Geohot says “no unlock” for iPhone 3G, only for iPhone 2G on OS 2.0

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 13 July 2008 23:18

Mobility

The iPhone Dev Team says the iPhone OS 2.0 software can be jailbroken and unlocked, and have videos to prove it. But original iPhone hacker Geohot says that while jailbreaking is easy and original iPhones with older basebands can be unlocked, the iPhone 3G is a different story and will take much longer. What’s going on?!

Remember George Hotz? He was the fellow that figured out how to unlock the original iPhone by opening it up and soldering things to the motherboard, and goes by the nickname “Geohot”.

It was a hardware unlock and there were even step-by-step instructions for anyone to follow, but most of the world was waiting for a software unlock which came relatively soon after, making the hardware hack unnecessary.

Still, it was a world first at the time, and it netted him a Nissan 350Z sportscar, 3 iPhones, world fame and more: he was feted as one of the 10 top achievers under 21, won an Intel prize worth US $20,000 and now works for Google.

He was also a part of the iPhone dev team for a while, but had a falling out with them. Even so, he figured out how to hack the 4.6 Bootloader for the iPhone, which the iPhone Dev Team gives him credit for.

Now, despite Gizmodo reporting that the iPhone Dev Team has figured out how to unlock and jailbreak the iPhone OS 2.0, it seems this is only for original iPhone 2G models. The iPhone 3G will be jailbreakable, but not unlockable, yet.

As Geohot explains, unlocking and jailbreaking are two different things. Unlocking lets you use any SIM card in your iPhone, while jailbreaking allows you to run unauthorised third party software on the iPhone and get into its software internals.

Before we get into Geohot’s post, it’s also important to understand a bit of iPhone hacking history. In short, another hacker out there is known as Zibri, of ZiPhone fame.

Turns out he’s accused of either “stealing” or “borrowing” some iPhone Dev Team code and then creating the ZiPhone unlock tool, which some say can permanently disable the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth of your phone because of poor coding.

Now ZiPhone’s software has worked fine for me and others that I know who have used it, but then I’m not a super iPhone hacker with intimate knowledge of hacking nor the intimate details of who backstabbed who in the iPhone hacking scene.

In any case, understanding that ZiPhone has been accused of stealing others’ work makes Geohot’s statement on the true status of the iPhone 3G unlock make sense – if you didn’t already know the background.

So, what does Geohot have to say about the iPhone 3G unlock, specifically to explain why he thinks it isn’t coming anytime soon? Please read on to page 2.

Page 3 has the iPhone Dev Team’s response and pages 4 and 5 have more of my own musings on the iPhone and iPod Touch OS 2.0 software, which I’m now using on the iPod Touch – and loving it!