This is the first day so perhaps the news needs to spread out a bit more or perhaps a few more phone users need to run into this road block. We’ll see.  What I really hope is that consumers will start to realize the reason their cell phones service costs so much is because so many customers get locked into two year deals thus killing competition.  Sigh.  I think that hope is about as high as this petition getting signed.

If this is really important to you, you may want to run out and buy a phone right now because starting tmmw, its illegal. Now does that mean the phone police are going to come knocking on your door tomorrow? Not likely, but that will give them yet one more way to ‘not’ support your phone if something goes wrong. Also if you unlock phones as a business or worse, steal phones, them might find things getting a little more hot down the line.

The good thing is you can buy unlocked phones if you really need to be able to switch carriers and hate dealing with unlocking your phone. Also, there is not currently a software unlock for the latest iphone, so its not like its going to matter in the short term. That being said, there are services out there can unlock the phone for you be getting the unlock code, however I have never tried it on the current iphone 5.

Jailbreaking, most commonly referenced on iPhones, is where you modify the phone’s software/firmware to allow it to run programs other then Approved by the creator of the phones operating system. For example, you can go to the Apple App store on your iPhone and download a number of apps for free or at a price.  The key is Apple controls the App store and thus decides what can and cannot be made available to you.  However, if you employ a software tool like ‘PwnageTool‘ you can download any app you want. There is even an app store just for jailbroken apps called Cydia. This is still legal although frowned upon by Apple and of course not at all supported.

Unlocking your iphone is where you use a software tool, normally created by the same people that created the jailbreaking tools, will allow you to use whatever phone service that is supported by your phone type.  So if you have a phone that takes a sim card, odd are you can use a sim card from another carrion in your country. Some phones are called ‘international’ phones and can support a number of broadbands, so if you unlock your phone, you can take it overseas and use it there.

THIS is what is going to be illegal tomorrow in the US for all new phones.  Now is this a big deal?  Not likely. If you buy say a sprint phone and need to use it overseas, odds are they will unlock the phone for you as a service for free. Also, if you unlocked an AT$T phone, would the phone police come after you?  Doubt it.  Not really worth their time.  However, they may go after people who provide this as a service or those that steal phones and unlock it so that it can be sold?  These guys may want to watch there backs.

Here is the official word from AT&T

Here’s AT&T’s official statement on the matter:

Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.

What is jailbreaking?  This is where you change the restrictions on the phone, so you can run programs that use elements of the phone that Apple decided not to expose to outside programmers.There are tons of cools apps.  I try to keep an update to date list of my top 10 jailbreak apps.

What is Unlocking?  Unlocking the phone is where you change the restrictions on the phone to allow it to use other phone carriers. Most common desire for this is when you want to take your phone overseas.

I heard you can buy an unlocked iphone now.  Yes that is correct.  However, the iphone4s is the first one you can buy unlocked in the US. They are not available to Nov.  Check here at this link.

If I jailbreak my phone, will Apple or my carrier disconnect me?  Is it illegal? So far, I have not heard of anyone losing service. In fact, there was a court ruling stating that jailbreaking is legal.

Ok, HOW do I jailbreak or unlock my iphone? Ahh.. that is harder because there is a constant battle between jailbreak, unlock app and iphone OS updates.  So depending on the version of iphone you are using, and the last time you updated, there may more may not be a jailbreak app out there.  For unlocking, its even more difficult and thus you may be out of luck if you have a newer phone or updated your phone.

Here is an expert from the T-Mobile site.

Already have a GSM phone or iPhone that you need to activate—or have an unlocked GSM phone you want to use on the T-Mobile network? Just get a Micro SIM card and choose a plan. Slip the ready-to-use Micro SIM Card into your phone and you’re ready to go.

$9.99 for the card, free if you get a 2 year contract.

This  of course is from the iphone dev team.  So stright from their site, some links.

The iPhone Dev Team has released a new version of redsn0w, redsn0w 0.9.6b5 that will allow you to jailbreak your device and Ultrasn0w 1.2 to unlock it.

The video guide for unlocking is below and here’s the software you’ll need to download for this unlock:
– redsn0w 0.9.6b5 (download links)
– iOS 4.1 or iOS 4.2.1 (download links here)

Now remember, like anything; I always give a new release a few days to live in wild before using it.  I would do the same here..

All good?  Ok, lets have a look at the video below..  and here the youtube link for us iphone/ipad users.

And really readers I have been saying this for how long now?  NEVER update until its been out there for awhile and you are SURE you can benefit from it.  This update is suppose to make running 4.x on the 3G faster.  Based on the independent test I have seen so far, its better then previous 4.0.x versions, but 3.1.3 is still faster.  I am still running 3.1.3 because there is nothing in 4.0 that I cannot already do, and in the case of multitasking, do better with 3.1.3.

So, yes there is a jailbreak POC out there, but hold your horses for now.

Well, it looks like the good people from the dev-team have updated the jailbreak and have sorted out the MMS and Facetime problems.  From the site..

For those needing a carrier unlock, use the existing ultrasn0w in Cydia on your iPhone3G or iPhone3GS.  After a short testing period, we’ll push out the iPhone4 version.

Note: The earlier MMS and Facetime issues have been fixed.  If you already ran the version with those problems, launch Cydia and accept its offer to update.

So there you go kiddies, and remember, just because its legal now doesn’t mean Apple is happy about all this and they can still decide at any moment that you are breaking the warranty on the device if you jailbreak.  But again, I have yet to have any issues when I bring my iphone in to Apple store for a fix.  And this is normally because I cannot get my Mac at home to do it myself on the VERY rare occasions I have had an issue…   Ok like, ONCE in the whole time I’ve been jailbreaking since iphone 2.

From NBC: Another exemption will allow owners of used cell phones to break access controls on their phones in order to switch wireless carriers.

So now that jailbreaking legal, can we look for Google Voice to come back to the iphone??  Maybe??

Now I would not expect any major changes.  Apple still controls its store and can decided what will or will not be allowed in the store, so in practical terms, nothing major will change short of Apple now having a harder time saying jailbreaking and unlocking will violate your terms of service or your warranty.

Now this ruling does not say that its NOT a violation of your agreement explicitly, and thus Apple COULD still hassle you for jailbreak at the Apple store if you brick it (although I have never seen this happen) .

I will update this post as I get more information.

From NBC: Owners of the iPhone will be able to break electronic locks on their devices in order to download applications that have not been approved by Apple. The government is making that legal under new rules announced Monday.

The office looks at copyright law every three years in order to make revisions or exemptions. The six “classes” now exempt from prosecution under the DMCA are:

1. Defeating a lawfully obtained DVD’s encryption for the sole purpose of short, fair use in an educational setting or for criticism

(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

(3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

4. Circumventing video game encryption (DRM) for the purposes of legitimate security testing or investigation

5. Cracking computer programs protected by dongles when the dongles become obsolete or are no longer being manufactured

6. Having an ebook be read aloud (is for the blind) even if that book has controls built into it to prevent that sort of thing.