iPhone cracked

[Jim3k]

In the SF Chron there is a story about a 17-year old kid from New Jersey who has 'unlocked' his iPhone and is using it on T-Mobile's network instead of AT&T.

17-year-old hacker unlocks iPhone's secrets

I dunno the first thing about iPhones, but know there are some big-time techies on this Board. Enjoy.

[billybreen]

Yeah, that's interesting. Unfortunately, you need to crack open the phone and solder some wires together, so it's not terribly accessible to the average iPhone owner.

My least favorite aspect of the iPhone is the lock-in. It's indicative of the broken, anti-competitive cell phone space. Congress has been taking a closer look at this due to the furor over Apple's 5 year exclusive with AT&T, so hopefully some progress will come of that.

At the very least, efforts like this keep visibility on the lock-in debate.

[DevilAlumna]

What, not everyone has a soldering iron at home? But they're so useful!

I hope the hacker community clarifies that the phones will only work on GSM networks; I'd hate to see some sucker spend $600, thinking they could hack it to work on Sprint or Verizon.

The lock-in is an interesting business move. Historically, cell phone carriers have had their way in telling cell phone manufacturers to jump, and specifying how high. Apple was really the first to turn that around, and make the carriers -- if not bend to Apple's will, at least recognize that the iPhone would be a huge business opportunity. (Carriers' successes with Windows Mobile may have greased the skids a bit...)

It's a major support cost, to build out support infrastructure for an entirely new hardware/software configuration (and with a majority of newby tech users who probably don't even know what WiFi stands for, but have to have it b/c Apple says so!) As we saw at the iPhone launch, it was not without its major support hiccups!

Also, carriers are notoriously careful about who "owns" their customers -- the cell phone manufacturer does NOT usually win that debate; but Apple and Cingular seem to have a sharing agreement worked out. My guess is that Apple really wanted multiple carriers, but only one (Cingular/AT&T) was ready to make the sort of investment that was required for the new platform; and they made sure they got their 5-year exclusivity as a reward for that investment.

Still, in that "stick it to the man" (esp. when that man is Steve Jobs! ) spirit, I'm glad to see that someone has outsmarted the system, considering the iphone, ultimately, is just a data transmission device that should be able to use any GSM network, once it is set free.

[hc5duke]

My least favorite aspect of the iPhone is the lock-in. It's indicative of the broken, anti-competitive cell phone space.

I was under the impression Apple isn't exactly innocent with regard to the lock-in with ATT. They decided to go with a slower network (even forgoing ATT's own 3G network!), because of the iPhone battery's poor performance. So instead of spending more time and money to fix the issue, they went with the short cut and put the bottleneck in someone else's backyard instead. IMHO it's brilliant market strategy (it's not our phone! it's the network that's slow!) but somewhat disingenuous way of hiding the short battery life.

Just pickin' a fight with the board's favorite Apple-phile (Macophile?)

[Indoor66]

I was under the impression Apple isn't exactly innocent with regard to the lock-in with ATT. They decided to go with a slower network (even forgoing ATT's own 3G network!), because of the iPhone battery's poor performance. So instead of spending more time and money to fix the issue, they went with the short cut and put the bottleneck in someone else's backyard instead. IMHO it's brilliant market strategy (it's not our phone! it's the network that's slow!) but somewhat disingenuous way of hiding the short battery life.

Just pickin' a fight with the board's favorite Apple-phile (Macophile?)

Maybe you mean the Board's "Big Mac."

[billybreen]

I was under the impression Apple isn't exactly innocent with regard to the lock-in with ATT. They decided to go with a slower network (even forgoing ATT's own 3G network!), because of the iPhone battery's poor performance. So instead of spending more time and money to fix the issue, they went with the short cut and put the bottleneck in someone else's backyard instead. IMHO it's brilliant market strategy (it's not our phone! it's the network that's slow!) but somewhat disingenuous way of hiding the short battery life.

Just pickin' a fight with the board's favorite Apple-phile (Macophile?)

Havent heard that particular conspiracy theory, but I have no doubt that the Steve is getting some benefit from this. The iPhone battery life is one of its strong points actually. It's more likely that Apple benefits from higher margins and a smaller device by skipping 3G.

Happily posted from my iPhone while sitting on the runway of the world's worst airport (Philly) on the worst airline (usair).

[hc5duke]

Havent heard that particular conspiracy theory, but I have no doubt that the Steve is getting some benefit from this. The iPhone battery life is one of its strong points actually. It's more likely that Apple benefits from higher margins and a smaller device by skipping 3G.

Happily posted from my iPhone while sitting on the runway of the world's worst airport (Philly) on the worst airline (usair).

Not a conspiracy theory! Here's one article I found, but I can't find the blog post (gizmodo or engadget... I can't remember) but basically,

Mr. Jobs also said that Apple’s hardware design team had decided against using the more advanced 3G chipsets because they were relatively power-hungry.

Another way of saying, if we went with the faster network, it would have exposed our crappy battery life.

[billybreen]

Another way of saying, if we went with the faster network, it would have exposed our crappy battery life.

Another way is that our excellent battery life would have been slightly less excellent. I still think size and cost are the larger factors, but I'm not disagreeing that the lack of 3G sucks. Fortunately, instant wifi switching makes it less of an issue.

[hc5duke]

Fortunately, instant wifi switching makes it less of an issue.

Unless you're at Duke

[billybreen]

Unless you're at Duke

That turned out to be a Cisco issue, since resolved.

[DevilAlumna]

I was under the impression Apple isn't exactly innocent with regard to the lock-in with ATT. They decided to go with a slower network (even forgoing ATT's own 3G network!), because of the iPhone battery's poor performance. So instead of spending more time and money to fix the issue, they went with the short cut and put the bottleneck in someone else's backyard instead. IMHO it's brilliant market strategy (it's not our phone! it's the network that's slow!) but somewhat disingenuous way of hiding the short battery life.

There was also some rumors going around that Cingular didn't want the flood of traffic (wasn't ready) on its 3G networks. It's not like most of the iPhone consumer audience would really know the difference in speeds, not being previous cellphone data (beyond SMS) users.

But natively, the iPhone power management really is quite good, especially considering its highpowered processor. I know the Windows Mobile folks are impressed. From my understanding, one of the biggest reasons for the long delay between announcement and release was working on the power consumption.

[throatybeard]

Wait, does this mean I can now play Zork II on the device?

[billybreen]

Wait, does this mean I can now play Zork II on the device?

You always could: rawk!

Actually, that's the original. I'll be psyched when I can play Gauntlet II on my iPhone. Elf needs food!

[Jfrosh]

My question is: who on earth would let their teenage son near a $600 device with a soldering iron. Son, back away from the iphone.

[billybreen]

My question is: who on earth would let their teenage son near a $600 device with a soldering iron. Son, back away from the iphone.

Word to that. Though I'm guessing this kid has his pick of engineering schools right now.