A few questions from a Iphone N00b

[dreadlk]

Just got a 3G Iphone 2 weeks ago and I am using it on another service not ATT. I have to say this thing is fantastic, one of my best purchases ever.

I just had a few Technical questions that I cannot find answers for and i was hoping a Guru on this forum could help.

1) What makes the phone "Locked" is there some line of code inside that ties it to ATT? When a person unlocks a phone is it truly unlocked or are we bypassing some form of authentation process? Does YellowSn0w really restore the phone to factory unlocked status?

2) Is there a truly unlocked Iphone sold by ATT in the USA? All these "Unlocked phones" I see on the net I suspect have been unlocked by individuals.

3) Is there any really good app out there that shows the signal strength coming from each of the 10receivers? I am mainly interested in knowing how strong my GPS signal is and the 3G vs Edge

4) Whats the best hardware diagnostic App that one can get for the iphone?

Thanks for any help.
BTW I love this forum it comes up every time I ask a question about the Iphone in google


2)

[gQstatus05]

In DJ Khaleds voice "We The Best!!" The phone is unlocked. All it does it break the carrier restriction. Many wireless companies sell unlocked phones, usually by special request and purchased by big companies.

If you are seeing a phone that says unlocked on sale on the internet then for the most part it is. Doesn't matter if the carrier unlocks it or an individual. To my knowledge I don't know if an unlocked phone can be reversed, there would be no need to anyway.

I don't think there is a hardware diagnostic app on the iPhone. I know that the BB BOLD has it, but not the iPhone.

You might want to google search that.

[_ducky]

Eh, your answer is misleading in some ways. A soft-unlocked iPhone is definitely not the same as a factory-unlocked iPhone. The two are functionally equivalent, but while you can wipe out a soft-unlock with a restore or software update, there's nothing you can do to a factory-unlocked phone to re-lock it.

Factory-unlocked phones are unlocked based on their IMEI, from what I know. On soft-unlocks, it's just a piece of software. In that way, I guess it is more like an authentication bypass.

[gQstatus05]

Ok if you unlock an iphone with the unlock code isn't it permanently unlocked. Soft unlock? What's the point of unlocking it that way when you'd have to do it again when restoring.

[dreadlk]

Thanks for the info guys. I tonk that what Ducky was saying was what I heard before. It's like some sort of code is burned into a "Prom" and you can't erase it, only by pass the code that reads it. If thats true then once you do a full firmware update you also need to have a new hack that will patch the new firmware and remove the updated security checks. IOT it's a continual cat and mouse game with a software unlocked phone.

[sziklassy]

Ok if you unlock an iphone with the unlock code isn't it permanently unlocked. Soft unlock? What's the point of unlocking it that way when you'd have to do it again when restoring.

If you use an unlock code from your carrier (a carrier "ok'd" by Apple) they will make note of the IMEI and you are thus unlocked. Though this is technically a soft unlock, the soft unlock being referred to here is yell0wsnow, which is not a permanent soft unlock.