The iPhone normally prevents access to its media player and web features unless it has also been activated as a phone through AT&T. On July 3, 2007, Jon Lech Johansen reported on his blog that he had successfully bypassed this requirement and unlocked the iPhone's other features with a combination of custom software and modification of the iTunes binary. He published the software and offsets for others to use.
On August 14, 2007, Gizmodo reported verification of a method to bypass the iPhone's SIM lock, allowing the phone to work freely with carriers other than AT&T. This method requires a Turbo SIM card costing approximately US$80 and essentially tricks the iPhone into believing that it is operating on the AT&T network even when it is connected natively (not in roaming mode) to another carrier. Australian Personal Computer later published a 10 step guide to unlocking the iPhone using the Turbo SIM method.
In mid-August, UniquePhones announced an unlocking service for the iPhone, only to retract this service the following week after receiving a phone call from a lawyer representing AT&T.
On August 24, 2007, George Hotz, a 17 year old hacker from Glen Rock, New Jersey, broke the lock that ties Apple's iPhone to AT&T's Wireless Network. He confirmed that he unlocked the phone and was using it on T-Mobile's Network. The hack opens up a realm of possibilities for overseas customers because the iPhone is only sold in the US. By unlocking it, Hotz opened up the phone to all kinds of phone networks across the world. Hotz posted the hack on his blog. The process is complicated and requires both disassembling the iPhone and executing software commands on a personal computer. Hotz, along with four others across the world, reportedly spent about 500 hours to unlock the phone.
Also, on August 24, 2007, Engadget reported, by way of photos and a video clip, that they were called by the "iPhoneSimFree" team to view a demonstration of unlocking the iPhone using a software only solution.Unlike Hotz's hardware hack, the code in this hack has not been made available to the general public. Sales of the unlock started on September 11, by way of several resellers who were able to order "keys" from iPhoneSimFree which are then passed onto the customer to use the software.
After only one full day of sales, early on September 12 the iPhoneDevTeam announced that they had also created a working "software unlock", and released it to the public for free.Utilizing the existing unlock requires some technical knowledge, although a GUI-based version is currently under construction.