iPhone hacker trades reworked iPhone for fast car, job

George Hotz, the teenager from New Jersey who hacked the iPhone last week posted on his blog today that he traded the unlocked iPhone for “a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones” and a paid consulting gig. Hotz said he reached a deal with CertiCell, a Louisville, Kentucky-based mobile phone repair company. “We do not have any plans on the table right now to commercialize Mr. Hotz’ discovery. However, we are keenly interested in having Mr. Hotz assist our engineers in developing solutions to other software related challenges including software updating, reflashing and memory elimination of repaired and or refurbished cellular handsets,” said Terry Daidone, co-founder of Certicell on the firm’s Web Site.Daidone also said Hotz will train CertiCell’s staff on the unlocking process and provide technical support to solve other handset software issues.On Friday Hotz posted a step-by-step tutorial for unlocking the iPhone that involves both hardware and software modifications. His blog also includes photos of an iPhone he said is unlocked and shows T-Mobile USA. as the service provider. He said the job took 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone’s June 29 launch.  At another site, iPhoneSimFree.com, a company claims it can unlock iPhones through software only. A screen image with an item about the company on Engadget.com also shows an iPhone displaying the T-Mobile name. In addition, John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, said his Belfast, U.K., company will be posting software on Saturday that iPhone users can download to unlock their handsets to work with any Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card on any network they choose.