Schiller on iPhone Unlocks and Incompatibility

MacRumors · Sep 24, 2007

Apple's Phil Schiller was quoted by an Associated Press article about today's announcement that SIM Unlocked iPhones may become permanently disabled by upcoming iPhone updates.

Schiller clarifies that this is not an intentional move to disable unlocked iPhones:''This has nothing to do with proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked,'' Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview. ''It's unfortunate that some of these programs have caused damage to the iPhone software, but Apple cannot be responsible for ... those consequences.''
To clarify, this appears to affect iPhones that have been specifically SIM Unlocked to use other carrier SIM cards besides AT&T. iPhones otherwise "hacked" to install 3rd party applications are unlikely to be affected in the same manner.

There has already been one tutorial on how to relock your iPhone. We'll be posting coverage of apps, tools, tutorials at our iPhone blog.

Article Link: Schiller on iPhone Unlocks and Incompatibility

gugy · Sep 24, 2007

anybody surprised by this?

Apple is doing what is the right thing.

notjustjay · Sep 24, 2007

"My pals Guido and Luigi here, they suggest you pay us. You know, to protect you. This has nothing to do with proactively jumpin' you, or nothin'. I'm just saying... it'd be real unfortunate if anything happened to you, is all..."

DMann · Sep 24, 2007

fair

no intentional sabotage to hackers. This is merely a warning.

sanford · Sep 24, 2007

Macrumors said:
Schiller clarifies that this is not an intentional move to disable unlocked iPhones.

Ha. I'm anti-unlocking and even I don't believe that. Anybody wonder why it's *all* the unlock software and methods, but *none* of the third-party applications and installer hacks that have "damaged the iPhone's software". Note, damaged to the point that it *cannot ever be restored*?!?!?!? Please, it's intentional. Has to be. They just can't tell a customer base they'd intentionally break something to keep it locked down.

sanford · Sep 24, 2007

notjustjay said:
"My pals Guido and Luigi here, they suggest you pay us. You know, to protect you. This has nothing to do with proactively jumpin' you, or nothin'. I'm just saying... it'd be real unfortunate if anything happened to you, is all..."

Now *that* is about the perfect translation of Schiller's statement.

TurboSC · Sep 24, 2007

That sounds about right... At least they aren't actively punishing those who are increasing the abilities of the iPhone for the general population just the ones who are buying 500 iPhones and selling them in China.

I think it's a very fair move on Apple's part.

DickArmAndHarT · Sep 24, 2007

TurboSC said:
That sounds about right... At least they aren't actively punishing those who are increasing the abilities of the iPhone for the general population just the ones who are buying 500 iPhones and selling them in China.

I think it's a very fair move on Apple's part.

Sorry my friend but I don't think ANYBODY is buying iPhones to ship to china because china already has their own iPhone

badtzmaru · Sep 24, 2007

to clarify, this is NOT a New York Times story. It's an Associated Press story that happens to be on the NYT site.

Iced Angel · Sep 24, 2007

they should sell this product free of any contract ...

chuckles:) · Sep 24, 2007

TurboSC said:
That sounds about right... At least they aren't actively punishing those who are increasing the abilities of the iPhone for the general population just the ones who are buying 500 iPhones and selling them in China.

I think it's a very fair move on Apple's part.

You mean Canda, not China. Toronto has more iPhone users per capida then any other city in the world, and ALL of them are unlocked. Due to a spat between apple and rogers, we wont be getting the iPhone legally up here for a while, and so we'll continue to hack away! (even if it means we have 2 wait to update our software).

mithun914 · Sep 24, 2007

chuckles:) said:
You mean Canda, not China. Toronto has more iPhone users per capida then any other city in the world, and ALL of them are unlocked. Due to a spat between apple and rogers, we wont be getting the iPhone legally up here for a while, and so we'll continue to hack away! (even if it means we have 2 wait to update our software).

I second that !

Am with u my fellow Canadian.

iliketomac · Sep 24, 2007

This could aslo be interpreted as another "cat & mouse" challenge to the dev team (hackers, coders, etc...)

polishmacuser · Sep 24, 2007

so you guys are telling me that i unlocked the phone now and now even if i restore it back to factory settings it will still be broken and im screwed or what? please tell me its going to be ok

im worried

ngdesign · Sep 24, 2007

polishmacuser said:
so you guys are telling me that i unlocked the phone now and now even if i restore it back to factory settings it will still be broken and im screwed or what? please tell me its going to be ok im worried

No need to worry brother, we'll always a way to fix things. Human nature

elcerrito494 · Sep 24, 2007

You guys are brainwashed! OBVIOUSLY Apple is intentionally bricking the iPhone. They don't make any money if people use T-Mobile!

iliketomac · Sep 24, 2007

polishmacuser said:
so you guys are telling me that i unlocked the phone now and now even if i restore it back to factory settings it will still be broken and im screwed or what? please tell me its going to be ok im worried

Right now as of today, NO - even if you do a full restore, your unlocked iPhone will still be unlocked but all the patched files will be gone though so this means you'll have to re-activate and jailbreak again... Just don't do an update when the new software/firmware update is released. Wait it out - and read/reasearch on the dev team's progress when they tackle the next update. Like what Steve implied, it's a Tom & Jerry sorta thing!

