Good news for folk in China using an iPhone 3G from the States

If you have a US iPhone 3G and have been tempted by repeated reminders in iTunes to upgrade to the 2.2 version of the iPhone firmware, you may soon be able to give in to the temptation without fear of relocking your device to AT&T. The iPhone Dev Team has announced that they will be launching a software hack to unlock your 3G iPhone on New Year's Eve. This will allow you to upgrade your firmware and keep it unlocked for use in China or anywhere else with a GSM network for that matter.

If your happen to be going through Hanoi though, you might want to consider a more permanent solution to your iPhone woes. Check out this post in CNET that shows you how the Vietnamese unlock your iPhone. Kids, please don't try this at home.

For those of you who don't have an iPhone but secretly want one and don't mind paying a little more, you can buy an officially unlocked one from the Apple Hong Kong site if you have a Hong Kong address to send it to or buy one from Singapore where Singtel isn't legally allowed to lock the iPhone.