iPhone 3G unlock finally out! Say bye-bye to sim-lock!

1 01 2009

The awesome guys from the Dev Team have release today Yellowsn0w, their soft-unlock tool for the iPhone 3G with the latest baseband (iPhone OS 2.2 and baseband 02.28.00). Congratulations!

I just tried it… and it works… rather more than less!

So for you guys who want to unlock your iPhone 3G, there are a few steps to follow to accomplish this:

- With iTunes, update (or restore, if you want to loose all your settings) your iPhone to the latest Firmware (2.2)

- Then, quit iTunes and download QuickPwn 2.2 from here

- Launch QuickPwn 2.2 and follow the onscreen instructions. This software will basically activate your iPhone, allow read/write access (jailbreak) and install Cydia, the equivalent of the Appstore for unofficial apps

- After your iPhone has been cracked by QuickPwn (it takes a few minutes), you will have new icons, including Cydia. Launch it.

- It will work some time and you will have to relaunch it. Also, do the updates if any are available.

- After that, in Cydia, go to “Sections” and select “Repositories” and add the “iClarified” and “iPhone-notes.de” repositories. It will take some time to refresh the sources.

- Go to “Manage”, tap “Edit” and “Add”. You will then enter the Dev-Team repository: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com. It will again refresh.

- Go back to “Sections” and select “Tweaks”. Install “APN Editing”. This will allow you to manually edit the data connection settings for your operator.

- Finally, go to “Search” and type “yellowsn0w”. Install the unlock tool. NB: currently, the tool does not support SIM cards with PIN codes. So remove your PIN code (quit Cydia and change it in “Settings”/”Phone”/ “SIM PIN”) BEFORE installing Yellowsn0w!!

- Quit Cydia, go to “Settings” / “General” / “Network” / “Cellular Data Network” and put the correct settings for your GSM operator (Swisscom: APN=gprs.swisscom.ch, leave User and Password empty / Orange: APN=internet, leave User and Password empty / Sunrise: APN=internet, leave User and Password empty)

- Reboot your phone and that’s it!

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(Edit) Be very careful with your data traffic if you don’t have a specific data plan including some traffic!! If you want to avoid any traffic, leave the APN settings empty!!

(Edit 2) I couldn’t have 3G working correctly with the unlock tool. Data network is working, the 3G icon is visible, but I only get GPRS/EDGE speed… Hope they will fix the bug ;-)

(Edit 3) I seems to work better, if, once you’ve finished the steps above, you do a few more:

- Once you’ve rebooted the phone, reset the network settings (in Settings / General / Reset)

- Then turn on Airplane mode… wait 30 seconds… and turn it off again

- Take out your SIM…. wait 30 seconds… and put it back in

- wait 30 seconds…

With these steps, my phone was working correctly on Swisscom Network with an Orange SIM locked phone :-)

(Edit 4) View the original blog post from the Dev Team to get more info!