iPhone 3G Jailbreak/Unlock

This tutorial is now obsolete ! Read about Jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone 3G with the new 3.0 firmware !

Wondering what the "Iphone 3G Jailbreak/Unlocking" is and how to do it !? Read on…

I recently bought an Apple iPhone 3G with the sole intention of jailbreaking it because in my country it is only available through Orange and I am not one of their subscribers.

First of all, you will find lots of interesting information at the iPhone Dev-Team’s official blog.

A little dictionary first:

- jailbreak / jailbreaking: the process of cracking your iPhone’s firmware with the purpose of allowing third party apps to be installed;

- pwn / pwning: slang for "own/owning"; it’s the same thing as "jailbreaking";

- Cydia / Installer: two third-party installers used for updating your iPhone with your favorite third-party app;

- unlocking: the process of cracking your iPhone’s baseband in order to allow any SIM card to be installed (usually the iPhone’s come locked into AT/T or in my country’s case Orange);

- baseband: the iPhone modem’s firmware;

- firmware: a software which runs on devices (in our case on the iPhone) that is similar to an operating system for personal computers (Windows, MacOs, Linux, BSD etc)

There are a few tools available out there, most of them for Mac, but Windows versions are emerging as I am writing this:

- PwnageTool: used for upgrading the iPhone’s firmware while preserving the original installed baseband (the baseband is the iPhone modem’s firmware); you have to use this instead of iTunes if you have a jailbroken phone, if you want to be able to use the iPhone in the future;

- QuickPwn: if you have a running iPhone but you want to install third party apps, this is the tool for you; it will jailbreak your iPhone and install Cydia and Installer onto it;

- YellowSn0w: used for unlocking the iPhone 3G (this first came out on January 1st 2009); it will make any SIM card work with the iPhone; it is a new application (it is still in beta phase) and still has some bugs - I succeeded in using it to unlock my iPhone for Vodafone Romania;

This is all you need to know in short for jailbreaking your iPhone 3G.

Now let me detail a few steps which you have to take in order to jailbreak a locked original iPhone 3G:

1. If your  iPhone is not activated (you get a "Emergency calls only" message), you have to insert a valid SIM card into it and connect it with iTunes; follow the steps there and your iPhone will become activated;
2. Check out your iPhone’s firmware and baseband: go to Settings->General->About; you have to see there Version 2.2 and Modem Firmware 2.28.00; at the time of this writing the unlock tool (YellowSn0w) only works with this baseband version);
3. If your versions are not 2.2 / 2.28.00 you have to Update your iPhone through iTunes (connect the iPhone 3G to your Mac or PC, wait until it appears left on the Devices menu, click on it and click Update in the middle of the screen - right now the latest firmware is 2.2, but this will change; if this is the case when you are reading this post, then you will have to update to 2.2 through PwnageTool; you can read more about this on iClarified);
4. use QuickPwn to jailbreak your iPhone 3G; you will find a tutorial for QuickPwn(Windows) on iClarified and the process is similar on the Mac
5. You will now have a jailbroken but locked iPhone; put your SIM card into the iPhone 3G, if you have network signal (your carrier shows up at the top left of the screen and you can make calls) stop here!… it means you either had an unlocked iPhone or you are using the original carrier your iPhone was locked onto;
6. On your iPhone, go to Cydia->Manage->Sources and add "apt9.yellowsn0w.com"; click on "Search" and type in "yellowsn0w" (the last o is a zero!); Install it !
7. Now install MobileTerminal and BossPrefs, if you haven’t already done so (also available through Cydia, you can search for them there)
8. Fire up Mobile Terminal and type in "yellowsn0w -h"; it will show you all the different parameters you can give to YellowSn0w; depending on your iPhone 3G version/ GSM carrier / SIM card, one of the options there will do the job (I’d go with "yellowsn0w" first and then "yellowsn0w -q", "yellowsn0w -a", "yellowsn0w -s" and other options that might be there (it is possible the Dev-Team will add more options in the future);
9. After you find the option the gives no error (you can expect the usual "Resource busy" error) you will have to go to BossPrefs->Power button at the bottom of the screen->Restart; if after the restart, your network carrier isn’t showing up, try taking out your SIM, waiting around 30 seconds then reinserting it (this works for SIM cards that have carrier menu’s/services on them); more info about YellowSn0w on the Dev-Team blog and on this Hackintosh thread) 

This should do it for your iPhone 3G ! If you still have problems, drop me a comment and I will help you as much as I know and can !

My iPhone 3G story: jailbreaking and unlocking

I am now officially an Apple Fanboy !

I wanted an iPhone 3g even before it appeared. Lately I entered a no-spend thinking zone and I cut most of my spedings on "stuff" (gadgets, computers, notebooks, phones…).

But at Christmas I realized that my old phone was failing and because I couldn’t find a Nokia phone which I actually liked (design wise) I finally decided to get an iPhone 3G.

Because it was locked in Orange Romania, I had to jailbreak it. That unfortunately took me around 2 days in total.

