Macworld 2009: The iPhone 3G Unlock Is In The Wild!

While I visited San Francisco last week for Macworld, staying at Chez Fruit Brute, I took some extra days for myself to explore the city a bit. Imagine my surprise when I saw the sign pictured in Japan Town! For those of you that can't read it, the important bit is at the bottom in English:

"3G/2G iPhone Unlock Service. AT&T, T-Mobile.... etc Prepaid Card. Smile =)" (The part in Japanese is mostly regular stuff for visiting Japanese nationals and some current specials.)

That's right, the shops in Japan Town have wasted no time in monetising the latest release by our favourite iPhone hacking team, the iPhone Dev-Team: a software unlock for the iPhone 3G!

Thankfully, if you wish to use your iPhone 3G with T-mobile or prepaid SIM cards, you don't have to travel to Japan Town in San Francisco to do it, as the iPhone Dev-Team has made an easy to install application that will take care of the unlock for you. All you need is a jailbroken iPhone and the latest iPhone firmware/baseband (and if you're looking for a guide on how to unlock your iPhone, look no further than right here on Homotron!)

There are some caveats, and the software is in beta, so make sure to read the cautionary notes in the release post for the unlock:

Don't eat yellowsn0w! [iPhone Dev-Team]
(Yes, the iPhone Dev-Team is weird)