GENERALLY THE cell phone operating companies lock cellular phone to work only with a particular service. In this case of iPhone, the locked phone works only with AT&T Inc.'s EDGE network, and thus cannot be used with other cellular service providers. This locking technique is generally used for monopolizing and also to recover the cost of subsidizing handsets for their customers.

The AT&T has not subsidized the iPhone, which is priced at either US$499(Approx Rs 20,459) or $599 (Approx Rs 24,559), for varied models.  But the phone is simply locked to monopolize, as AT&T Inc and Apple Inc, have signed a five year agreement for sole distribution of iPhone in U.S.

This compulsion was undesirable by the hacker community. If they become successful in unlocking the phone, this shall be a benefit to all the customers locked with some other carrier in U.S and also to the users wanting to buy iPhone outside U.S. Even though it looks simple it’s not an easy task, the hackers will have to initially triumph over many challenges. One of those challenge involves circumventing the verification process in iTunes that both lets users register for an AT&T service plan and turn on the phone's features, including its camera and music player.

Few days back, hackers had made significant development in spoofing the activation and authentication process. This shall also prevent the SIM locking. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing. This technique permitted hackers to write and read data on the iPhone together with the capability to query whether a phone has been activated. This is a significant progress to unlock the iPhone as the rest is simple legwork.

After clearing the activation issue, hackers will have to overcome with other issues like: does iTunes have the capacity to identify a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react? Once these issues are overcome, hackers would have to concentrate on unlocking the handset. This shall not be a difficult job, as the iPhone uses a removable SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of the hardwired console. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can very likely be cracked.

While hackers race ahead to unlock the iPhone as quickly as possible, iPhone developers and distributors face a serious crunch to their estimated growth and profit.