The much awaited iPhone 3g unlock solution has arrived! A big hi-five to the Dev Team for releasing yellowsn0w on New Year’s eve.
One great news about this iPhone 3g unlock solution – yellowsn0w is that it works on iPhone firmware 2.2′s new baseband. We did pass on the earlier warning that this might not work but Dev Team got it to work on 2.2′s baseband (02.28.0.0) as well.
We successfully unlocked our iPhone 3g yesterday and here’s how we did it. I’ll add some screenshots to this post as soon as I get a chance.
Ingredients
- iTunes 8
- iPhone firmware 2.2
- QuickPwn 2.2
- Jailbroken iPhone 3G
Quick iPhone 3G Jailbreak & Unlock Recipe
Please note that this is what worked for us and it might be a little different for you. I am making this a quick recipe as this is very similar to the steps we followed for quickpwn 2.1 jailbreak.
Jailbreak iPhone 2.2
Skip to next section if you have already updated to 2.2 and jailbroken your iPhone 3G with QuickPwn 2.2 or PwnageTool. If you have updated 2.2 via iTunes but not jailbroken yet, start with step 5.
- Undo hidden apps via BossPrefs
- Uninstalled Categories (this proved to be a problem when we updated to 2.1 and may not be needed with this update)
- Backed up everything via iTunes (consider using AptBackup Cydia app to backup your app settings)
- Used iTunes to update to 2.2
- Downloaded Quickpwn 2.2 and launched it
- Follow the instructions in QuickPwn
- Once the iPhone is in recover mode (DFU mode)
- hold your home button for 5 seconds
- hold down the home and power button for 10 seconds
- release the power button and continue to hold the home button to see the jailbreak progress and then let go of the home button
- Once the iPhone restarts, you should see the Cydia and Installer in the Home Screen
- Now, you have a jailbroken iPhone 2.2!
Unlock iPhone 3G
The beauty of the iPhone unlock solution, yellowsn0w is that it is available as a Cydia/Installer app! Once installed, it runs as an unobtrusive daemon in your iPhone. This means that you can add/remove this app via Cydia anytime.
- Open Cydia -> Manage -> Sources -> Edit -> Add
Add this repository URL http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ and return to Cydia. - Now Search in Cydia for ‘yellowsn0w‘ and install it.
- Reboot your iPhone 3G with a different SIM
- A few seconds after reboot, you should get a signal with the new carrier!
- You have unlocked your iPhone 3G!!
Word of caution
Yellowsn0w is in version 0.9.4 and is considered beta software. This means that for some of us it may not work. It could be specific carriers or specific sims. But, do provide feedback to the Dev Team so they can improve this software for all of us.
Also, the above linked post has tons of comments from folks trying to unlock and is a minefield of good information to check out if you had issues doing this.
What a great effort by the Dev Team. You have our congratulations and wish everyone here a Happy New Year!
Update: 01/05/09
Dev-Team has updated yellowsn0w to version 0.9.6 beta. If you have had problems unlocking before, please try again with this new version.
