Some thoughts on the 'WAIT vs. H/W UNLOCK' decision

[Doctor Sid]

Dear Community!

A 1.1.3 Jailbreak has been found by the dev team, but they are not planning to release it before apple releases the SDK. We mustn't expect this to happen any earlier than february 29th. So are there still 5 hard weeks of waiting in front of us?

At least the dev team must be damn sure that nobody else finds a jailbreak within these 5 weeks, cause otherwise they would not only loose reputation but likely a lot of donations. You can bet that it was not close to easy... According to Zibri they received a leaked copy of 1.1.3 over a month ago. I'm pretty sure they haven't been working on this achievement since january 15th but since last year.

A primary question for the community still remains unanswered: How close does this bring us towards a 1.1.2 OTB S/W unlock? And if one is found, will it also be necessary to keep it secret until the SDK release? Maybe we get some answers so people can make better decisions on risking a h/w unlocking now or keep waiting.

Another question to the pros: Assuming that an exploit in the 4.6 bootloader can be used for a soft unlock in the near future, will people with BL 4.6 phones still have a disadvantage against those with 3.9 (especially concerning future updates, etc.)? As far as i am informed, a software downgrade of the bootloader is close to impossible.

Greetings from Austria!

P.S.: Forget everything you just read an open your mind for another point of view. Apple is a friend and not the enemy! The only companies that really want the iPhone to stay unlockable forever are ATT and T-Com. Apple has contracts with them, so they have to keep them happy. They will always do enough to keep the hackers busy for some weeks (or months) but I'm sure they would never lock down all backdoors (assuming that they could). So I definitely agree with Zibri that a software unlock is 100% sure to come. See how it went with the PSP...

[scammer]

I think right now the Dev Team is taking a beating in the public relations department. I would be willing to be that donations have all but ceased to exist. The fame and glory are gone so why bother? No fox news coverage for the group that unlocks the 1.1.2 with s/w, no fancy sports cars or bundles of new iPhones. Now we will al know who is in this for the pure fun of it and who is in it for the money/fame/glory.

[evar1stovich]

Apple makes money with those contracts. A lot of money. They don't want to keep any doors open, unfortunately...

[freshcuts]

P.S.: Forget everything you just read an open your mind for another point of view. Apple is a friend and not the enemy! The only companies that really want the iPhone to stay unlockable forever are ATT and T-Com. Apple has contracts with them, so they have to keep them happy. They will always do enough to keep the hackers busy for some weeks (or months) but I'm sure they would never lock down all backdoors (assuming that they could). So I definitely agree with Zibri that a software unlock is 100% sure to come. See how it went with the PSP...

but they sure are some greedy m!@#erfuckers!

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/07/19/piper-att-sharing-subscription-fees-with-apple

[Doctor Sid]

Ok, I agree. Maybe not a friend... but still not an enemy ;)
As I said, they will do everything to keep their contractual partners happy. But they'll do more to keep themselves happy. I dont't know how much apple earns with each unlocked iPhone, but I guess it's more than 72$ (3$ per month for 2 years, according to the article).

[freshcuts]

Ok, I agree. Maybe not a friend... but still not an enemy ;)
As I said, they will do everything to keep their contractual partners happy. But they'll do more to keep themselves happy. I dont't know how much apple earns with each unlocked iPhone, but I guess it's more than 72$ (3$ per month for 2 years, according to the article).

from the article:
"roughly $36 million a year"

[jacf182]

It's not very likely that we'll get any answer from the experts. I think that if something has to be said, they'll start a new thread. I don't know if I believe in Zibri and Pspsully, who say a SW unlock is definitely possible, or GeoHot, who says it's close to impossible. I just get up every morning hoping there's something new, but until then, I'll be using my StealthSim which doens't feel really good :(

[mirceahr]

Here's my thought on the whole 1.1.2 otb unlock : buy an *sim and give financial support for somebody who actually does something, i mean who cares that some iphone dev team unlocked the iphone in the past, they ain't doing nothing now, they want money from donations, that's fine, but offer an solution;
They can jailbreak 1.1.3 and they're not releasing the solution, fine who cares!?!?if they did it then someone else will do it soon.
Don't mess your iphone just so you can save some money, if you can afford an iphone can't you afford a 50-80$ *sim??
Screw the dev team they're obviously not helping.

[SaCH]

I've always stood by the Dev Team, but I must say they have made A LOT of bad decisions lately that are so difficult to defend.

Many people, including themselves, claim "they are not paid by you, so you cannot demand anything from them". This is absolutly true, but if they have a sticky asking for donations, the minimum is to inform that they ARE working. Instead of that, they conceal their findings like 1.1.3 jailbreak for reasons that are, at least, dumb.

