ATTENTION CITIZENS! You may now legally unlock your iPhone

[il d00d]

You may be thinking, like me, it was *illegal* to unlock/jailbreak your iPhone?  I knew it was discouraged by Apple, but evidently the DMCA applied to the iPhone software.  Anyways, the point is now rightly moot, except that Apple says you void your warranty in doing so.  To Apple's credit, no one was ever prosecuted for this erstwhile felony.

Link here

More importantly (to me anyways), you can unlock all other phones legally to use on other carriers.  Other interesting stuff: you can legally circumvent DRM on DVDs and games in certain cases, and "allow blind people to break locks on electronic books so that they can use them with read-aloud software and similar aides."  Personally, I don't think that should be limited to blind people, but it is a step in the right direction...

Other links:  further reading on DRM and DMCA.

[spolic]

Oh man, I'm out of touch because I have now idea what you're talking about. 

[Veloce-Fino]

F*CK THE MAN.

I don't need permission to be a pirate!!!

ARRRRGH!!

[cyrus buelton]

Oh man, I'm out of touch because I have now idea what you're talking about. 

I think unlocking any phone that runs off a SIM card allows you to use it on any service provider that also operates off a SIM.

so if you bought the phone through AT&T, unlocked it, and you traveled a lot to Europe.......you could throw your Euro Provider SIM (Orange, Vodafone, H20, etc) in it and it would work off that card verse your high US Roaming costs.

[il d00d]

Oh man, I'm out of touch because I have now idea what you're talking about. 

This is it in a nutshell:  if you went and bought an iPhone today, you would have to buy service from ATT if you wanted to make phone calls or browse the web.  If you had service with Tmobile and wanted to use your iPhone, you were SOL.  That is, unless you unlocked the phone.  Once you did that, you could put your Tmobile or other carrier's SIM and use it.  There are disadvantages to doing this as non-ATT carriers probably will not provide good data service to the iPhone

Then there is jailbreaking, which means allowing the phone to run "unauthorized" applications on the phone.  Apple controls what is available in the app store - if you wanted to run something that wasn't available in the app store, you are SOL until you jailbreak the phone and load whatever you want.  You might want to do this to load a wifi tethering app - your iPhone can act as a modem for your laptop or other device.  Your laptop connects to the phone over wifi (wireless g) and the phone connects to the internet over 3g. 
(You can actually do this now without jailbreaking the phone, you just need to pay ATT an extra $20/mo (on top of your phone plan), and give up your unlimited data plan to do so.)

[duccarlos]

I know a few people that were jailbreaking and some really screwed up their phones with the apps. The iPhone is similar to the PC in that it's so popular that many malicious software has been created for it. Be careful what you upload.

How long will it take Cyrus to get the iPhone unlocked and using it with Sprint? Only downside is that it's not setup for 4G, yet... 

[Veloce-Fino]

I know a few people that were jailbreaking and some really screwed up their phones with the apps. The iPhone is similar to the PC in that it's so popular that many malicious software has been created for it. Be careful what you upload.

How long will it take Cyrus to get the iPhone unlocked and using it with Sprint? Only downside is that it's not setup for 4G, yet... 

My Iphone 4 was unlocked the day I bought it. -----

Like stated earlier

F*CK THE MAN!

[1KDS]

I know a few people that were jailbreaking and some really screwed up their phones with the apps. The iPhone is similar to the PC in that it's so popular that many malicious software has been created for it. Be careful what you upload.

How long will it take Cyrus to get the iPhone unlocked and using it with Sprint? Only downside is that it's not setup for 4G, yet... 

IIRC, sprint is CDMA

in other news the droid x has been successfully ROOTed in the last fews days (ROOT is the equivalent of jailbreaking iPhone)

[fruit]

thanks i unlock my phone using codes here[admin edit]  i unlock it for vodafone ,i shifted from kuwait to india , unlocking using codes is the safest way ,it works good .

...and the spammer is gone.

[badgalbetty]

what is an I phone?

[Popeye the Sailor]

what is an I phone?

It's that thing people look at so they don't have to see the gore as they run motorcyclists down.

[Monsterlover]

[muskrat]

boy, we thought Microsoft was strict and unwilling..............Apple beats them all.  Just waiting for that lawsuit.

In a nutshell, it's my phone so as previously stated F****K the man.  Steve can keep his closed loop Apps store and should I want something there I'll get it but it's my phone.

And as for ATT, my opinion is that I'm already paying for internet service so the little MyWi app rocks and no additional fees.