How to Unlock your iPhone 3G: Go to Vietnam!

For those that are keen on unlocking their iPhone 3G, the Dev Team’s software unlock is just around the corner (that’s when they aren’t spending their time porting Linux onto the iPhone!).

Why unlock your iPhone 3G you ask? Well, for starters you won’t be limited to either Rogers or Fido as you will be able to use your phone with any GSM carrier. Also, for you travellers out there using your iPhone 3G abroad is something we all crave.

The recent release of 2.2 firmware also included an update to the iPhone 3G’s baseband. In other words, unlocking 2.2 is going to be much more difficult, hence why the Dev Team has suggested to avoid a 2.2 firmware update straight via iTunes (use the PwnageTool to create a custom 2.2 firmware with a preserved 2.1 baseband instead).

How to Unlock your iPhone 3G: Fly to Vietnam

If you’re desperately looking for an iPhone 3G unlocking solution and you can’t wait any longer, what’s a person to do? Easy. Fly to Vietnam to unlock your iPhone 3G!

One of CNET’s editors Dong Ngo has stumbled across a cellphone repair shop that does iPhone 3G unlocking via HARDWARE mods. Yes, you read correctly. The shop’s 29 year old owner, Tuan Anh Do, can unlock your iPhone 3G by taking it apart and modifying the iPhone 3G’s baseband to allow any carrier SIM to work.

What’s Involved in the Hardware Unlock

So what are the steps to hardware unlocking the iPhone 3G? Well, it’s a painstakingly long and arduous process. In a nutshell, the Vietnamese team does the following:

1. Open up iPhone 3G and strip it down to the motherboard.
2. Extract glued on baseband chip.
3. Re-program baseband chip. Glue it back to motherboard.
4. Put iPhone 3G back together.
5. Wipe sweat on forehead and smile you didn’t literally brick the iPhone the hard way (no pun intended). Drink iced coffee (I guess you wouldn’t call it a Vietnamese coffee when you’re in Vietnam? LOL).
6. Repeat steps 1-5.

Check out the following pictures to see how much skill is involved in this amazing process (the baseband is the chip marked with the red x):

The process costs around 80US and takes about an hour. The average Vietnamese salary a month is 100US, so you can imagine how bad people want the iPhone 3G in Vietnam. It just makes you realize how lucky we are to have the iPhone 3G in Canada. 

Props to the Vietnamese team for coming up with this inventive way to hardware unlock the iPhone 3G. So like I mentioned earlier in the post, if you want your iPhone 3G unlocked, it will cost you $80US plus the cost of a plane ticket to Vietnam!

Another solution is to buy an iPhone 3G from Hong Kong as they come factory unlocked over there. Either way, patience is your friend if you’re still waiting for the Dev Team’s software unlock. It will come soon!

Check out the rest of the article here.

Winner of the Black Friday 1Password Giveaway

Last Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving again by holding a contest to giveaway a free license of 1Password, the best password manager for OS X. I got the license for free so I decided to give it away to a lucky reader of this blog. The winner is…

…Ramandeep Katari

Congrats Ramandeep! Check your email for your copy of 1Password. Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to enter my contest! Look forward to more giveaways in the future!

PS – How is it December 1st already?!

**Looking for an iPhone 3G case? Go get an invisibleSHIELD, the strongest protection for your iPhone backed by a 30 day moneyback guarantee, lifetime replacement warranty, and FREE shipping! Use coupon code iphoneinca for 20% off your purchase! Order today!**

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