George Hotz stood in the kitchen of his family home in Glen Rock, N.J., and announced his breakthrough to the world: He had liberated the hottest cellphone in history.
The 17-year-old, a curly-haired kid on his way to college, made his revelation not at a news conference but in a YouTube video. He had unlocked the iPhone from AT&T's wireless network, freeing the gadget for use on other mobile networks, including those in Canada. He was using his phone, in fact, on the rival T-Mobile network.
"I started working on it the day it came out," he told The Globe and Mail Friday after posting a complex step-by-step guide to unlocking the device.
The young hacker was one of thousands who queued for hours to buy the eagerly awaited iPhone the day it hit U.S. shelves in June. Many of them immediately began looking for a way to break the electronic chains binding it to AT&T.
The phone is sold only in the United States and is "locked" to the AT&T network as part of a two-year exclusivity deal between Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., and the New York-based wireless carrier.
Its design also prevents easy access to its SIM card, a chip that can be swapped so a phone can be transferred from one phone company network to another. The cards can usually be switched easily. In addition, many of the iPhone's features work only with the SIM card that comes installed.
The unlocking solution, which Mr. Hotz posted to his blog Friday, is difficult to follow and took him about two hours to perform.
"It's a complicated hardware method," he said Friday. "… You just open up your iPhone, solder some wires, run some programs that are out and then you get an unlocked iPhone."
Kevin Restivo, an analyst at telecom consultancy SeaBoard Group in Toronto, said the complexity of this so-called solution will keep it from having much of an impact.
"It's far too complicated for the layperson to deal with right now," he said, adding the iPhone's high price would dissuade most people from trying to make the changes.
"We're talking about $500 or $600 that could easily go down the drain if something goes wrong," he said.
Mr. Hotz, who is leaving home Saturday for his first year studying neuroscience at the Rochester Institute of Technology, wrote on his blog that he was sorry the instructions were so hard to follow. He also wrote that he hopes someone will soon be able to come up with a way to unlock the iPhone using only software.
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The 17-year-old, a curly-haired kid on his way to college, made his revelation not at a news conference but in a YouTube video. He had unlocked the iPhone from AT&T's wireless network, freeing the gadget for use on other mobile networks, including those in Canada. He was using his phone, in fact, on the rival T-Mobile network.
"I started working on it the day it came out," he told The Globe and Mail Friday after posting a complex step-by-step guide to unlocking the device.
The young hacker was one of thousands who queued for hours to buy the eagerly awaited iPhone the day it hit U.S. shelves in June. Many of them immediately began looking for a way to break the electronic chains binding it to AT&T.
The phone is sold only in the United States and is "locked" to the AT&T network as part of a two-year exclusivity deal between Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., and the New York-based wireless carrier.
Its design also prevents easy access to its SIM card, a chip that can be swapped so a phone can be transferred from one phone company network to another. The cards can usually be switched easily. In addition, many of the iPhone's features work only with the SIM card that comes installed.
The unlocking solution, which Mr. Hotz posted to his blog Friday, is difficult to follow and took him about two hours to perform.
"It's a complicated hardware method," he said Friday. "… You just open up your iPhone, solder some wires, run some programs that are out and then you get an unlocked iPhone."
Kevin Restivo, an analyst at telecom consultancy SeaBoard Group in Toronto, said the complexity of this so-called solution will keep it from having much of an impact.
"It's far too complicated for the layperson to deal with right now," he said, adding the iPhone's high price would dissuade most people from trying to make the changes.
"We're talking about $500 or $600 that could easily go down the drain if something goes wrong," he said.
Mr. Hotz, who is leaving home Saturday for his first year studying neuroscience at the Rochester Institute of Technology, wrote on his blog that he was sorry the instructions were so hard to follow. He also wrote that he hopes someone will soon be able to come up with a way to unlock the iPhone using only software.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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