Yesterday Apple announced in a press release that firmware updates may break iPhones equipped with third party apps. The announcement that unlocking programs void Apple’s warranty and may cause “irreparable damage” resulting in the modded iPhone becoming “permanently inoperable” somehow surprised some iPhone users. Other users saw the press release as some sort of threat to the hacking community.
I see the announcement as just the opposite. I mean, Apple has already made its neutral position on hackers clear enough. This press release is just Apple’s way of covering its butt because this next update may really break your unlocked iPhone. For some reason a lot of iPhone users seem to think that modding their phones and unlocking them wouldn’t void their warranty; just check out the angry comments on Gizmodo.
In this article by the Associated Press, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller said that this had nothing to do with “proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked.” Fortunately for those who have hacked and unlocked their iPhones and still want to update their firmware on a regular basis there are a few ways of re-locking the iPhone around.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Erica Sadun, who was quoted in the above Associated Press article, has one re-lock method up and running…sort of. This re-lock method seems to work with some hacks, but not with others, and you still might destroy your phone. Sadun’s article is being continually updated with new re-lock info so keep checking back. If you’re still looking for re-lock code pop by the iPhone Dev Wiki; I’m sure those guys are on it as well.
The discussion continues at Techmeme…