View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/07/09/28/iphone.no.90.day.unlock
Friday, Sep 28, 2007 6:10pm

iPhone: no 90-day AT&T unlo...

The iPhone is apparently exempt from AT&T's standard policy that allows customers to have their mobile devices unlocked after 90 days of service. Generally, the company allows subscribers in good standing to unlock their phones for use on other providers -- especially for reasons concerning overseas travel. However, due to an "exclusive agreement between Apple and AT&T," per TUAW, there are no unlock codes currently available for the iPhone. A call to AT&T's customer care department eventually confirmed this state of affairs; we were first shunted off to Apple technical support, who referred us back to AT&T technical support. The representative said that unlocking the iPhone was "impossible," and reiterated that attempts to unlock the device would void its warranty.

iPhones updated with firmware version 1.1.1 cannot be unlocked via traditional means, and those already may become bricked by the 1.1.1 update, though iPhoneSIMFree claims its unlock will still allow the iPhone to be used with AT&T SIM cards. There is still no solution for using unlocked phones that have been updated to version 1.1.1 on carriers other than AT&T. Apple offered this warning in it's dialogue for the 1.1.1 update: "If you have modified your phone's software, applying this update may result in your iPhone becoming permanently inoperable." Earlier this week, the company confirmed that it was not intentionally disabling unlocked phones, while readers provided methods for re-locking an iPhone to avoid rendering the iPhone inoperable. As expected the update does bring access to the iTunes WiFi Store as well as louder maximum speaker volumes, but breaks many of the third-party hacks.