Groups Announce Success in Unlocking iPhone

The last few days have seen a bunch of stories announcing that various groups have succeeded in unlocking the iPhone. Unlocking is the process of making the iPhone work not just on the AT&T network, but with any compatible cell phone company/network. This breakthrough would essentially allow anyone to buy an iPhone and then use it with whatever cell phone company they want, not just AT&T, the company Apple has an exclusive deal with.

Most of the unlocked phones work with T-Mobile only for the time being, but this is a big step.

People have been working on unlocking the iPhone since it was released, but many of them have announced success in the last few days:

• iPhoneSIMFree - unlocking through software
• Teens unlocks iPhone, requires soldering
• Second software unlock - but it is delayed by AT&T's legal department

As you might imagine, AT&T is deeply unhappy about this development. And rightly so - it threatens their income and the exclusivity advantage they got from agreeing to a deal with Apple. Expect to see more legal work from them.

But do they have a leg to stand on? Isn't it the user's right to use their phone on whatever network they want? Well, maybe. It's a complicated area of law. You may be able to do it for personal use, but don't figure to start a business on this breakthrough any time soon.

More as this develops.