To this date, the iPhone has only been offered by mobile service giant AT&T (In the U.S.). That has been the biggest down-side to many people interested in purchasing the device. In most rural areas, AT&T simply doesn't offer 3G speeds which defeats the main emphasis of the iPhone. Whilst we were all out spending the last few moments of 2008 with our friends and family, a hacker group calling themselves the "iPhone Dev Team" was hard at work finalizing a program that finally "unlocks" the iPhone.

Wait, it's already been done hasn't it? Negative, there is tremendous difference when it comes to "unlocking" a mobile device and "jailbreaking" a device. When you "jailbreak" your iPhone, you simply are hacking your iPhone to allow it to be updated with a different OS, installing applications that don't come from the iPhone Store, and various other tweets and customization features. However, when you "unlock" your iPhone that opens up the gate to allow you to switch to GSM service providers like T-Mobile, O2, and Vodafone.

The team also noted, "The iPhone 3G is used all over the world with all sorts of SIM cards, and we almost certainly will see untested and unexpected situations. If the soft unlock doesn't work for you on day 1 (literally day 1, of 2009!) then please don't panic or be impatient. This is new territory for everyone, so enjoy the ride as much as you can :)."

Posted: Jan 02, 2009 1:22 am