How To: Upgrade Apple iPhone to v2.0 Unlocked

With the much anticipated announcement by the iPhone Dev team, the iPhoneWriter.com team decided to upgrade the software on our original iDay One Apple iPhone 2G.  The short story is the upgrade was 100% successful, with zero issues encountered (way to go iPhone Dev team!) The longer story is detailed below, in the form of a How-To.

To start with, we needed the necessary software, which included upgrading iTunes to the latest v7.7 release. The only other software required is the latest version of the PwnageTool program and the related 3.9 and 4.6 Bootloader files.

Here's the high-level steps we followed:

• Upgraded iTunes to the v7.7 release. Launched iTunes to ensure it upgraded successfully then closed it and ensured it was no longer running.
  
• Downloaded version 2.0 of the PwnageTool progam and the related 3.9 and 4.6 Bootloader files.
  
• Connected the Apple iPhone to the computer (notes about our Apple iPhone: original, iDay One Apple iPhone 2G; Bootloader v3.9; running v1.1.4 all the correct firmware versions; unlocked and using T-Mobile.)
• Launched the PwnageTool program and selected the Apple iPhone (not the Apple iPhone 3G!) and followed the PwnageTool program step-by-step to create a custom IPSW (Apple iPhone Firmware) file.
  
• Once the PwnageTool program was done and the custom IPSW file was created, closed the PwnageTool program and launched iTunes.
• Used the custom IPSW file (Apple iPhone Firmware) to restore the Apple iPhone, by clicking OPTION+RESTORE in iTunes and "browsing" to select the custom IPSW file created by the PwnageTool program.
• When iTunes completed restoring the Apple iPhone, closed iTunes and let the Bootneuter program run it's course, with no interaction or interference. The Bootneuter program runs on the actual Apple iPhone, not your computer, and is built into the custom IPSW file when the unlock feature is selected in the PwnageTool program. 
• That's it!  Once the Bootneuter program completed and the Apple iPhone was done rebooting itself, we were done and enjoying the new v2.0 Apple iPhone software.  The entire start-to-finish process took less than an hour to complete.

The team at ModMyiFone.com posted tutorials for both Apple iPhone 2G and Apple iPhone 3G owners, complete with pictures and links to the required software. If you want or need the details behind each of the high-level steps above, be sure to check them out.

Much thanks to the iPhone Dev Team for their hard work on the new PwnageTool program. We're looking forward to seeing what they come up with next (like an unlock for the new Apple iPhone 3G!)