Tech Gadgets

The iPhone 3G Gets Its New Year’s Software Unlock

  • Author: admin
  • Filed under: Tech News
  • Date: Jan 1,2009

As promised, the iPhone Dev Team has released their software unlock for the iPhone 3G. The unlock, called yellowsn0w does contain a nice surprise: while the group originally stated you would need baseband 02.11.07 or earlier, the team reports it will work only with baseband 02.28 (meaning the latest firmware, 2.2).

This is a nice addition to the promised unlock, and despite yellowsn0w being labeled as 0.9.1 and a beta, reports are coming in of numerous successful unlockings. Of course, there are issues as well, so read through the comments before performing your own unlock, to decide if you want to do so.

In summary:

  • You need to install the latest 2.2 firmware (downloaded from here).
  • You can install yellowsn0w 3G unlock by using either Cydia or Installer, add the following addresses to add yellowsn0w to your installer application:
    • For Cydia enter: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/
    • For Installer enter: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/

A couple of notes:

If you use T-Mobile in the U.S., remember to turn off 3G.

There’s no PIN support yet. They are still working out the flow for SIMs with PINs enabled. You have to disable any PIN you may have on a SIM before trying yellowsn0w, for now.

The DevTeam also says that once you are done installing yellowsn0w through Cydia:

  • Return to the main Cydia menu
  • Restart your iPhone with the 3rd party SIM installed
  • Wait for the slide to unlock screen, and then wait 10-15 seconds.
  • If you don’t see your carrier name appear, you must remove your SIM, insert it again, and wait 10 seconds. (The DevTeam plans on eliminating this step)

CrunchGear has a detailed set of instructions with screenshots, but advanced users shouldn’t ned it. If you’re not an advanced user, you probably shouldn’t be trying this anyway!

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