple’s lawsuit comprises of 35 pages and was issued shortly after Psystar began distributing a modified version of the Mac OS X 10.5.4 update. An online version of it can be viewed here.
We yet reported about Psystar’s business here:
» The never ending Psystar Story
» Psystar offers OpenPro
» Psystar offers Mac Clone
Apple’s MobileMe – the successor of .Mac, silently changed description of their offered services. You remember the advertisement “Exchange for the Rest of us”? Now Apple decided to remove the notion “Push-Service” of MobileMe and replaced it with the notion “Synchronization”.
Instead of being pushed instantly, data will now be synchronized every 15 minutes. That simply is not a push-service. Update: an instant sync will still be possible when using an iPhone or an iPod Touch. The price will remain the same (at least) in Europe: 80€/year.
[Update] Aug/25th/2008: read here, everything you gotta know about Proxy SIM solutions.
The Brazilian based company DesbloqueioBr.com.br claims to have unlocked the 3G iPhone. The whole procedure is like a deja-vu. It is said it works almost the same like with TurboSIM for the “old” iPhone. The difference is they say they make use of a faked IMSI test card, while Bladox’ TurboSIM solution emulated an AT&T card.
The Theory behind
The guys at DesbloqueioBr claim that the iPhone 3G only checks on first card detection (means after hot-swapping or after reboot) for the type of SIM. It is said it checks the IMSI code. During card-detection, the IMSI test card emulation now returns that it is a test card. The next requests to the card will then be answered by the normal SIM card. Same working like with the TurboSIM, except that the TurboSIM was coded to emulate an AT&T card during card detection stage.
Empiricism
Since this has not been confirmed on forums and the video provided (see below) doesn’t show the unlock procedure, this is likely to be a rip-off. Anyway for proving the theory the iPhone Dev Team already provided a sample application for the TurboSIM, that does exactly what the theory requires: emulating a test IMSI at card detection stage. As of now there is no feedback. For legal reasons we cannot link the application, as we are located in Germany. During the next 24 hours google will index the page that contains the link, search for lamesaft-0.1.zip then.
Limitations
The video provided does not clarify how the unlock is performed. It simply shows a call being made from one iPhone to the other. It does not show the SIM adapter to be taken out. Moreover you still need to have the iPhone 3G activated. Currently there is no application available to do this. People on forums report that the DesbloqueioBr guys seem not to be willing to answer concrete questions.
Since there is no prove: we currently classify the DesbloqueioBr SIM adapter as SCAM. Update: at 00:29 the video shows the model as MB046LL, which could be identified as a U.S. american AT&T locked iPhone 3G (see model list here). This model obviously works with a different carrier (not AT&T, but TIM) in a different country (not the US, but Brazil).
Here’s the video that shows calls being made from one iPhone to another. The guy is talking portuguese, a translation is not available.
empty line for distance to the text.
[Update] Sep, 26th: News from Hong Kong added (details here)
[Update] Aug, 25th: Apple’s list update included.
Almost unnoticed on july, 11th 2008 Apple also published a list of carriers offering the iPhone. The interesting thing with this list is, it also contains information about the status of the SIM lock in specific countries.
Apple’s official “Locked to Carrier” list
This is an extract from the official Apple list found here:
| Country | Carrier | SIM Lock | Available without Agreement |
| Italy | Vodafone | No | Yes (499€/8GB, 569€/16GB) |
| Italy | TIM | No | Yes (499€/8GB, 569€/16GB) |
| Hong Kong | 3 | No | No (375€/8GB, n.a.€/16GB) |
| Hong Kong | (Apple Store) | No | Yes (476€/8GB, 547€/16GB) |
| Greece | Vodafone | No | No (Details here) |
| Czech Republic | O2 | No | Yes (490€/8GB, 570€/16GB) |
| New Zealand | Vodafone | No | Yes (470€/8GB, 535€/16GB) |
| Singapore | SingTel | No | No (490€/8GB, 570€/16GB) |
| Slovakia | Orange | No | No? (Details) |
| Macao | 3 | No | No? (Details) |
It is rumored, the unlocked iPhones need to be activated aswell, but in this case it can be done at home using iTunes. No matter how often you change your carrier, it seems you can always re-activate.
Forum reports
In addition to the offical Apple list, this is what people report in forums:
| Country | Carrier | SIM Lock | Available without Agreement |
| Belgium | Mobistar | No | Yes (n.a.€/8GB, 615€/16GB) |
| France | Orange | Yes (100€ Unlock fee) | Yes (509€/8GB, 609€/16GB) |
This list may not be 100% accurate and refers to reports on forums, like hackint0sh. Feel free to add more details like pricing and how to obtain unlocked devices elsewhere as comments below. Thanks!
