Apple released its iOS 5 beta 2 firmware late last week, and in addition to modifying push notifications and activating Wi-Fi syncing, it has also killed one of the most popular and user friendly unlock tools for the iPhone 4.
The Gevey SIM unlock is a hardware unlock that requires no modification of the iPhone’s software — so there’s no need to jailbreak your device. Instead, it’s a small plastic device that fits into your iPhone’s SIM slot, with your SIM card inside, and removes the carrier lock on the iPhone.
With the introduction of iOS 5 beta 2, however, the Gevey SIM unlock no longer works.
MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev-Team confirmed in a tweet on Friday that Apple has killed the hack, suggesting it may have been under pressure from carriers:
it’s surprising Apple closed Gevey interposer hole in b2 rather than waiting until final (maybe they were under pressure)
This means the Gevey SIM unlock will now only work for iOS 5 beta 1 and below, until Applenberry — the team behind the device — update it to work with the final iOS 5 release. If, of course, that’s possible.
In the meantime, then, the only hope for unlockers is software unlocks that will require your device to be jailbroken. The downside to that is that there is currently no untethered jailbreak solution for devices running iOS 5.
Are you a Gevey SIM unlock user? How do you feel about this news?
[via AppAdvice]
