[nabs-l] New iPhone Model Now Accessible to the Blind

[Haben Girma]

Joseph, I may have missed something in this conversation, but could you 
say again why you personally would prefer an unlocked iPhone? Do you do 
a lot of travel overseas? Or is that you prefer T Mobile, which I hear 
has pretty poor coverage in The States. Oh, and as for getting an 
unlocked iPhone...those things cost about $700, as you say. What if you 
went and bought an iPhone from AT&T with a 2 year contract, which would 
cost you $200, and then dishonored the contract, which would cost about 
$175. That totals to around $400 for a round-about unlocked iPhone, 
which would be faster and cheaper than buying an unlocked one from 
overseas.

Haben

T. Joseph Carter wrote:
> Corbb,
>
> I'm sorry but this is not true.  They have SIM cards and they can be 
> popped out just as easily.  This is essentially required.
>
> The iPhone has two "computers" in it, one for the main phone, and one 
> that does nothing but talk to the radio hardware.  While you can talk 
> to the one computer via the USB cable, the other one is accessible 
> only by software running on the first computer.  We can pretty much do 
> lots of fun things to the main computer, but the "baseband" computer 
> is only accessible through a little tiny interface, and Apple's 
> removed most of the useful commands from that interface.  You can't 
> read or write the baseband, you can only upload a new one that is a 
> newer version.  The newer version is checked to prove that it has 
> Apple's cryptographic signature on it.
>
> That means a security exploit is needed either in the baseband or in 
> the baseband chip's boot loader.  We have the former, but not for the 
> latest version of the baseband.  But if your baseband version is newer 
> than that, you're out of luck because the 3G's boot loaders have not 
> been defeated.  Well, one of the older ones has, and it has allowed 
> baseband downgrades, but that's it.  The newest 3G phones are simply 
> locked, and there's not much we can do about it yet.
>
> Ultimately Apple will win this game or they'll run out of ideas to 
> stop us.  The problem is we have to hundreds of man hours to find an 
> exploit we can sue and figure out how.  Apple only needs to see what 
> we did and patch it so that we can't in the future.
>
> Given that the 3G and soon also the 3G S are available overseas 
> unlocked for any carrier and without contract, that's the easiest 
> solution.  These phones are not intended to land in US customers' 
> hands, but there's not much Apple do about it since they're sold 
> unlocked so that businesspeople can travel and use their phone in 
> different countries by swapping SIMs.
>
> AT&T can't make them try to police that, but they can make them not 
> sell the unlocked versions in the US, as part of their exclusivity 
> deal.  I'm pretty sure Verizon's still kicking themselves over that, 
> since the iPhone was reportedly almost theirs.  They wanted to have 
> control over the user interface colors (red and white to match their 
> corporate image..)  The report is that Apple said no, and so Verizon 
> walked out of the deal.
>
> The 3G S will be available internationally with a "factory" unlock, 
> just like the 3G is now.  iTunes will check to see if it should 
> activate your device with the SIM in question.  Apple's server will 
> recognize that your phone is in its "unlocked phone" database, and it 
> will be unlocked using a process protected by enough military grade 
> encryption that we haven't much chance of duplicating it.
>
> I have a suspicion that you won't see this iteration of the iPhone on 
> a network other than AT&T without going this route.  Prepare to pay 
> about $700 for it, though, and beware that losers on eBay sometimes 
> call it "unlocked" if it has been jailbroken.  There are also scammers 
> out there.  It's a pretty big investment in time to find reputable 
> exporters, but it can be done.
>
> ...or you can live with AT&T, or you can wait until the exclusivity 
> runs out.  That's long rumored to be 2010, with AT&T not giving Apple 
> any particularly great incentive for renewal.
>
> Joseph
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 10:28:44PM -0400, Corbb O'Connor wrote:
>> Clinton,
>>
>> The older iPhones were "unlockable" because they had a removable SIM  
>> card. Now, the iPhones (newer 3G and all 3GS models) do not use SIM  
>> cards -- they're like a Verizon phone. The SIM card is embedded. The 
>> one nice thing, though, is that it's absolutely foolish to steal a 
>> new  iPhone, just like a Verizon; when the owner finds out, they send 
>> a kill signal and now your phone NEVER works again.
>>
>> Corbb
>>
>> On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:24 PM, clinton waterbury wrote:
>>
>> People have unlocked the older Iphones, why not this new one?
>> On Jun 9, 2009, at 10:46 AM, Dezman Jackson wrote:
>>
>>> Unfortunately, for people who are not with AT&T, the new iPhone 
>>> will  not work on other networks.  You won't even be able to unlock it.
>>>
>>> Dezman
>
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