Apple lobs $100 credit at iPhone buyers
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El Reg demands an apology Much to our surprise, Apple mavens have revolted against Steve Jobs. And he's trying to appease them.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Efforts to unlock Apple's iPhoneÂ continued on Monday, with hackers claiming "very significant progress." The locked iPhone only works with AT&T's EDGE network, and cannot be used with cellular service from other providers. Locked phones are generally used to help operators recoup the cost of subsidizing handsets for their customers, but AT&T is not subsidizing the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599, depending on the model. Instead, the phone is locked because AT&T has a five-year agreement with Apple to be the sole iPhone provider in the U.S. Unlocking the iPhoneÂ would be a boon for users locked into a contract with another U.S. carrier, or for users outside the U.S. who want an iPhone. While initial signs indicate an unlocked iPhone is possible, hackers must first overcome several challenges. One of those involves circumventing the authentication 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. By Monday evening, U.S. time, hackers had made headway towards circumventing the activation process. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing. "We have been fairly successful in spoofing iTunes activation processes. This should allow us to activate the phone," poster gj wrote on the iPhone Dev Wiki, one of several Web sites tracking efforts to unlock the phone. "It may in fact also prevent the SIM locking from occurring in the first place ... though we haven't verified this yet." These advances allowed hackers to set and read data on the iPhone, including the ability to query whether a phone has been activated. "The rest of our work is legwork really, in understanding how certain functions operate with the rest of the phone," the site said, adding hackers are close to the ability to browse system files on the iPhone, a key step toward unlocking the handset. Once the activation problem has been overcome, hackers will be faced with other questions. For instance, does iTunes have the ability to recognize a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react? After these questions are resolved, hackers can focus on unlocking the handset itself. That task is made easier by the iPhone's use of a removable SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of one that was hardwired into the phone. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can likely be cracked. While hackers race ahead to unlock the iPhone as quickly as possible, iPhone Dev Wiki poster gj criticized those hackers competing against each other to unlock the phone, saying the lack of cooperation had slowed progress. "I can't emphasize enough how much this s*** stinks. Trust me, your ego is not as important as you think it is. If everyone worked together we would have been done by now, but instead we have a******* all over the world trying to 'beat us to the punch,'" the poster wrote. Â
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Blog: Apple details rules for iPhone purchasers.
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Apple Inc. said on Tuesday its hotly anticipated iPhone could cost as much as $3,000 with a required two-year service contract, but a handful of eager fans still lined up early to spend their money.
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Apple Inc  said on Monday it  has sold its one-millionth iPhone, just days after cutting the  price of its smartphone by $200 and a few weeks ahead of the  expected date to reach that target.
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For the giddy Apple groupies who spent hours, or days, in line for an iPhone, it all came down to the final reward: snagging a new technology for $600 that has yet to prove itself.
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Apple Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs disclosed a host of major upgrades to the popular line of iPod music players during a news conference in San Francisco yesterday. But then Jobs topped himself with an unexpected bombshell - a $200 price cut on the new iPhone cellphone.
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It's sort of a mushy number, but Apple said yesterday that it thinks 250,000 of the 1.4 million iPhones sold so far were bought with the intention of unlocking them from AT&#38;T's network.
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Many people who lined up to be  the first buyers of Apple Inc.'s  iPhone made good on  promises to try to flip the gadgets online at inflated prices,  but a quick buck appeared out of reach for many.
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Apple hit its target for iPhone shipments a few weeks ahead of schedule, and one analyst thinks the price cut accounted for more than 100,000 sales last week and into the weekend.
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Apple Inc. said on Tuesday its hotly  anticipated iPhone could cost up to $3,000 with a required  two-year service contract, but that didn&#39;t stop a handful of  admirers from starting to wait to buy the device.
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Apple Inc. no longer accepts cash for iPhone purchases and now limits sales of the cell phone to two per person in a move to stop people from reselling them.
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On Thursday, Apple C.E.O. Steven P. Jobs acknowledged that the company had abused its core customersâ trust and extended a $100 store credit to the early iPhone buyers.
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Apple Inc. cut the price of its top-of-the-line iPhone by $200 on Wednesday and unveiled new iPods, including a model with an iPhone-style touch screen and wireless Internet connectivity.
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Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs apologized and offered $100 credits Thursday to customers who shelled out $599 for the most advanced model of the iPhone this summer, only to have the company unexpectedly slash the price $200 in a push to boost holiday sales.
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The company is now accepting only credit or debit card payments for the devices so they can track who purchases the phone, according to one Apple Store employee.
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The deal is valued at about $100 million, but the handset maker will be billed based on actual service consumption.