New Delhi: Barely four months after Apple Inc unveiled its much-hyped showcase product, the iPhone, there was a flood of iPhone unlocking hacks in several parts of the US and Europe, putting Apple in serious trouble.
The iPhone is yet to reach most parts of the world. In fact, it was only of Wednesday that Apple Inc took iPhone trans-Atlantic, announcing a November roll out in Britain that could presage a further expansion into Europe.
Apple has already sold over a million iPhones and it has also cut the price by a third to about £200. But then break-ins have been flying fast and furious in the last month or so.
One of the first full SIM unlocks involved using a Turbo SIM card, a somewhat complex process for the average consumer. Then a teenager, George Holtz, published a way to unlock the hardware with some soldering iron-fu and released instructions for other adventurous unlockers.
And then a firm called iPhoneSIMfree unveiled the first commercial software unlock of the iPhone, sending waves through the iPhone community to push for a free unlock. And earlier this week, a hacker group released a free, open-source version of the unlock hack.
Apple is not ready to take this onslaught sitting down. On Tuesday, Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs announced a crackdown on the hackers and vowed to thwart the attempts of hackers who try to unlock the iPhone.
During Wednesday’s unveiling of the UK version of the iPhone, the reality-bending Steve Jobs said that Apple would actively try to break hacks that unlock the iPhone for use with any SIM card.
”It's a cat-and-mouse game,” Jobs said. “We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it's our job to stop them breaking in.”
Steve, however, didn't go into the details about how he plans to ‘stay ahead’ of the iPhone unlockers. Presumably, however, it’s going to be a software update that could knock out any resident unlocking applications on the iPhone.
Later this month, iPhone is likely to unveil a software update, which will include features like the highly anticipated Wi-FI iTunes store. Unlocked iPhones usually get padlocked again whenever an Apple update is installed in it.
iPhone, the phone that reserved a place for itself on the wish lists of gadget freaks the world over, comes locked with America’s mobile service carrier AT&T.
What that translates into is that in order to use an iPhone one must be located within the periphery of America and willing to sign up for an AT&T connection. So really the only way that someone outside the US can even think of using an iPhone is by unlocking the popular gadget.
AT&T made some noises about legal action against those trying to sell iPhone unlocking applications.
Quite naturally, the efforts to find a possible workaround the ‘iPhone Lock’ started as soon as it was released in the US markets in June. In late August, people like George Hotz found a hardware tweak to unlock the phone. Since then many paid and free to use software hacks have been made available on the Internet as easy iPhone unlock options.
Interestingly, there is some speculation on the Internet that perhaps allowing iPhone hacks might be a part of Jobs’ plans for his product.
There are also reports that the iPhone Development Team is already working on a one-click tool sporting a graphical interface that will unlock an iPhone. “A new version of the GUI tool is almost complete,” the group said on its site.
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