June 13 - 7:05pm EDT   The Ziphone iPhone unlocking and jailbreaking application was revealed on Friday to support the new v2.0 iPhone OS, the final version of will ship next month. A post in the developer's blog reveals that the application enables support for the device on many international networks, including AT&T, Rogers and Fido in Canada, T-Mobile, Vodaphone, TIM, Claro, and many others. Ziphone is available for iPhone owners on either Mac OS or Windows. [full story]

April 2 - 1:50pm EDT   Orange France, the official wireless carrier for Apple iPhone in France, has broken its silence regarding iPhone sales figures, revealing that it has sold 90,000 iPhones in total since the device went on sale in late November last year through January 31st, 2008 according to Pocket-Lint. 86 percent of those phones were sold with one of Orange's tariff packages, while 14 percent were sold as legally unlocked. O2 UK recently revealed that the iPhone is its fasting selling device for the UK, noting that the device has helped it achieve 9.5-percent revenue growth during the final quarter for 2007. While O2 did not provide specific sales numbers for the device alone, it said ... [full story]

February 29 - 6:10pm EST   A Mac-only guide describing how to jailbreak Apple's iPhone 1.1.4 and SIM unlock the device has surfaced alongside a graphical user interface port of the Debian APT package management system for iPhone. The new guide, posted on IntoMobile, takes users step by step through the process of jailbreaking -- or gaining filesystem read/write access -- the iPhone and unlocking it for use with wireless carriers other than Apple's exclusive partners. [full story]

February 22 - 4:10pm EST   Despite Apple's optimistic target of 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008, some analysts are skeptical, and others say the device may not be as profitable for the company as originally thought. According to MarketWatch, Apple faces an additional challenge in that as many as one million iPhones are unaccounted for on partner networks, and are assumed to be unlocked. These "missing" iPhones could ultimately contribute to almost $1.3 billion in lost subscription revenue over two years, should Apple meet the goal of 10 million sold. [full story]

February 12 - 3:50pm EST   Comprising an estimated 1 million total units, the iPhone gray market has become a major force in the worldwide mobile phone sales community, stretching from China to Prague to South America. Claiming confirmation of the fact that 800,000 to 1 million iPhones, or about one-fourth of the total sold, have been sold as "unlocked" devices in countries outside Apple's official carrier domain, BusinessWeek profiles some of the more aggressive gray market peddlers who have made a killing on selling the device for unauthorized wireless service providers. [full story]

February 8 - 12:10pm EST   An iPhone hacker has discovered a new way to unlock Apple's iPhone firmware version 1.1.2 without the need to downgrade to a prior firmware revision and then re-upgrade after unlocking the device. The unlock technique relies on a bug that allows hackers to erase the contents of memory within a range of specific addresses, coupled with a second bug that allows users to copy data before validation occurs. [full story]

January 29 - 11:30am EST   Over 25 percent of those who have bought US iPhones to date are using them on networks other than the intended one, says Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research. Reuters quotes the analyst as basing numbers on discrepancies between Apple and AT&T, the latter of which is the only authorized iPhone carrier in the States. By the end of 2007, some 1.45 million iPhones were "missing in action," built but not subscribed to AT&T. The carrier is believed to have held 480,000 of these back as inventory, but that leaves nearly 1 million -- 27 percent -- unaccounted for. [full story]

January 17 - 12:30pm EST   Taiwan Star Telecom has launched its new turbosim unlock for Apple's iPhone, a tiny thin film circuit that rests between the real SIM card and an iPhone SIM socket to unlock the iPhone for use with any compatible SIM card. The unlock works on iPhones that ship with firmware version 1.1.2, fooling the iPhone into thinking it is using an actual AT&T SIM card (shipment and pricing information was unavailable). [full story]

December 18 - 5:40pm EST   Two new apparent unlocking solutions for Apple's iPhone firmware v1.1.2 have surfaced, allowing owners of the cellular handset to sign up for wireless service with carriers other than Apple's exclusive partners. The new techniques, dubbed SonicSIM and StealthSIM, both claim to unlock iPhone v1.1.2 for use with all wireless carriers that use the same technology as Apple's cellphone. SonicSIM is a special card rumored to partially unlock the iPhone by tricking the device and dual booting operating systems, while StealthSIM is a similar card produced by a company hoping to sell the solution for $90 on eBay. [full story]

December 14 - 9:50am EST   Foreign shoppers hoping to buy an unlocked iPhone from France will be disappointed, accounts suggest. Other than Germany's T-Mobile, France's Orange is the only carrier to sell unlocked iPhones; and at €749 apiece, they are a full €250 cheaper than the next legal option. Despite being marketed as carrier-free, however, the phones in fact turn out to be country-locked, meaning they can only be used with SIM cards for French carriers. Should an owner want to call outside of France, they will still need a plan with a French carrier and the money to pay roaming fees. [full story]

December 4 - 11:55pm EST   Palm recently announced the availability of unlocked Treo 750 smartphones, shipping with Windows Mobile 6. Previously available only through AT&T, the unlocked smartphone can be used through any GSM service provider. The Treo 750 features a Palm handheld PDA in the same package as a five-band world phone. With Windows Mobile 6 built-in, the device can sync with Exchange Server 2007. Palm is selling the unlocked unit through its retail and online stores for $550. [full story]

December 3 - 9:30am EST   A ruling on German sales of the iPhone has been delayed by one day, the Hamburg District Court has announced. A judge had been set rule Monday on T-Mobile's appeal of an injunction granted to Vodafone, but an unspecified issue has pushed the decision to Tuesday afternoon. The preliminary injunction was issued in late November, when Vodafone charged that the exclusive availability of the iPhone through T-Mobile was unfair; in filing its appeal, T-Mobile stated that it would consider seeking damages for lost sales. [full story]

November 30 - 6:00pm EST   Apple is threatening Danish wireless distributor Telekæden with legal action, after the chain has been selling unlocked iPhones without the company's permission. Politeken.dk reports that Telekæden is selling the units for almost 6,000 kr (~$1200 US) through its website, unlocked so that they may be used with any GSM-based carrier, which counters Apple's current business model for the device. Apple intends to release the iPhone in Denmark under the same business model – providing a locked version to a preferred GSM carrier – despite running into numerous legal hitches in both France and Germany. [full story]

November 29 - 11:25am EST   Members of the Dutch royal family are among the latest to own iPhones, German and Dutch sites are reporting. Willem-Alexander, the Prince of Orange and heir to the Dutch throne, was yesterday spotted buying two iPhones with his wife, the Argentinian-born Máxima. The purchase was unusual in that it was not made at a European store, but rather at Apple's Fifth Avenue outlet in New York City, where the iPhones are by default locked to AT&T; to use an iPhone in the Netherlands, owners must either buy an unlocked device from France or Germany, or else install hacks. [full story]

November 28 - 5:00pm EST   French iPhone users will have to wait for visual voicemail, and a website is offering Canadians the chance to purchase an unlocked iPhone just in time for Christmas. With the iPhone launch in France just around the corner, Orange has officially noted that visual voicemail services will not be immediately available, that users will have to wait until the end of January to use the function. In addition to this setback, SetteB.IT reports that Orange will also apply a 500MB limit to EDGE data connections, and will limit access to any of the 30,000 Orange hotspots to 10 hours per month, or 100 hours for customers with the upper level plan. SetteB.IT also discovered that ... [full story]