The first day I struggled with the new Mac Leopard 10.5.6 limitations (Apple decided to pull the plug on jailbreaking the iPhone). I finally succeeded using Pwnage Tool, but then I found out that no crack existed yet for unlocking the baseband (allowing the iPhone 3G to use any carrier network). This was an iPhone 3G problem so I decided to wait until I got back in Bucharest and buy a TurboSIM or XSIM to trick the iPhone into thinking I had a valid SIM card.

However the iPhone Dev-Team realeased an unlock tool just in time (I was really lucky actually to have waited all this time to get an iPhone 3G). The tool is called "YellowSn0w" and it works in unlocking the iPhone for Vodafone Romania !

I very happy at the moment, because my iPhone 3G fully works and all I can tell you is that it’s great and I Highly Recommend It !

I will post two follow-up tutorials for the iPhone, one detailing the JailBreaking methods that exist (using PwnageTool or QuickPwn) and the other about using YellowSn0w to unlock your iPhone 3G for any carrier network.

UPDATE: I posted the iPhone 3G Jailbreak/Unlock tutorial here! Read about it and share your thoughts ! If you are having problems jailbreaking or unlocking your iPhone 3G, post them here and I will help you with as much as I can!

Until next time… Happy New Year to you all !!!

The good year of 2008

Hi all !

I haven’t been very active lately due to partly beeing busy, partly resting. I feel that this year is the first one that I didn’t feel the Christmas spirit at all. I’m not a Christmas person usually, but this year time passed with a strange feeling of work left to be done.

I had a lot to do at work and I still am grinding at it, I have a lot of plans for personal development but never seem to get to them.

Well, let’s see what I’ve accomplished this year (this list is mostly for me, but I’m hoping some of you will share my joy):

- I started trying out some online ideas (starting is a very good thing; until this year I planned to start some things but never really got to it);

- I’ve lost some friends (life is life, and quoting a friend of mine, "after a certain age it is proved that you can keep so many friends at one time…);

- I’ve made some friends;

- I started learning more things about photography, I have around 6k photos taken so far, still haven’t changed my first camera which is a Nikon D40, but have bought some glass like the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 XR Di II and the Sigma 10-20 f/4-f/5.6 EX DC HSM lenses;

- I took my Master’s Degree in Project Management (ASE Bucuresti - "MIP Online" programme);

- I changed my job, from ARond to Netbridge Development;

- I met new people working the Romanian online industry;

- I started working on my social networking skills, building my LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr profiles and planning to do Facebook, Digg, Reddit next year;

- I developed a number of websites, mostly presentation sites and a couple of portals, but most notably my girlfriend’s fiancee’s dental information portal;

- I developed an admin panel generator, which can create grid-like table listings of database data, editing, adding and deleting, all done from a configuration array;

- I started using Zend Framework and am planning to better myself in it (I also have a few ideas for platforms to be developed in ZF);

- I started learning all I can about online marketing and PPC Campaigns, mostly Google Adwords so far;

- I took the GAP Exam and I am now a Google Qualified Individual, although I’m having problems maintaining the spending limit of $1,000 / 3 months… I’ve got to find some clients fast!

- I read a number of books, mostly PHP related, but also some reference literature and science fiction books like "The Peter Principle" and "Ender’s Game" (Amazon must love me by now, not because of these two puny links, but because I bought around 20-30 books from them this year, most of them I didn’t have the time to read so far;

- I’ve satisfied all my hardware freak needs and wants, which I have to say has given me some perspective and opportunity to obsess on coding rather than the latest gadget to appear; The IT/electronics/gadgets freak in me is hard to handle some times and just having that stuff has chilled me down (I’m sure some of you know and share this feeling of needing something very badly);

- Also having realized that I’m never going to contain my inner hardware freak, I decided to turn it into an opportunity, which is the above link to www.hardwarefreak.ro; I plan on building a community of… well… freaks (not pun intended), a tribe (like Seth Godin would say) targeted towards Romanian hardware aficionados. I started with a forum just to see if there is interest for a community like this and will develop it into something much bigger if it starts to grow!

- I took a 6 day holiday by car, visiting Vienna and Budapest; the accomplishment here is that I drove all the way going and returning to Bucharest, totaling around 2,500 kilometres, with no incident whatsoever, which was a confirmation for me that I can take on bigger distances next year; (oh yeah before I forget, I used Dopplr to detail my trip so this is yet another social network)

- last but not least I decided to get married and will do so next year on February 21st 2009 !

I think these are my biggest accomplishments this year, but I’m sure I skipped a few smaller ones. I have to be honest, when I started writing this post 1 hour ago, I wasn’t sure I’d have so much to write. Seeing all that I’ve done makes me proud and gives me confidence that next year will be an even better year in spite of the upcoming world recession and crisis predictions !

All that remains now is to (wait)work and see, ’cause nothing comes free in this world…

Happy New Year to you all and may all your dreams come true in the next year !