T-Mobile’s ‘Unlocked’ iPhones ‘Freed’ via iTunes

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

You’ll recall Vodafone’s court case against T-Mobile’s iPhone exclusivity in Germany … and the subsequent response by T-Mobile (unlocked iPhones, for a mere $1478). You’re probably also aware of how many hoops have to be jumped through for hackers to unlock or jailbreak their iPhones. Apparently, if you’re connected to the right infrastructure, it’s easy — T-Mobile iPhones, after the IMEI number is recorded and “processed” by Apple, unlock in seconds via iTunes.

The scenario is thus: you go to the T-Mobile store, pay the exhorbitant, er, extra fee for unlocking. T-Mobile records your IMEI, which presumably goes to Apple and is entered in some central database. Approximately 24 hours later, you connect your phone with iTunes, and viola, unlocked “in seconds.”

Besides the fact that it’s only taking seconds, the software version, when checked, remains at 1.1.2, so Apple isn’t making any firmware changes. So, what’s likely happening is iTunes sees the IMEI on Apple’s servers, says “ok, unlock” and there you go. Might it be too much of a stretch to say that hackers might be able figure out just what is being done via the iTunes unlocking, now that it’s available? Probably not.

We Say: Also, remember that France has a law which requires unlocking of phones, and that their launch is Nov. 29th, so this was already in iTunes and just required a flick of a switch, if that, for Germany.

T-Mobile plans to appeal the original court ruling which started all this, by the way. If you can read German (my friend can, and thus clued me into this — but I can’t!) you can see a screenshot (in German) at a German site.