How to avoid waiting a week for AT&T to unlock your iPhone

It has now been a little over one week since AT&T announced that it would officially unlock customer’s iPhones if they met certain requirements. The resulting rush overloaded support representatives, with sources inside AT&T telling ExtremeTech that the queue exceeded 10,000 at its highest points last week. Those early adopters as a result waited nearly a week in some cases for the unlock to be authorized.

Why did the queue grow so big, so fast? The unlocking procedure, and AT&T’s rules on eligibility we’re told. While unlocking most phones can be done without the interference of the manufacturer, Apple does it differently. Access to the tool is limited to technical support and members of AT&T’s “unlock” team, so talking to a regular old customer support rep is not going to do you any good.

After verifying you meet the requirements, the technical support representative then enters your IMEI (the phone’s identification number) into the tool provided by Apple, which in turn activates the unlock and sends the confirmation email to the user. If you contact customer support, those representatives can only open a case ticket, which depending on workload could take days to resolve, our source says.

So what’s the quickest route to unlocked bliss? Make sure all your ducks are lined up before attempting to unlock your iPhone. The result is a much less painful process. Based on my own experience and what we’re hearing, here’s how to legally unlock your iPhone in short order:

1. Verify you’re eligible. Check your account to ensure it is paid up-to-date. Make sure the iPhone you are attempting to unlock is not attached to an account that is under contract. That basically means an old iPhone that’s under a plan which is still under contract is likely not eligible. The easiest phones to unlock will be those that are not associated with any account and over two years old, it seems. If you’re ineligible, be prepared to pay the early termination fee to unlock.

2. Make a note of your IMEI. The technical support representative will need this number, so it’s a good idea to jot it down now. The IMEI can be found by tapping Settings, then General, then About, then scrolling to the bottom. The IMEI is a 15-digit number. Write it down and place it to the side.

3. Backup your device now. If you haven’t synced in awhile, now’s the time. The unlock process requires a wipe of the device. Connect the iPhone to iTunes and allow it to back up. If you use iCloud, many of your settings and basic information is likely already backed up to the cloud, but better to be safe than sorry.

4. Call AT&T directly. Call into AT&T’s customer support. Don’t use the company’s online support system, or in-store representatives. Follow the prompts and press “2″ for Technical Support when the options for the main menu is listed. Select option “0″ to speak with a representative. Make clear that you’re attempting to unlock your eligible iPhone. If you’re not, you will need to tell them you agree to pay for the early termination fee for the right to unlock the device.

At this point, the process is in AT&T’s hands. They should process your unlock immediately since you are talking to a representative with direct access to the tool. Wait for the email to confirm the unlock has been processed.

5. Reconnect your iPhone to iTunes. After receiving the email, re-pair your device with iTunes. Under the “Summary” tab and “Version” section, click on Restore. Allow the device to restore as normal. When the restore completes, iTunes will display the message “Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked.” If you wish to restore your data, click “Continue,” otherwise it is safe to disconnect.

Please note that if you are taking the iPhone to a different carrier, some settings will need to be changed in order for features like web surfing and picture messaging to work. Although it varies from carrier to carrier, many are happy to provide you with the necessary settings to ensure proper operation. For example, T-Mobile has easy-to-follow directions to set up an iPhone.

Your performance may vary, and on some carriers, it still may be necessary to jailbreak in order for all features to work. For example, iPhone users on T-Mobile experience MMS receipt issues — it appears an fix only available for jailbroken phones will fix that issue according to what we’re seeing.

Either way, good luck and happy unlocking!

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DARPA reveals Avatar program, robot soldiers incoming

DARPA, the bleeding-edge research wing of the United States Department of Defense, has revealed that it will spend millions of dollars on a project called “Avatar.” If you’ve seen the movie of the same name — the highest-grossing movie of all time — let me put your mind at rest: DARPA isn’t looking to genetically engineer blue-skinned aliens that humans can control; no, they’re developing robots.

In the words of DARPA itself, the Avatar program will work on “interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bipedal machine and allow it to act as the soldier’s surrogate.” In other words, DARPA wants to develop the walking equivalent of an unarmed aerial vehicle; a bipedal robot drone where the controlling soldier is hundreds or thousands of miles away from war front.

If you’ve been following ExtremeTech for the last few months, you’re probably experiencing sweaty a mix of terror and excitement right now. This Avatar program isn’t some pipe dream: We already have the technology to pull it off. Remember Petman, the walking, kneeling, push-upping bipedal robot? Created by Boston Dynamics, the same company behind AlphaDog, Petman was advertised as a tool for testing chemical protection clothing — but really, it didn’t take a genius to imagine a weaponized version.

Then there’s the interface: A joystick and multi-monitor display would probably do the job, or, if you really wanted to become one with your robotic avatar, you could use a virtual reality visor and a suit with sensors and actuators. Brain-computer interfaces aren’t quite up to the resolution needed, but in the next couple of years they could be a viable option as well.

Really, with this $7 million investment into the Avatar program, DARPA has merely confirmed what we’ve speculated all along: robot soldiers are coming. There was simply no way that a robot like Petman would only be used to test clothing if there was a chance that it might save human lives in the field.

