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.
[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.
iClarified just released a manual for jailbreaking, activating and unlocking firmware 1.1.4. Bootloader 3.9 seems to be required. They use a modified version of ZiPhone. I expect Zibri not to be happy with this. However this is not updating but recovering to 1.1.4 therefore I strongly recommend to do like iTunes recommends: to save the configuration of your iPhone automatically (means: contacts, calendar entries, text-messages, network configuration, weather etc.). I reinstalled those save configuration settings afterZiPhone activated the phone and before the unlock.
Die Jungens von iClarified haben eine nette klar verständliche Anleitung verfasst, wie man Firmware 1.1.4 bearbeiten muss. Diese Anleitung benötigt Bootloader 3.9. Zum Einsatz kommt eine modifizierte Version von Zibris ZiPhone. Genau genommen ist der Prozess kein Updaten, sondern ein Recovern auf die Firmware 1.1.4. iTunes bietet deshalb vor dem Recovery-Prozess auch an, die Einstellungen zu sichern. Wenn Ihr das nicht macht, sind die Kontakte, Kalender Einträge, SMS Einträge, WLan Einstellungen, Wetter Einstellungen nach dem Recovern natürlich im Eimer. Meine Empfehlung daher, nach dem ZiPhone das Telefon aktiviert hat, könnt Ihr die gesicherten Einstellungen noch vor dem Unlock wieder in das Telefon zurückspielen…
Ihr findet das englischsprachige HowTo für Mac hier – es funktioniert einwandfrei. Eine Windows Variante gibt es ebenfalls, die ich jedoch nicht getestet habe…
