PineApple iPhone

Contract Free iPhone 3G: Comparison Shop

Validating Rumors

Beginning March 26, 2009, you can expect to see the iPhone 3G sold without a contract and still locked to everyone’s least favorite carrier, AT&T.

The contract-less iPhone 3G will be available at a $400 premium over the subsidized iPhone 3G, which requires a two year commitment to AT&T ($199/$299). The new pricing model puts the 8GB iPhone 3G at $599 and the 16GB at $699.

Not surprisingly, it is still cheaper to buy an already unlocked iPhone 3G on Craigslist or eBay.

Before rushing into AT&T next week, think about the real value of an overpriced and soon to be outdated, locked iPhone 3G.

Prospective Purchases:
For the same price as a contract-free iPhone 3G from AT&T you can get:

Two MSI Wind netbooks (only because you install Mac OS)

200 tall soy hot chocolates from Starbucks

5 Harry Potter Hardcover Boxsets (Books 1-7)

1 Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

1 Wii and Wii Bundled with Wii Fit

3 Flip Video minoHDs or 6 Flip Video Ultra

4 Nintendo DSi’s

40 Snuggies (with 40 bonus book lights)

2 Amazon Kindle 2s

600+ iPhone Apps

215 slices of Famous Rays pizza (on 11th and 6th)

2 round trip tickets to somewhere in the U.S.

6 Broadway Musicals (12 if you use TKTS in Times Square)

15 trips to JFK Airport from anywhere in Manhattan

At least 75 total items featured on Dealnews.com

1 Labra-doodle

AT&T’s motives behind offering the iPhone 3G without a contract may center around their attempt to liquidate* the current iPhone 3G model, at a premium, before the new model is released, which as many predict, will be in June.

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*AT&T’s stated motives for contract-free pricing are: to cater to customers who would like to purchase a gift, add a line or are ineligible for an upgrade.

A New Year with yellowsn0w: Unlock your iPhone 3G

The iPhone 3G Unlock has Arrived

Sitting in a freezing New York sublet still recovering from an even colder New Year’s Eve filled with long cab rides, empty promises and unattainable resolutions, I find myself reminiscing about the ball drop and people’s lips counting down to yellowsn0w, the first impactful statement of the New Year.

Your iPhone 3G is no longer locked to AT&T or it’s respective international counterparts, so ring in the new year with your carrier of choice. Details below.

As Always Thanks DevTeam!

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Exerpt from the DevTeam:

Don’t eat yellowsn0w!

Hello all,

We wish you a very happy, healthy, and hopeful 2009!

We have released the 0.9.1 beta yellowsn0w 3G unlock application.

RELEASE INFO

Cydia source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/
Installer repo: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/

Apple iPhone 3G: Sim(ple) Unlock

“Choose Your Carrier…Again”

FuriouSim claims to have a working sim-based unlock for the iPhone.

A large slew of sim-altering devices flooded the market soon after the original iPhone was released. It was only a matter of time before they resurfaced to exploit the carrier locked iPhone 3G.

FuriouSim works by “tricking” your iPhone into believing you are using an AT&T sim card. This “unlocks” the iPhone, allowing you to make calls on your own network.*

Sim-unlocks have notoriously claimed to be impervious to iPhone firmware updates, yet, a relatively unheard of FuriouSim becomes first on the scene with a (claimed) “working” carrier unlock for the iPhone 3G.

Wikipedia Exerpt on Sim Unlocks:
The Turbo SIM (also known as TurboSIM) is considered the forerunner of a large family of “Dual SIM” devices (HyperCard, HyperSIM, China3GPP, StealthSim, MagicSIMetc.) that piggyback on a telephone SIM card to alter its normal operation.

More specifically, the Turbo SIM can be used to spoof the IMSI number and authentication key (Ki) supplied by the SIM card to the network, allowing network-locked phones (such as the Apple iPhone[2][3], and more recently NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank phones) to be used on mobile networks for which they were not originally designed or permitted.

*FuriouSim requires a Pwned iPhone to work
(check Officially Pwned for more info)

iPhone 3G: Officially Pwned

“DevTeam Releases Much Anticipated PwnageTool”

What you need to know:

1. It is currently available only for Mac OS (and now Windows)
2. It jailbreaks all iterations of the iPhone (including 3G*) and iPod Touch
3. You must update to firmware 2.0 (1.2.0) and iTunes 7.7

*it does not currently unlock the iPhone 3G for carrier choice, but does
unlock earlier iPhones that have upgraded to the newer firmware.

An excerpt from the DevTeam blog:

“So, currently (when released) PwnageTool 2.0 will support:

iPhone (1st Gen) with 2.0 - Activated, Unlocked & Jailbroken, (with support for third party applications).

iPod Touch with 2.0 - Activated & Jailbroken, (with support for third party applications).

iPhone (3G) with 2.0 - Activated, Jailbroken (with support for third party applications).

We’ve made some progress on the baseband unlock of the 3G device, but at this point PwnageTool will not support 3G unlocking or BootNeuter on the 3G device. It is, of course supported on the first generation device with 2.0. We’ll push out an update with 3G support if and when it is completed.”

DevTeam/Download PwnageTool

Step by Step Instructions (by BigBoss)

Step by Step Instructions (by MacGeek)

Step by Step Condensed Video (by Meebz)

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Apple friendly in 3G

T-mobile prepares the release of it’s iPhone Friendly 3G Data Network.

Much like the critically maligned Playstation 3 Home concept, the overly scrutinied and impetuously anticipated T-mobile 3G network may finally be nearing a nationwide launch.

The launch may conveniently coincide with the rumored iPhone 3G price drop in September.

With Apple and AT&T’s contract renegotiations in place, there exists the possibility of seeing the iPhone distributed to other carriers (earlier than the subjugated AT&T 5 year term), especially since it is evident that stock holders* have lost faith in Apple’s new strategy with AT&T.

*The release of the first iPhone was met with skyrocketing stock values. Apple stocks jumped from $84 (when the first photo was released) and continued to climb until they peaked at $200.

After the “fear-of-recession” crash in the market (around March 2008), the stock dipped to $119, went back to $186 and has now tottered between $150 and $160 (despite the release of the new iPhone 3G, which speculators presumed would have bolstered stock values over the $200 mark).

Apple will not reach it’s projected earnings at the end of this quarter. It may be time for a new strategy “sans” AT&T.