Travel Technology - Unlocking US iPhone With HK Software?

Since the iPhone is sold unlocked in Hong Kong, I'm wondering if it's technically possible to get a US iPhone and then 'reflash it' with the HK software, thus unlocking it without the clumsiness of jail breaking and such.

If so, I wonder how to get my hands on a copy of the HK ROM/software for the iPhone :)

no...

no...

Umm...care to offer some additional detail?

I think if it were that simple, the people that spend their lives finding flaws, etc in the low level firmware so they can unlock them would have figured that out already.

-David

The unlock is not based on software at all - all the iphones in the world have the same software set, as far as I'm aware. There is no separate software for any particular region.

It's done based on IMEI numbers that are sold in the "unlocked" countries and entered into a database as being "unlocked". I don't think there's a way of hacking that system...

Since the iPhone is sold unlocked in Hong Kong, I'm wondering if it's technically possible to get a US iPhone and then 'reflash it' with the HK software, thus unlocking it without the clumsiness of jail breaking and such.

If so, I wonder how to get my hands on a copy of the HK ROM/software for the iPhone :)

As the others said - it really isn't that easy.

The unlocking scene is immensely complicated, and the developers behind unlocking solutions put a ton of effort into exploiting any tiny hole they can find.

Also, there is no such thing as "HK Software", the iPhone firmware is not like firmware on other phones, and there is no localized version that is unlocked.

There are ways to unlock the iPhone, just head to Google and pick the links from the iPhone Dev team.

I found the technical reason on Howard Forums - http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Unlock#Cloning_Officially_Unlocked _Phones

So apparently Apple has a hidden data sector on the phone with an encrypted flag that handles the carrier lock/unlock. I'm surprised someone hasn't paid an Apple engineer to sneak out the crack for the encryption so a fix can be posted.

So apparently Apple has a hidden data sector on the phone with an encrypted flag that handles the carrier lock/unlock. I'm surprised someone hasn't paid an Apple engineer to sneak out the crack for the encryption so a fix can be posted.

The link you posted explained why that wouldn't work. It's a different key per iphone. They also explained why cloning it wouldn't work.

Those dev team folks are very clever, Stephen. Thanks for posting that link.

-David

thus unlocking it without the clumsiness of jail breaking and such.


Have you looked at the recent tools? Didn't find anything clumsy about.

Have you looked at the recent tools? Didn't find anything clumsy about.

I read a lot of complaints on HOFO about the tools causing performance issues on the phone, reducing speed and even wearing down battery much faster.

I read a lot of complaints on HOFO about the tools causing performance issues on the phone, reducing speed and even wearing down battery much faster.

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/page/2


Unusual battery depletion is almost always caused by people choosing to “Restore from backup” instead of “Setup as new iPhone” when iTunes asks you. This isn’t caused by either the jailbreak or the unlock, but it’s a common 3.0 snafu. The fix is to just re-run the official 3.0 restore and choose “Setup as new” this time. Your music and apps and all that will still be synced, but you’ll get rid of any conflicting wifi, bluetooth, or carrier settings. Then just re-run redsn0w and install ultrasn0w.

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/page/2

Thanks for the tip. I will probably take the new phone through the jailbreak/unlock process before changing any settings or adding apps, so I'll have a clean base to work from.