I had a text from O2 which I thought was telling me I had been unlocked. Foolishly I upgraded my iPhone from its YellowSn0w jailbreak/unlock to OS 3.1.2. Then I found that my phone had not been unlocked… I checked the text from O2 again and realised it was not the unlock confirmation…

A few days later I phoned O2 to check on the status of the unlock and was told it would happen within the 14 days which has a few days left to go. On the 29th December nothing had happened. So I tried phoning O2 again and after a long wait I was cut off.

Today I finally got a text telling me I was unlocked and to put a new sim in the iPhone and connect to iTunes. I duly complied and iTunes told me the phone was not unlocked.

As I am off to the USA for a month I could not afford to go through the process again. Having upgraded the OS I had also upgraded the baseband which prevented me from Jailbreaking using YellowSn0w again. After a quick check I found that the Blackra1n and BlackSn0w jailbreak/unlock actually recommended using the OS/Baseband I had upgraded to. So a quick download and in less than 5 minutes my iPhone was jailbroken and unlocked. I can now put my US SIM in it and not be clobbered for stupid data roaming charges.

Now looking back on the O2 problem it may well be my fault as I have switched my 3G and 3GS sims. However if that is the cause then I would have thought that O2 might have picked this up and warned me rather than letting me try to go through the unlock process twice and fail…

O2 – 2 strikes over 6 weeks. BlackRa1n – Home run in 5 minutes…

iPhone 3GS unlocked

The iPhone Dev Team are continually playing cat and mouse with the Apple developers providing access to an open platform and the ability to use any SIM in the iPhone. This is termed as Jailbreaking and Unlocking. Although they had perfected the process for iPhone OS3.0 on the iPhone 3GS they were not going to release it until Apple launched the OS3.1 software. This is because Apple would work out the vulnerability used and close it. The release was pre-empted by the purplera1n jailbreak release using the same vulnerability so there was no reason not to release it.

There are 3 basic steps to Jailbreaking and Unlocking your iPhone 3GS, all of which are pretty simple and can easily be performed by anyone who is reasonably computer literate. I did this on my Macbook Pro. I found it really handy to have WiFi connectivity to download the unlock application over the air.

Warning Before you start this process be aware that you could potentially ‘brick’ your iPhone and this is a risk that you must assume yourself. There is no responsibility or comeback on any of the sites or application developers.

Adding the ultrasn0w source package

Step one: Save current configuration
To ensure that you can always revert back to an iPhone OS that can be Jailbroken and Unlocked you need to save 2 files that are specific to your iPhone. The tutorials on iClarified provide a step by step guide. Note that to download the .ipsw file you need to use FireFox as Safari will unzip and unpack the files. FireFox allows you to save the files as they are.

Step two: Jailbreak the iPhone
This is where things start to get tricky. Before you can unlock your phone you need to Jailbreak it. This is done using the iPhone Dev Team’s redsn0w software.  Again iClarified have excellent step by step tutorials.

Step three: Unlock the iPhone
With the Jailbroken iPhone you will have an application called Cydia installed. You use this to install the unlocking software. This is called ultrasn0w to use this you need to start Cydia, click on “manage” at the bottom of the screen, then sources, then “Edit” and “Add” finally enter “repo666.ultrasn0w.com” to load the ultrasn0w software. Follow the on screen instructions. The iClarified tutorial shows you how to do it.

iPhone 3GS ultrasn0w unlock

Step four: Configure your APN
After you have unlocked your iPhone and inserted your desired SIM you should get a signal, but you will not be able to access any data in your apps. To enable the data you need to run settings and then select general>network>cellular data network and complete the details for the APN of your carrier. If you dont know what the settings should be you can either Google for them or ask the support desk for your carrier.

To have got this far you will now have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone 3GS that you can use anywhere in the World with any data SIM.

Our thanks to the iPhone Dev Team for their sterling work in developing redsn0w and ultrasn0w and to iClarified for the step by step tutorials.