iPhone Hacker Goes To Work on a GPS

Authored by Jay Baage on August 30, 2007 - 10:52pm.

17-year old New Jersey hacker George Hotz, who unlocked the iPhone so that it can be used on any operator’s network, recently traded his unlocked iPhone for a Nissan 350Z. Now he is off to college with his new car and already working on another project - a GPS for the iPhone.

The buyer of the first unlocked iPhone is Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell, a wireless aftermarket company, who also offered Hotz a job as a consultant for the company. Hotz writes on his blog that he has no intention of ever starting an unlocking service and that he only offered the iPhone up for sale as “a piece of cell phone history.”

Hotz, who just headed off for college, writes on his blog that “this has been a great end to a great summer.” For those of you who are interested, his blog also details how he want about unlocking the phone, which he worked on for about 500 hours with a team of three collaborators.

Hotz new project is a GPS for the iPhone that uses triangulation from the cell phone towers. He says he believes the towers are public record and you can use an AT command to get signal strength.

Joakim Baage