I appreciate pspsully posts, he has always been aware of the sense of community we are willing to share, but, despite his efforts, it's not enough.

Plase, do not misunderstand me, I am not asking for management or financial or not even status reports. I'm just asking for sharing. Colloquial posts telling "we were trying to do the unlock by old means --dead end". I mean, how many of us realized of Dev Team and Elite Team working together the very same day they communicated their achievement on 1.1.3 jailbreak.

That's not fair for those who make this community. Maybe for the guys in the dev team we're just leeches of their work, but hear me now: we are members of this community because we did trust you, because we did admire you and certainly because we did believe in your skills.

And yes, we do the best tutorials, we do the best helping to each other, and we do our donations when we are requested to support.

If that's not worth keeping contact with us, maybe we are all in the wrong place.

And this is said by someone who is not in a rush to get SW unlock, nor 1.1.3 jailbreak. I'm just an observer fellow.
:cool:

[slimnickyy]

I think right now the Dev Team is taking a beating in the public relations department. I would be willing to be that donations have all but ceased to exist. The fame and glory are gone so why bother? No fox news coverage for the group that unlocks the 1.1.2 with s/w, no fancy sports cars or bundles of new iPhones. Now we will al know who is in this for the pure fun of it and who is in it for the money/fame/glory.

Actually I was thinking the complete opposite. Aside from a few complaints on this page, none of the blogs that usually follow this stuff are writing up about it or voicing their opinions. I mean this could be seen as the collapse of a 'community'. It's no longer a community when you offer support (emotionally and financially) and have no choice in the end. Why should we still donate and consistently pat people on the backs and praise their work if they don't care about your opinion? Their decision might be the best one they've made; however they're simply taking the piss without asking those who've supported them about what they wanted.

If it's true Apple was simply 'waiting to see' and then patched as needed, then I am sure they may decide to dedicate a person or two whose sole task is to jailbreak. Any successes will then be patched and included in 1.1.4 or whatever future firmware. Fixing exploits that can gain root access will be hailed by them as increasing the security of the platform and will be nothing but positive PR for them and conversely nothing but negative for this community.

I suppose we'll have to see how this plays out. Apple is just finishing up a rather large 10.5.2 update and they could easily put a little more focus on patching up this platform.

[scammer]

Actually I was thinking the complete opposite. Aside from a few complaints on this page, none of the blogs that usually follow this stuff are writing up about it or voicing their opinions. I mean this could be seen as the collapse of a 'community'. It's no longer a community when you offer support (emotionally and financially) and have no choice in the end. Why should we still donate and consistently pat people on the backs and praise their work if they don't care about your opinion? Their decision might be the best one they've made; however they're simply taking the piss without asking those who've supported them about what they wanted.




I agree in part to what you are saying. Th epart that is turning people against the team IMHO, is the lack of response from them. I feel that those of us that donated to their cause are entitled to something more than what we have been given. I am older (41) than the average iphone modder and I come from the days when "hacking" was in it's infancy. We donated to sites that decrypted satilite tv cards and as you stated about the collapse of community, we did not have that. When there was an update that locked us out of free programming the dev teams worked to find out how to fix it and get it released back to the community that supported them. Yes, there were groups that charged for the latest fix and those fixes usually lasted longer than the public fixes. All in all the information was made public in one form or another as soon as it became available. However, the people that were doing this were
1. older
2. were not out for fame and fortune
3. respected the community
I do not see the same respect for the community. I am not saying that it is any particular sites fault rather it is community wide. IMHO, it relates to the age of the people involved. It is common knowledge that the kids of today are greedy and have little to no sense of respect for anything other than themselves. I am not lumping everyone under the age of 40 in that group. Just look around at the different forums and you will see what I am talking about. The lack of respect directed at the members is creating a non friendly community. I guess one could sum it all up by saying the youth of today are smart asses. I see it every time I log into a site. This site is one of the better sites in that they moderate members and the staff actually takes the time to do their job. I suspect that the staff is made up of older people. I look at the posts where people are demanding this and demanding that. Wrong way to get your point across. If you are not getting what you want from the people that are asking for donations then do not donate. Simple solution.. Complaining will get you flamed, banned etc. Speak with your money not your mouth. If you cut the head off the snake the body will die. If you agree with the dev teams holding back till this happens or that happens, fine, continue to donate and take what you get when you get it. If you do not agree with the way they are doing things stop donating. Go one step farther, create your own dev team, forum site and run it the way you think it should be run, relase your findings as you see fit and be happy. Either way the information will get out sooner or later. trust me when I say that the elite team and the dev team are not the only ones working on or smart enough to figure out how to unlock/jailbreak iphones. Take a look at the coder for hire sites. Plenty of people are working on this.
Have a nice day..:)