iPhone 2.0 Unlocked, iPhone 3G Hopefully Will Follow Soon

Last weekend saw the introduction of an unlock solution for the latest iPhone firmware. The first-gen iPhone users will now be able to enjoy 2.0 firmware with any SIM card. The iPhone 3G is not there yet, but there's some progress and we hope it would get unlocked some time soon too.

The popular iPhone Dev Team has come up with the latest version of their all-in-one Pwnage tool for setting your iPhones free via customized firmwares - much like the Windows Mobile community does it. However with the Pwnage Tool you can cook your own firmwares customized to your liking.

For those of you that are new to Pwning here's a brief and simplified explanation. You take an original iPhone firmware file (freely downloadable), you run it through the Pwnage tool customizing stuff on the way (such as pre-installed applications, setups, even custom graphics) and finally you apply it to the iPhone the regular iTunes way. It's that simple.



The new Pwnage 2.0 tool now allows you to (h)activate, jailbreak and unlock the first-gen iPhone running the latest 2.0 software. It's a major upgrade to the iPhone functionality and actually makes the original iPhone software identical to the iPhone 3G.

The Pwnage tool 2.0 also works with iPhone 3G but unlocking is not possible yet. The only available options are (h)activation and jailbreak so you won't be taking advantage of the 3G or any other phone function unless you are using the legit SIM card provided with the iPhone 3G.

The Pwnage tool is immensely popular and it's being downloaded feverishly all weekend. Thanks to your feedback an upgraded version of the tool has spawned - it's ver. 2.0.1.

Unfortunately, for now the Pwnage tool 2.0 is available only to Mac, so to take advantage of it Windows users will need a workaround which requires even more hackery. In case you are interested, you can check the Windows solution here.

The official Dev Team blog is to be found here. A step-by-step guide for jailbreaking the iPhone 3G can be found here.

We should remind you that there are three countries that you can get the iPhone 3G fully unlocked - it's Italy, Belgium and Hong Kong. In Italy the iPhone 3G 8GB would set you back 399 euro (around 630 US dollars) but you will get the device with a pre-paid SIM and fully operational with other carriers.

In Belgium the same thing will cost you 599 euro (950 US dollars) for the 8GB version.



In Hong Kong the only way to buy the iPhone 3G is with a local ID and local credit card. Ingenious sellers there however have already started an iPhone 3G reselling service, but it's costly and the price for a single unlocked unit usually goes over 1000 US dollars.

Additionally, several carriers in other first-wave countries offer official unlocking of their iPhone 3G handsets, but it's usually costly - about 100 euro per device (160 US dollars). For a full list of the iPhone availability and SIM lock status per country, we suggest you visit this list.

Apple iPhone 3G Is Out

The long waiting is finally over folks - D-day has come. Apple iPhone 3G is retailing as of today in as many as 22 countries. The new 2.0 firmware for the original iPhone also surfaced today and as it seems these are only the icing of the cake brought us today by Apple. The iPhone 3G is now better performing, better looking (or is it?) and comes with an integrated GPS. The news doesn't get much better than this for Apple fans, does it?



The specifications of the new iPhone 3G have hardly been a secret for anyone but nonetheless here is a quick refresh to those of you that might have forgotten a few of them. It flaunts the same 3.5-inch display (480 x 320 pixels) as its predecessor but has grown about a millimeter in width, length and thickness. The tri-band HSDPA support will now provide for a few times faster data transfers than EDGE. There is no secondary camera for making video calls however.

The added GPS also comes in with an added A-GPS functionality but as of now only works with Google Maps. This effectively terminates the chances of using your iPhone for turn-by-turn navigation. This is a real pity having in mind the great display but maybe it will be fixed soon.

The App Store has also opened doors today, offering a whole load of applications for your iPhone. It is available through the 7.7 version of the love-or-loathe iTunes for both iPhone 3G and original iPhone with firmware 2.0. A nice thing about the App Store is that it offers a quite a low of the applications for free. There are also dozens of games - something the iPhone lacked until now. You can check out the short reviews of the released games over at Kotaku.Having in mind their acceptable prices maybe it is high time to start considering the iPhone a gaming device as well.

The first day of the new iPhone existence also brought answers to most of the questions troubling fans and potential users' minds. The loudspeaker volume seems to have increased which counts as no less than good news. The original iPhone was really one of the quietest mobiles available, making missing a call in noisy environment very likely.

The 3.5mm audio jack is no longer as deeply embedded and now the iPhone users aren't restated to using Apple's headsets only. Not that there was something wrong with the in-box headphones but still.

Microsoft Exchange is also now enabled with the iPhone, which means that Blackberry's devices will have a harder time standing their ground. Unluckily forwarding SMS is still not an option for the Apple users.

Today we also witnessed the iPhone 3G getting disassembled for the first time. The guys over at ifixit have had the guts of tearing their precious gadget apart for all of us to see how it looks on the inside. The most interesting facts coming from iPhone's bosom is that its CPU is once again Samsung-made and that the display and the glass covering it are no longer glued together. This means that the glass will be easier and cheaper to replace if necessary. The absolute same thing goes true about the battery which is no longer soldered as it was on the original iPhone.

Well, we guess there's really only one question left about the new iPhone 3G: "Will it play Crysis?".