In what will most likely go down in history as one of the most sensational hardware cracks ever, a teen has finally cracked the iPhone's AT&T lock. The phone can now be made to work with other cell phone carriers.
17-year-old George Hotz said he spent several hundreds hours working on the crack with several other people, all of whom contributed pieces to the puzzle. In the end the process of cracking iPhone came to involve several steps, including soldering wires on the iPhone circuitry in order to fool the phone's logic software. Hotz published the process on his blog for all to use for free.
After cracking the iPhone, Hotz listed the phone along with custom docking gear on eBay. Hotz decided to sell his cracked iPhone package as a significant piece of cell phone history. However, after encountering bidding problems at eBay Hotz ended the auction and decided to sell the phone through direct contact. In the end he traded the phone for a car and 3 new iPhones.
"Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone. I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones," Hotz wrote in his personal blog. "I will be sending the iPhones, unlocked if they wish, to jpetrie (the first donater), gray (the reversing genius), and iProof (who is truly amazing at finding stuff online). Thanks a lot everyone. I leave for college tomorrow, and this has been a great end to a great summer. If I ever do anything more with the iPhone it'll definitely be posted here \[on my blog\]."
Two other group of crackers, both of which intend to profit by unlocking iPhone, have made claims that their solution can unlock the iPhone without the need for soldering. iPhoneSimFree.com said they'll release their software soon in both individual and bulk license pricing structures.
