Kid unlocks iPhone, trades it for a 350z

I once paid 25 bucks to get my Blackberry unlocked and I thought that was alot. Not anymore. George Hotz, a 17 -year old pre-college freshman spent his entire summer (with a few other dudes) unlocking his iPhone. Ever since the iPhone was released, the race was on to see who would be the first to unlock it. After 500 hours of hardware and software manipulation (and tons of Red Bull), George has finally unlocked the iPhone, using it on T-Mobile (the only other GSM network in America). Obviously, this opens up the market for overseas and even domestic carriers to use the iPhone. Good for Apple, not so good for at&t.

It’s definitely good news that the iPhone has been unlocked, but a Nissan 350z for unlocking it? Last time I checked, a 350z was 25-30K. For a phone. Oh yeah, George also got 3 8GB iPhones on top of the 350z. Lets keep in mind what we are talking about here. A phone. Ridiculous.

George isn’t the only one to unlock the iPhone. People at iphonesimfree.com have claimed that they have also unlocked the iPhone, as proved by Engadget. Unfortunately, no car in trade for an iPhone, but I am sure that business will be good or both them and eBay for the next while. In the meantime, George is going to college. After all, he is 17.

You can track the progress of George’s summer on his blog. Heck, if you want to unlock your own iPhone (at your own risk) you can follow the 10-steps to unlocking one yourself. George will be attending RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) this fall, where I am sure you will find some more interesting things to come.

Update: The Geohot hack seems to be getting pretty popular. I have noticed alot of phones surfacing on Ebay, typically in the price range of $800-$1000+. In particular, I noticed a phone in Calgary, Canada that was working on Rogers Wireless, apparently with no problems, as he demonstrated in a video calling random numbers. In addition to this, he has managed to get the You Tube feature to work, which normally would not work on other unlocked iPhones on T-Mobile. My hope is that the unlock becomes more common (and easier), giving other networks and other countries an opportunity to use the iPhone.

Also, the folks over at iphonesimfree appear to be a bit unhelpful when it comes to unlocking one iPhone. It appears that they are a ‘bulk’ (greedy) only company, so you cannot purchase an unlock for a single phone. Wait it out a short while and the unlock will become a bit easier to attain.

Update Update The unlock has now been released by iphonesimfree as of today. The unlock still is only available in bulk quantities, yet you can purchase it from other companies who have purchased multiple licenses. The prices range from $50-$100, depending on who you purchase it from. Here is the link:

http://www.iphonesimfree.com/cgi-bin/iphonesimfree/engine.pl?page=buy

Good luck!