The cheapest iPhone 3G
For people living in Switzerland, Swisscom offers the iPhone 3G for beating prices between 519 CHF (=510 US$, =325€) for the 8GB version and 619 CHF (=610US$, =385€) for the 16GB version. This includes a prepaid tariff with no obligations. Disadvantages: 1. iPhone 3G is simlocked to Swisscom. You currently cannot unlock, since Proxy SIMs have heavy (legal) disadvantages (read here), 2. This offer is limited to people living in Switzerland. Your citizenship and rights of residence are checked in Swisscom stores. Tourists (=foreigners) not living in Switzerland cannot buy it.
As member of the iPhone Dev Team, planetbeing today released “XPwn”. He describes “XPwn” as an experimental pwnage tool for Linux. Although XPwn was proposedly developed for Linux users, it actually is a cross-platform tool for command line users. Update: It does not support firmware 2.0 yet.
Warning
The XPwn tool is not intended to be used by newbies. That’s why it’s called experimental pwnage tool. It provides a command line interface only, what means you can dreadfully screw up your iPhones using it. The first version of XPwn seemed to have issues when writing the NOR firmware. Although planetbeing has obviously fixed this problem, we really recommend to wait for Pwnage 2.0.
XPwn’s versions
Experimental Pwnage comes in different flavours:
XPwn’s features
Experimental Pwnage implements many of Apple’s proprietary container formats: img2, 8900, complzss, iBootIm, dmg, HFS+/HFSX.
Nice work. Congrats to planetbeing. See XPwn hackint0sh thread here.
It is rumored in german media, that T-Mobile is about to bar Sipgate’s application, that allows the iPhone to use Sipgate’s Voice-Over-IP (VoIP) services. T-Mobile argues Sipgate’s makes use of unfair business practices (like requiring to jailbreak in order to install Sipgate’s client) to pull customers from T-Mobile to Sipgate.
Only three days ago on friday, 11th 2008 the iPhone 3G has been launched in 21 countries. Until saturday, 12th (means on first weekend) one million 3G iPhones have been sold. Last year it took 74 days to sell that amount of iPhones. Steve Jobs will be very glad about this. Since this makes about 7 million possible customers for Apple’s App-Store…
Although we didn’t get our hands on a new iPhone 3G yet, things are as expected: the iPhone 3G uses a new bootloader for its baseband modem as confirmed by Geohot.
Bootloader versions from the “old” iPhones
As far as we are aware the there are those 3 different bootloader versions known on old iPhones:
It is widely known, that exploits for these old bootloaders have been found, that allow to SIM unlock any of these old iPhones. No matter which software revision is running.
No Unlock for iPhone 3G, but for old iPhones
For the new iPhone 3G bootloader, there is no (public) exploit known yet. Although the iPhone Dev Team states they can unlock firmware 2.0 – the unlock is most likely meant to work on “old” iPhones only. The only exploit yet known (in both old and new iPhones) is an iBoot bug. The iPhone Dev Team provided a video showing Pwnage Tool neutering the baseband for firmware 2.0:
Video: Pwnage Tool Bootneuter on firmware 2.0 (on an old iPhone)
Bootneuter 2.0 from iphonedev on Vimeo.
A new jailbreak for iPhone 3G and old iPhones
The Pwnage Tool 2.0 (and Geohot’s yiPhone) will most likely feature an iBoot bug to jailbreak old and new iPhones. iBoot is needed by iTunes to talk to when restoring firmware. About a year ago, Geohot found out that iBoot provides a full interactive shell. The only problem was, iBoot only allowed signed code to run. The iPhone Dev Team now managed to break the chain of trust from the earliest boot stage. Thus allowing to run unsigned code and in the end jailbreaking old and new iPhones (see video):
Video: Talking to iBoot unsigned
Talking to iBoot? from iphonedev on Vimeo.
Both videos are provided by iPhone Dev Team. Kudos to you guys.
Whenever you visit Berlin and you like independent Techno and Electro, we got a nice hint for you. You gotta see the Cassiopeia in the Friedrichshain district. As a matter of chance our team went to the Cassiopeia place yesterday and enjoyed accidently an event named “Reclaim the Beats“.
Reclaim the Beats
To make things shorts as possible. That were by far the most intelligent sounds we’ve heard for a long time. The guys playing the records on the floor under the roof were almost half as young as we am, but we take a bow in deepest respect. You guys definitly have shown a unique taste for sounds. Reclaim the Beats is the only adequate wording for that event. We’d recommend to simply call it DIT (Demanding intelligent Techno). Information and dates of Reclaim the Beats to be found here.
Cassiopeia
The Cassiopeia is fairly unique in Berlin. It’s got three club locations, and indoor skate park, a beer garden, probably the largest climbing tower in Berlin and many more things to discover. The price of a Caipirinha is at 5€. More information to be found here…