[Update] Aug/25th/2008: read here, everything you gotta know about Proxy SIM solutions.
The Bladox Team has released an application for their Turbo SIM (see here how proxy SIMs work) that is obviously able to bypass the SIM lock of 3G iPhones – means unlocking it. The application is still beta and might not work on the entire planet, but it obviously does in the U.K. The name of the app is zerog-0.95.tar.gz, but for legal reasons we will not directly link it.
See this video:
It takes ages until it is logged it, but anyway it documents the current status quite well…
Switzerland a beautiful country and a wonderful place to buy 3G iPhones. The Swiss carrier Swisscom offers the iPhone 3G with a prepaid SIM card. Forum reports confirm that foreigners can buy these aswell. Only two problems remain: first the Swisscom iPhone is completely sold out on Switzerland and second it is SIM locked to Swisscom (offical unlocked carrier list here). But as reported by us yesterday, a SIM proxy adapter unlock occurred in Vietnam. We expect this adapter to very soon hit the markets worldwide.
There were some rumors two days ago (we reported here), that the Brasil based company DesbloqueioBr.com.br unlocked the iPhone 3G by using a SIM proxy adapter. Today a confirmation comes from Vietnam. Two well known guys from the vietnamese forum GSM.com.vn going by the nicks TA_Mobile and Immb published some photographs showing a SIM proxy solution named X-SIM. However it requires an activated iPhone to unlock.
For those of you being capable of reading (and understanding) the original Vietnamese forum messages: this link is for you. All the others: enjoy the pictures here.
For having had inconveniences (we reported here) with their new MobileMe services, Apple offers customers an additional 30 days trial period for free. Apple reps said that all issues that were occurring during transition from .Mac to MobileMe have now been solved and webservices work correctly. However they won’t use the notion “Push-Services” for now, because syncing all devices currently takes up to 15 minutes.
While the iPhone 3G has just been launched in France (we reported here), in Germany T-Mobile must be quite content, because iPhones over here are completely sold out. Currently it is not clear, when new iPhones can be delivered by Apple. T-Mobile needed to set some thousand customer orders pending.
T-Mobile said they already sold 15,000 devices on german launch day last week. It is reported AT&T in the U.S. seems also be running out of 3G iPhones soon.
Since today also the french customers can obtain the new iPhone 3G. Prices vary between 509€/8GB model and 609€/16GB model. As expected it is SIM locked, but the french carrier Orange is legally obliged to SIM unlock . The fee is said will be at about 100€.
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
Debian 4.0
Fedora 8
OpenSuSE 10.2, 10.3 and 11.0
Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10, 8.04
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:
Psystar may have broken Apple’s license terms that allow installing MacOS X Leopard only on “Apple-labeled computers”. Apple says this means “Apple manufactured hardware”.The debate about what an “Apple-labeled computer” exactly is, is as old as tutorials that deal with installing MacOS X Tiger and Leopard on white box PCs. People in forums were joking about putting an original Apple sticker on your PC case may fit the necessity of the notion “Apple-labeled computer”. Obviously this is not enuff and Apple’s guerilla strategy comes to an end when other companies begin to develop business model out of their work. This will be a major topic and we are quite curious how Apple will explain the notion “Apple-labeled computer”.
Psystar may have violated Apple’s copyrights by providing modified MacOS X updates for their “Open Computer” customers.
Psystar may have damaged Apple’s brand, because of Psystar’s support for MacOS X being poor.
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.
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.
