Basebands essentially control the phone (calls and data) portion and I think the gps. Apple usually updates it to fix bugs or improve quality of the phone functions. But we all know they also do it to patch exploits for unlocking
The dev-team doesn't give specific release dates, because god forbid something unseen happen and a fix is needed then the release date was delayed because of it, and a lot people would be upset unfairly. Remember, ultrasn0w, redsn0w, and pwnagetool are all free of charge.
Thanks for the info on the reason for basebands. I am sure the unlock will come soon (few weeks) there is so much buzz about it on the net... Everyone is hungry for it and all iPhones are coming out with the same baseband.
Regarding release date for unlock- if it's baseband 01.01.04, then two events need to occur. First Apple to release IOS 4.1. Secondly the release of ultrasn0w 2.2. Until then, dates are purely speculative. Please follow these 2 issues.
Yes, sorry. I meant first Apple to release IOS 4.3, then ultrasn0w 2.2 needs to be released in order to have unlock for baseband 02.01.04. BTW, I just tried again to have my bb 02.01.04 iphone unlocked in Shanghai but not possible here as well.