So do not panic... yet.

polishmacuser · Sep 24, 2007

iliketomac said:
Right now as of today, NO - even if you do a full restore, your unlocked iPhone will still be unlocked but all the patched files will be gone though so this means you'll have to re-activate and jailbreak again... Just don't do an update when the new software/firmware update is released. Wait it out - and read/reasearch on the dev team's progress when they tackle the next update. Like what Steve implied, it's a Tom & Jerry sorta thing! So do not panic... yet.

ok i have at&t i just dont want to pay the high prices in europe and your saying that the program unlock screwed my phone over damn it

i just dont have to update it thats all ok.....this sucks

a.k.a its the gui version

arn · Sep 24, 2007

sanford said:
Anybody wonder why it's *all* the unlock software and methods, but *none* of the third-party applications and installer hacks that have "damaged the iPhone's software

This has been covered already. The Unlock software modifies the firmware. The other installer hacks simply copies and modifies files stored in the 4/8GB Flash.

arn

happydude · Sep 24, 2007

of course

this is just a good faith attempt to get the apple loyal who happen not to be at&t loyal to get their iphones back to factory settings before the next update. anyone who unlocked their phone did so knowing the risks and understood that this was inevitable. they bought it with free knowledge of a contract to legitimately use the iphone and then worked around it. time for apple to update as they would, they, i'm sure took a few of their iphones laying around and unlocked them, applied the the update and they crashed. iphones not unlocked were unscathed. user fault. iphones can be anti unlocked, be thankful someone figured that one out, so restore your iphone, update it and then go back to doing what you want but be aware you'll have to restore it again during the next major update. nature of the beast, man, nature of the beast.

p.s. if microsoft came up with a phone zune and you unlocked it to use whatever carrier you wanted, do you really think gates or whoever would go out and say, "by the way, you might want to restore your icrapcoloredphonezune back to factory settings because we're about to release an update that might render it as useful as a brick." common, you've gotta be kidding me. apple cares, they understand someone bought an iphone but didn't want the contract, but that person is an apple customer first and they're taking care of all them.

Unspeaked · Sep 24, 2007

I love seeing Apple, the company that lived in an impenetrable castle for so many years behind proprietary hardware and software, having to fend of the wolves (i.e. hackers) now that they're on the Intel platform - with hacked versions of OS X running on AMDs and non-Apple Intels - and breaking into the cell phone market - where I reckon there's people who've been hacking and unlocking for so long and do it so well that they could out-program the entire Apple iPhone Development team combined. It's such a change of pace...

In any case, this is a losing battle Apple is fighting. Especially now that the initial unlock has been released, I bet it takes no longer than 48 hours for the iPhone hacking community to break any subsequent updates.

Unspeaked · Sep 24, 2007

happydude said:
time for apple to update as they would, they, i'm sure took a few of their iphones laying around and unlocked them, applied the the update and they crashed. iphones not unlocked were unscathed. user fault.

You think?

I bet it went more like this: created iPhone update, unlocked some of their iPhones, it worked perfectly, tweaked update, tried it again on unlocked iPhones, worked perfectly, tweaked again a few more times, tried it on unlocked iPhones, crash, BINGO! we have a release candidate!

chimerical · Sep 24, 2007

So does "other carriers" include unlocking to use the iPhone with your existing AT&T SIM cards? (This would be for those who don't want to start a new 2-year plan with a data plan, while sacrificing visual voicemail.)

seedster2 · Sep 24, 2007

polishmacuser said:
so you guys are telling me that i unlocked the phone now and now even if i restore it back to factory settings it will still be broken and im screwed or what? please tell me its going to be ok im worried

Stop the panic

Just dont update the software until you hear otherwise. You're phone will continue to work without issue

Djspice · Sep 24, 2007

happydude said:
p.s. if microsoft came up with a phone zune and you unlocked it to use whatever carrier you wanted, do you really think gates or whoever would go out and say, "by the way, you might want to restore your icrapcoloredphonezune back to factory settings because we're about to release an update that might render it as useful as a brick." common, you've gotta be kidding me. apple cares, they understand someone bought an iphone but didn't want the contract, but that person is an apple customer first and they're taking care of all them.

This is probably one of the most intelligent things I've read in these forums in a while. Keep it up happydude!

Schiller on iPhone Unlocks and Incompatibility

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