iPhone Hackers Flip Off Apple With Complete Brick Fix

Undaunted by Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) recent firmware update for iPhone, which renders useless iPhones that were unlocked from the AT&T (NYSE: T) network, a company that sells unlocking software says its product can now restore the "bricked" devices.

The company, iphonesimfree, has new software that breathes life back into iPhones that were disabled two weeks ago when Apple released firmware version 1.1.1. On its Web site, iphonesimfree praises the work of the iPhone/iTouch Dev Team for its "brilliant work in finding an ingenious way to jailbreak the 1.1.1 system."

That work allowed the iphonesimfree people "after some very difficult and lengthy hardware hackery" to create what it claims to be the world's first 1.1.1 unlock solution.

The company calls the new product SimFree v1.6 and it sells it through a host of international resellers.

No Guarantee

The team found that the radio of a bricked iPhone remained unlocked, meaning it could still connect to other carriers, but the phone could not be activated to do so, iphonesimfree explained.

The new software allows iPhone users to restore the mobile phone function while keeping the 1.1.1 firmware installed. The goal of all this unlocking is to allow users to install unauthorized, third-party applications and to free the iPhone from its tether to AT&T so it can be used on other GSM-based wireless networks.

However, Apple can always come out with another upgrade that might return the expensive device to its status as a brick, iphonesimfree warns.

"We CANNOT guarantee that this software will work after any future updates for the iPhone," says the site. "It does currently work on all firmware versions, up to and including, 1.02. We will naturally try to provide our resellers an updated version of our software for each firmware update, it is in our interest, but we do NOT guarantee that we will be able to do so. All updates will be free."

Tempest in a Teapot

Meanwhile, Apple's release of the 1.1.1 patch prompted several iPhone owners to file a lawsuit contending it was illegal for Apple to render their devices useless.

Jupiter Research wireless analyst Neil Strother said the "cat-and-mouse game" between Apple and the iPhone hackers is probably interesting to a relatively small segment of the population.

"I wonder, in the big scheme of things, how this matters to the great unwashed masses who say, 'Look, it cost a lot for this device. If I'm locked in, I'll just live with it,'" Strother told MacNewsWorld. "I understand the urges for it. If I put down two or three hundred dollars for a device, and then have this service commitment, I'm going to be thinking a long time before I mess with it."

Tilting at Windmills

iPhone owners in the United States owners have only one other choice for wireless carriers: T-Mobile, since the devices operate on GSM, Yankee Group analyst John Jackson said.

"The bottom line in the U.S. is the carriers are still in a position to dictate who gets what in terms of phones on their network and the manner in which those phones function," Jackson told MacNewsWorld. "You still have to pay T-Mobile or you could take advantage of the low subsidized price point and use it only as a music player. But you can't buy one without signing up for a contract, so I think this is just going to be an isolated phenomenon."

A "small but noisy minority of technophiles" will engage in battling Apple over iPhone unlocking, Jackson said. "The rest of us will just go buy the iPod Touch when it comes out," he said.