Apple declares war on modders

I’ve heard of companies not liking modders, but wow, Apple is certainly taking it to extremes. If you have unlocked your iphone, their latest firmware 1.1.1 actually makes “bricks” or makes the phone useless if it detects it. Talk about extreme measures. They actually will make inoperable something that cost $400-600 just by a simple update. While probably not illegal, it sure is unfriendly as heck. Even Sony and Microsoft have never actually destroyed the firmware in a PSP or PC when they detect someone has used a hacked version of PSP software or a pirated copy of Windows. Well, it will be interesting to see what happens next. They have not tried to drive folks out of business yet, so sites like “modmyiphone.com”:http://modmyiphone.com are still up, but I’m sure that is just a matter of time.

Here are the instructions in case that site comes under attack:

h2. iPhone unlock Part 1 under OS X

# Take your iphone out of the box
# Make sure iTunes is off, Start /Applications/Utilities Activity monitor and kill the process iTunesHelper
# Plug the iphone into your computer
# Download iPhone 1.0.2 firmware from “Apple”:http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iPhone/061-3823.20070821.vormd/iPhone1,1_1.0.2_1C28_Restore.ipsw
# Put the iPhone into restore mode by turning it off (hold down the sleep button for 5 seconds), then hold the Home and the Sleep button for 25 seconds
# Start iTunes and it will ask if you want to restore and hold the Option key down and press restore and select the iPhone 1.0.2 firmware.
# Make sure you don’t upgrade to 1.1.1!
# Download the Independence applications to your Mac. This unshackles the mac also known as jailbreaking so you can install applications on it
# Find the 1.0.2 firmware in ~/Library/iTunes/Updates and rename it to a .zip file and unzip it, point to this when you run Independence unshackling
# Now download the Apptapp installer software and it will install an application installer on your iphone
# Install Community Sources, BSD Subsystem and then OpenSSH from your iPhone’s new AppTapp button
# Download Cyberduck, a freeware ftp application for the mac, and also lockdownd and unlock.app
# Figure out the IP address of your iphone by going to Settings Wireless DHCP
# SFTP lockdownd to /usr/libexec and unlock.app to /Applications on your iPhone. The default username is root and password is dottie.
# Turn off and on the iPhone and you’ll see the Unlock application.
# Take out the SIM and run the application

Good luck!