I have grown increasingly skeptical about iPhone SIM Free’s claims of having a software unlock for the iPhone once they started taking pre-payments and then started pushing back the release date. However, they are promising they will start distributing the unlocks to wholesale customers tomorrow, so we’ll soon see if they are the real deal.
They are only selling the unlock through 3rd party retailers, not direct.
If you are going to be retailing selling the unlock software, or unlocked iPhones, send me an e-mail about getting a mention on this site. We get a few thousand people a day on this site, and most of them have been Googling for an iPhone unlock.
It’s been a week and a half since a group called iPhoneSimFree demonstrated a software iPhone unlock to Ryan Block of Engadget with the promise to start selling it within a week or so. Recently they sent out e-mail with a wholesale price list ($25-38/phone, depending on order size) and indicated that they were taking pre-orders. People hoped to see a release this weekend, and again this morning, but so far, still nothing.
More and more people are beginning to doubt that they have anything to offer at all, and that Ryan is either a dupe or a shill.
They seem to be playing a dangerous game here. If they have a real unlock, then it has a limited shelf life. Apple can update the firmware and break it, and the longer they wait, the more likely they are to have a competitor, which at some point will certainly include an open source solution.
On the other hand, if they don’t have a real unlock, it may be in their interest to play for time. For one thing, they can accumulate a lot of cash via preorders before skipping out on their commitments, or if the open source hack comes out, they can repackage it and claim to have fulfilled their end of the bargain. Either way, they wouldn’t be around long.
Meanwhile, tempers are flaring in various iPhone forums as the skeptics, the true believers, and the shills face off.