Mod Your iPhone – For Fun or Profit?, 2007-09-04
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Lock Me Up – Hardware and Software
AT&T, and therefore the iPhone, is on the GSM network. This network is the de-facto international standard for mobile service, and allows a user to go from one country to another. GSM phones have a “Subscriber Identity Module” or SIM chip which identifies both the phone and phone number and the telecommunications provider. One of the beauties of SIM chips is that you can pop one out and replace it – giving your phone a new telephone number or a new provider. Want a new phone? Buy it, pop in your old chip, and voila!
While this ability may not be particularly useful in the United States, since you have a commitment of two years with AT&T, and because your only other GSM provider is T-Mobile (six of one, half a dozen of the other), it has some utility nevertheless. A person who either has or wants T-Mobile service would theoretically be able to buy an iPhone and use it on their old plan without entering into a long term contract with AT&T.
The real beauty of popping a SIM chip in and out lies with international calling or international travel. Let’s take this example: Say you take your AT&T phone with you to the UK and you keep your US phone number. You can make and receive phone calls if you pay a roaming fee and/or get a calling plan that allows international roaming. Or you can file a lawsuit asserting that you didn’t know about the roaming charges for data service, as one New Yorker recently did after receiving a $2,000 phone bill for a week of data roaming in Mexico. (One remedy sought? Force AT&T to give up the unlock codes.) Now, while voice roaming charges might be understandable if you are calling from the UK to the US, what if you are calling from Piccadilly to Trafalgar? That’s an international call from a US-based phone. The easiest solution? Pop in a SIM chip from UK provider Orange, and you get a UK telephone number to make local calls.
Most phones sold outside the United States have the capability of exchanging SIM chips, just like that. But, of course, this would deprive AT&T a source of revenue for international calls, and would allow both T-Mobile customers and other customers of GSM providers to bypass AT&T entirely. In fact, AT&T has an exclusive contract with Apple to be the sole provider of services for the iPhone.
What providers in the US do is to provide a software “lock” to the phone. Pop in a new SIM chip, and it won’t work – ever. Even after the iPhone two year contract is up, AT&T says it won’t unlock the phone. So you either stay with AT&T for the rest of your life, or you have just purchased a $600 iPod.
So, as soon as the iPhone was released, modders around the world began pursuing the “holy grail” of iPhone hacks – to unlock the phone by bypassing the software protections designed to prevent the phone from recognizing and processing the new SIM chip. If successful, this would “open up” the iPhone to the world, but would bypass AT&T. When modders reportedly were successful in unlocking the iPhone, AT&T reportedly sent lawyer letters demanding that they stop.
Legal to Unlock?
While the “cease and desist” letters have not, at this juncture, been posted online, there are several legal theories AT&T might pursue to attempt to prevent the use, distribution or sale of unlock codes, software or instructions.
Breach of Contract
In addition to the service contracts with AT&T, when you use the iPhone you also enter into a bunch of other contracts. For example, there’s a warranty agreement (PDF) with Apple (or more accurately, a limitation on warranty agreement with Apple). Now, there’s a common perception that making changes to your hardware or software “voids” the warranty, but reading the warranty carefully indicates that this is NOT the case. The warranty provides that it doesn’t apply to damage caused by service (upgrades and expansion) performed by a non-Apple authorized person. So if your unauthorized change causes damage, you are out of luck. Also, if there is damage to a “product or part” that has been modified to alter functionality without Apple’s consent, the warranty no longer applies to that “product or part.” But it’s not clear whether, if you make an unauthorized change to your iPhone, and some OTHER thing goes wrong with it, your warranty still applies. (e.g., you alter your car radio, and the brakes fail.)
In addition to the hardware warranty, there’s also an End User License Agreement for the iPhone software. Here are a few fun things about this contract: First, unless you know where to look on the Apple website, you don’t get to see this contract until AFTER you buy the iPhone, and open it. In fact, once you do that, you can’t return the product without paying a substantial “restocking fee.” (Another form of liquidated damages?) Second, of course you can’t change, modify, or in any way negotiate the agreement. You are stuck with it. This software agreement provides that:
“Except as and only to the extent permitted by applicable law, or by licensing terms governing the use of open-sourced components included wit the iPhone Software, you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive the source code of, modify, or create derivative works of the iPhone software, iPhone Software Updates, or any part thereof. Any attempt to do so is a violation of the rights of Apple and its licensors of the iPhone Software and iPhone Software Updates. If you breach this restriction, you may be subject to prosecution and damages.”
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