As the dust settles from the iPhone release, two big questions are still on many minds: can the iPhone be unlocked, and if so, how? There are still several known unknowns on this, and very likely some unknown unknowns, but here’s what’s known.

While not a true, full unlocking, Gizmodo has some unconfirmed (we must stress this point) instructions on how to activate an iPhone with no service. What this means is that you can use the iPhone’s wifi and media capabilities, but not anything that requires cellular service. This is, of course, not what most people are looking for, but if you just want to stick it to AT&T (not an unworthy goal) and use your iPhone as a tiny tablet, there you go.

Another site getting a lot of attention is iPhoneUnlocking. The site claims to have unlocked thousands of iPhones already (as of this writing, the number stands at 4231 and is going up very rapidly), yet there are seemingly no reports of anyone successfully unlocking their iPhone, via this service or otherwise. In fact, one customer of the site posted a photo documenting how his iPhone was left still locked. Now, the site protects itself by saying that it only works with a 75-percent of iPhones, so they can always point to such reports as being part of the 25-percent minority, but it is quite suspicious that there aren’t some positive accounts. iPhoneUnlocking also sent out this email yesterday:

Thank you for your interest in iPhoneUnlocking.com

We have had a rather busy day with over 130,000 requests for help
unlocking Apple iPhones.

Unfortunately it isn’t all good news, we have some small problems.

The good news is, we are able to generate unlock codes that will
allow some functionality on the handset. However, you will not be
able to use luxury features e.g. Visual voicemail, no other network
supports these features.

The bad news is, we are having a few issues with iTunes. iTunes
seems to be kicking up a bit of a fuss when syncing with the
handset. This issue is being resolved by applying a small patch to
your iTunes software that will prevent it running certain routines
when syncing with the handset.

We are beta testing these codes and software with a small percentage
(~2%) of users.

We are working as hard and as fast as we can to be able to offer this
service to you with a full guarantee.

You should hear from us soon.

Now, we already knew that Visual Voicemail wouldn’t work on non-AT&T networks, but to trust an unlocking website to write a software update to iTunes just makes the whole operation seem even riskier. We would be happy to be proven wrong, so if you have had success with iPhoneUnlocking, please, leave a comment or email us at editor (at) pbzone.com, but for now, we can’t recommend taking a chance with them.

Where are we left, then? Waiting. It was always unlikely that there would be immediate iPhone unlocking, and it has only been a couple days. One way or another, someone will find a way to unlock the iPhone, it will just take time. We recommend looking at any unlocking services or guides with a skeptical eye until it becomes clear how to unlock the iPhone, though. Don’t risk your credit card number or your iPhone with a below-board operation.

Filed under: iPhone News