Need an unlocked iPhone? Now’s your chance…

For the moment at least, any version of the iPhone (including the currently selling 1.1.3) is unlockable. However, the next version can’t be far off - likely to be before the end of this month with the promised iPhone SDK - which will no doubt bring a new lockdown. So now’s your chance - get in while you can…

In my previous article 1 million+ unlocked iPhones? You betcha!, I suggested that “Apple will try to very subtlely allow unlocking to continue - driving additional unit sales to meet the required numbers, but in such a way that they don’t upset the AT&T’s of this world too badly.”

So surprise, surprise - all of a sudden we have a major breakthrough with George Hotz’s hack of the 4.6 Bootloader that was previously such a show shopper. (See Apple’s newer iPhones are simply harder to hack.) Coincidence? Yes, most probably, but it’s just what Apple needed to boost rumuored lagging sales - the timing is impeccable.

Right now, you can get a single GUI-driven tool (for Windows or OSX) that will allow you to connect any iPhone (up to 1.1.3) and jailbreak/unlock it for use on any GSM Network. Not that these tools are foolproof (only experienced Techies should play with this stuff - beware, you can still have problems and ‘brick’ your phone if you get it wrong), but it does mean that new iPhones again can be bought from an Apple Store by would-be entrepreneurs/gray-marketeers and successfully unlocked for reselling.

Even BusinessWeek is now highlighting the market implications - see Inside the iPhone Gray Market:

“The device is officially on sale only in the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany… Yet (the booming gray market) is the very real byproduct of pent-up demand for a much-hyped device made by a company that places strict limits on where and how it’s sold.”

“The boom is being fueled not just by short supply of a hot product, but also by scant evidence of interference from Apple or its partners… but the bulk of the unlocking seems to be occurring in places where customers have no authorized carrier to choose from.”

Of course, Apple will want to appear to be taking some action on this, for the sake of existing exclusive contracts with AT&T, O2, Orange, and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile. So you can definitely expect further lockdown steps with the imminent next release of the firmware (1.1.4?).

Always fancied a gray-market iPhone? Jump now before the window closes again…