Though Apple’s 3G iPhone will remain exclusive to AT&T for years now, industrious hacker types should be able to free their phones from the network within weeks. The infamous iPhone Dev Team that cracked the original EDGE model is claiming to have done it again, with the release of a consumer-friendly cracking tool slated for December 31.
The hack, codenamed “yellowsn0w,” should allow 3G iPhone’s purchased for AT&T to run on competing GSM networks, such as T-Mobile in the U.S., and many others abroad. The hack will require the 2.11.07 baseband (a sort of version number for the phone’s GSM modem software) which means that owners of newer iPhones and those who recently upgraded may be out of luck until further progress has been made.
Although the post from Dev Team indicates that work is completed, its release has intentionally been withheld until New Year’s Eve while it is being packaged into a more easy-to-use format for novices, which should be no harder to use than the existing QuickPwn and BootNeuter tools.
