If you don’t wanna spring for the two-year contract or wait out the 90 days ’til T-Mobile will unlock the G1 for you, getting it going without actually activating it is remarkably easy. Just snag an active T-Mobile SIM card from a friend (or foe), pop it in to get through the setup process, and after enabling Wi-Fi, you can drop it like it’s hot. ‘Course, it won’t make any phone calls, but that’s not why you wanted a G1 anyway, right? [Love for Biz via Ubergizmo]
Just a few days after the Dev Team released its jailbreak tool for the 2.0.2 firmware to Mac users, WinPwn 2.5 and the QuickPwn Tool for Mac have both appeared at about the same time, offering the ability to QuickPwn the latest iPhone and iPod Touch firmwares. In other words, not only can you jailbreak your iPhone or iPod and enjoy sweet, sweet Cydia and Installer action, but you also don’t have to go through the irritating process of building a custom firmware and carrying out a lengthy restore in iTunes.
The iPhone Dev folks have released QuickPwn, their new iteration of the Pwnage tool. Unlike its predecessor, you don’t have to do a full firmware restore to get Installer.app goodness, which is great. Quickpwn itself is still a Windows-only command-line beta, but a rough GUI version has already hit the web. As with all beta iPhone stuff, try at your own risk, and it’s unclear as yet if it works with the new 2.0.2 update. [iPhone Dev Blog]
In similar style to the SIMable product Wilson showed you back in May, Brando now has its own SIM-hacking device available, and says it works to unlock, unchain, free, liberate—whatever—Apple iPhone 3Gs from being tied to one operator. The slim chip-and-circuit gizmo hugs the rear of your SIM and messes with the signals that go between it and the iPhone (or, indeed, a large number of other GSM and 3G phones) in a way that unlocks the device. Brando’s product still requires you to cut your SIM to make room for the chip aboard it, but it looks a fairly simple operation. And it’s two thirds the price of the SIMable: just US$21. [Brando]
Yeah, USB Fever just started taking pre-orders for this super thin iPhone hardware unlock tool that attaches to your SIM card, but be forewarned — it requires that you cut the corner off your SIM in order to work. If you’re up for the challenge, it will supposedly start shipping on August 20 for US$35. [USB Fever via iPhone Atlas via IntoMobile]
The Windows version of Pwnage, the iPhone 2.0 jailbreak and unlock software for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch, is out now. Like the Mac OS X version, it will free all models to install non-Apple-approved applications, but it won’t unlock the iPhone 3G to liberate you from roaming charges. For unlocking you will need a special SIM card. Updated with Rapidshare mirror
A year ago, we said that no iPhone SDK meant no killer apps. It came, and the apps are here in staggering numbers. But many of the amazing apps and concepts we grew to love as unofficial apps aren’t here, and only about 100 of the 500+ apps at launch in the official store are really useful or desirable—the rest are dupes or just bad. There are no less than five apps to turn my iPhone into a flashlight, yet I can’t turn it into a 3G-powered Wi-Fi hotspot. Why? Because the SDK has more restrictions than Guantanamo–devs can’t integrate with the OS and have to steer way, way clear of copyright and trademark issues—so the most innovative, game-changing apps might not ever make it to your squeaky clean iPhone. That’s why we need more than Apple’s official app store–we still need jailbreaking, Installer.app (now Cydia) and the best unauthorised third-party apps to make the iPhone an ultra-powerful open platform we really want. Here are the roadblocks:
While Apple doesn’t allow tethering with the iPhone 3G, if it’s jailbroken, they can’t tell you what to do, can they? After it’s jailbroken, getting your tether on is surprisingly easy. All you need is a pair of programs, 3proxy and MobileTerminal. Create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network with your notebook, join it with your iPhone, perform a bit of beginner’s voodoo with MobileTerminal and your browser, and voila, you’re cruising on AT&T’s 3G network on your laptop via your iPhone. It really is easy, but be careful, if AT&T notices your data usage is wonky, they will probably rape you with massive fees. Good luck, and Godspeed. [Cre.ations.net]
If you had trouble jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone 2.0 with Pwnage 2.0, there’s a new version out there that will make it even easier to free your iPhone, fixing some of the problems which were found in the previous version:
The guys at iPhone Hacks just found a way to take the iPhone Pwnage release yesterday and figure out a roundabout way to get the unlock and jailbreak to work on Windows machines. It’s only applicable to first-gen iPhones with 2.0, but if you’re really desperate to get your phone hacked, but not quite desperate enough to get within 10 feet of those “Mac” users, here you go. Not for the uber nooby. [iPhone Hacks]