The only saving grace at this point is that DARPA dictates that these robot surrogates must be “semi-autonmous” and ultimately controlled by humans — in other words, Judgment Day at the hands of AI-controlled Cylons isn’t upon us… yet.

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Microsoft quietly kills off the desktop PC

Over the weekend, Microsoft published yet another deep dive into Windows 8, this time focusing on how mobile broadband (3G, 4G) is seamlessly baked into the new OS. Where possible, Windows 8 will automatically use WiFi over 3G to save you money, and there’s granular control over which wireless radios are turned on/off. With Windows 8, mobile operators also have the option of bundling a Metro app that shows your data and messaging usage, when your next billing cycle begins, troubleshooting information, and so on.

By the end of the post I was nodding my head in enthusiastic approval. But as I reflected on the story — preparing to write it up for ExtremeTech, in fact — I realized that something wasn’t quite right. In an attempt to get my head around the niggling doubt, I began re-reading the blog post. It didn’t take long to spot the problem. The first sentence reads: “People want similar mobility on their PCs as they get on their smartphones.” I don’t know about you, but when I look at my PC, I see a device that I really don’t want to carry around with me — and when I look at my smartphone, I see a wondrous fondleslab that fits perfectly in my pocket with only the smallest of unseemly bulges. This is why smartphones — which are computers, don’t forget, just not Windows-powered computers — are exploding, and laptops and desktops are teetering on the cusp of ruin.

To be honest, I am intentionally misinterpreting what Microsoft said. What MS really means is thattablet PCs — not laptops or desktops — should have the same mobility as smartphones. This is a no-brainer; of course tablets should have the same connectivity options as smartphones — and yes, Microsoft has already said that Windows 8 tablets, irrespective of their x86 or ARM underpinnings, are PCs. So far so good: Microsoft was just saying that Windows 8 tablet PCs should have lots of mobile connectivity! Phew.

But then I started to think about just how much of Windows 8 is mobile-oriented. You see, since Microsoft kicked off the Building Windows 8 blog, a grand total of eight posts have been specifically about Windows 8 Desktop. 38 posts, on the other hand, have dealt with Metro and the Windows 8 tablet/ultra-mobile experience. Furthermore, if we break down those eight posts about Desktop, only two or three apply to everyday Windows users (Task Manager and Explorer updates), while the rest apply to power user and server environments (native ISO/VHD support, ReFS, Hyper-V).

Put simply, the Desktop experience in Windows 8 will be very, very similar to Windows 7. As far as the desktop WIMP paradigm is concerned, Windows 8 represents the smallest upgrade Microsoft has ever issued. On the mobile side, however, Microsoft is basically building an entirely new operating system with an equally new touch-oriented UI, an app store, and various other tablet-specific features.

Now, there are two ways of looking at this: First, it looks like the Windows 8 tablet experience will be fantastic, and if MS successfully corrals its army of third-party developers into producing thousands of apps in time for launch, Windows 8 will probably decimate Android and possibly compete with iOS.

The other point of view, though, is that Microsoft is implicitly ringing the desktop PC death knell. As it stands, if you have a desktop or laptop running Windows 7, there is almost no reason to upgrade to Windows 8. Microsoft surely knows the significance of this move — its Windows division pulls in roughly $20 billion per year, a quarter of the company’s entire revenue — and yet it has tasked probably the largest group of software engineers in the world with creating what is effectively a brand new OS. There’s a chance that Windows 9 will be more desktop-oriented, but for that to occur the desktop PC market would have to stage some kind of revival in the next nine months or so — and the chances of that happening are slim to none. Really, this non-upgrade is basically Microsoft’s way of saying that Windows 7 is the end of the line for desktop PCs. All change.

Perhaps Microsoft knows what it’s doing, though: Just a few days ago, Microsoft reported that its Windows division revenue shrunk by 6% in its second fiscal quarter of 2012 — while on the other side of the white picket fence, Apple is expected to announce the mother of all earnings blowout on the back of Christmas sales of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The writing really does seem to be on the wall for the desktop PC.

With this in mind, we now know why Microsoft in general and Steven Sinofsky in particular have been at pains to point out that Windows 8 tablets are bona fide PCs. Microsoft is entering a market that is completely dominated by Apple, while at the same time one of its fattest cash cows is preparing to utter its final moo. The PC branding, as a differentiator and unique selling point, will be vital if Microsoft is to carve out a sizable portion of the pie. On the flip side, though, if Microsoft doesn’t get the launch of Windows 8 just right, the PC moniker could be the kiss of death for a whole slew of upcoming tablets.

I remain positive about the future of Microsoft, though. Let’s not forget that Redmond started work on Windows 8 two years ago, before the launch of the first iPad. If the Redmondians foresaw the death of the desktop PC and rise of the tablet way back then, then perhaps they deserve more credit than they’re usually accorded. If Windows 8 was built from the ground up to be a tablet OS — and it looks like it is — there’s every chance that it will be the perfect progeny to ensure the continuing reign of the PC.

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