Who will want to pay for unlocking their iPhone now?

Sep 12, 2007 08:08 GMT  ·  By

iUnlock has just released the first free, open source iPhone SIM unlock software. This came just a few days after iPhoneSIMfree started providing their solution to resellers under a specific charge.

The iPhone's price combined with the high data plans that AT&T has brought for the customers who bought Apple's phone from them have made good enough reasons to try to break free of these constrains. iPhoneSIMfree was the first company to sell its solution for perfectly unlocking the device, although it decided to offer it to resellers and not directly to customers.

They took their time in providing this service, as legal issues needed to be solved, in order to make sure that the company could not be attacked by AT&T or Apple. This meant that their shipments started a bit later than previously expected, probably too late, as iUnlock had enough time to develop their own solution.

What iPhoneSIMfree feared most, their new direct competitor, iUnlock will be offering their solution for free. It was something that they must have expected to happen, as a large number of hackers have continued working on their own solutions for unlocking Apple's handset. iUnlock has the credit of being willing to share the result of their work with all the people that want to have the chance of choosing the carrier to support their device.

The disadvantage that using the free unlocking solution brings is that the user has to do it by himself. If the iPhone owner is not much of a hacker, he might just get tied up in the complex steps that he must follow for getting things done just right. It could very well result in destroying the phone's software, bringing some huge losses, much higher than if deciding to stick with the AT&T subscription.