iPhone 3G unlock arrives at last, time to eat some yellowsn0w
By Paul Miller 
posted January 1st 2009 10:31AM
posted January 1st 2009 10:31AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: Unfortunately, it seems yellowsn0w might be living up to its beta status, with plenty of commenters and others across the interwebs reporting problems getting "unlocked" iPhone 3Gs to pick up their preferred carrier. As always, proceed with caution, and prepare some loose papers that need weighting just in case.
Tried the AT&T sim and going outdoors to more reliable coverage. neither worked. Also, about a minute into the phone being on I get a new VM sound (and vibration), as if it IS logging on to the network, but nothing appears in the status bar.
I did quickpwn and hacktivate using a unibody macbook pro.....would that have affected the quality of the jailbreak at all?
With T-mobile in the US you need to turn off 3G in the settings menu for it to work.
Thanks Ben. Like I said, I followed the dev team's instructions to the letter. 3G was off the whole time.
testing
Anyway to get the 3g iPhone and not pay AT&T the early termination fee penalty? I just to buy the iPhone and unlock it to use with T-mobile prepaid card. I hate getting locked into any phone contract! TIA
You could pay an exorbitant price to get it contract-free...
Will this work with OS X 10.5.6 ?
tried to see if the unlocks works for sure, but unfortunately it aint working no more lol...... beta is really a beta .lol..... i uninstall yellowsn0w and reinstall after a reboot, it wont find the carrier anymore lol..... ahh well, it was good while it lasted hahhaa..... guess just have to wait until they fix this.
In the UK, works well.
Got it going with a 3 SIM (www.three.co.uk) and also Voda UK
The really important part appears to be the waiting for 1 min from reboot, does not seem to matter what SIM is in while you do it, at least not here.
Kev
Stupid question, but AT&T is pretty good in my area, Honolulu, but when I travel to Japan will I have to unlock the phone to use the Japanese simm cards? Also when I return, can I reinstall my phone back to AT&T??
I like to see positive advancements like this. Unlocking a phone will not damage anyone save the carrier and is a great help if you travel alot, switching the SIM cards with ease. Im glad to see some sort of positive work being done, unlike jailbreaking which most people use to rip off Apple Developers' software (which takes a lot of effort for us to make) not to mention that stealing this software is illegal. So hooray for iPhone unlocking!
hasn't worked for me.. tried everything, removed the sim and put it back in a couple of times and still nothing.. i guess that's what you get with betas.. i'll have to wait
I unlocked my iPhone for T-mob, had to take out and reinsert the sim 3 times before it worked right but now its been 3 hours with no fail (better than the stupid sim tray unlock i had tried before which nearly failed hourly), ohh yeah and my g1 data plan works with it so i dont have to change data plans back and forth when i switch between phones.
Jess,
Did you use the G1 sim card to unlock the Iphone or an ATT sim card?
I hope they release an unlock for SIM's with PIN's soon...
Hi, Just thought I'd mention that you can find detailed instructions and video on performing the unlock here: http://www.iclarified.com/2538
Its still a bit finicky but the iPhone Dev-Team has already released version .9.1 which is an update to the original .9.0 unlock application.
ok i did everything they said, upgrade my firmware to 02.28.00 version 2.2 (5g77) then i jailbreak using quickpwn, then download and insstall YELLOWSN0W from Cydia... But when i insert my T MOBILE sim and turn on and off my iphone ...i wait for 10-15 seconds. but where sould be the bars and the tmobile network it says (((NO SERVICE))) and i need to know if this Yellowsn0w has done anything good to others ...........Don't work For Me!
I've been at this for hours and nothing worked until this;
1. restart phone
2. terminal type yellowsn0w -r
3. terminal type yellowsn0w -q
4. airplane mode on
5. airplane mode off
I waited about 3-5 seconds after the -q command and then went to airplane mode, entered that, waited about 4 seconds, and then turned it off. I called my voicemail and it didn't drop the call at all.
HEY THE DEV TEAM IS A GROUP WHO IS SMART BUT NOT THAT FUKN SMART. WHAT THEY DID WAS THEY THOUGHT THEY HAD SOMETHING PERFECT WORKING. SO WHAT THESE FUCKN IDIOTS DID WAS RELEASE A NOT-SO-PERFECT-YET VERSION OF THEIR SO CALLED YELLOWFUCKINGBULLSHITSNOW PROGRAM THAT ONLY UNLOCKS SOME PEOPLES IPHONES ALMOST NONE, AND WHAT HAPPENED WAS NOW THAT PEOPLE WHO HAD 2.1 RUNNING AND WERE USING TURBOSIMS AND SHIT NOW ARE FUCKED BECAUSE THEY HAVE 2.2 RUNNING AND CANT GO BACK. SO THANK YOU DEVTEAM U GUYS ARE FUKN IDIOTS WITH P-SIZE BRAINS. U GUYS HAVE DONE NOTHING BETTER THAN FUCKED ALL OF US. AND YEA WE DO APPRECIATE PREVIOUS STUFF U DID BUT U NOE WAT NOONE FORCED U TO RELEASE NE OF THAT SHIT U GUYS DO US FAVORS BECAUSE U GET PAYED DOING IT. SO IM NOT SO FUKN WARMHEARTED FOR U ASSHOLES. NOW IM USING A RAZOR THAT MY MOM GAVE ME THANKS TO YOU. NEXT TIME GET UR FUKN FACTS STRAIGHT AND STOP GETTING PEOPLE READY FOR SOMETHING THAT DOESNT WORK. I CAN DO THE SAME: I CAN MAKE A SOFTWARE THAT "UNLOCKS" THE IPHONE 3G AND CALL IT "BLUEBALLS" AND IT WONT WORK. SO FIX THIS SHIT.
why must you type in all caps?
That's why they call it beta software. If you weren't prepared for it to not work, you shouldn't have installed it.
your mom gave you a razr? how old are you, 12? Shouldn't you have a rumor, not an iphone?
The dev team does not get "payed" [sic] to do this. They don't even accept donations. They make no money off of providing this service and do it in their own time for free.
It's a shame that moronic twelve year olds with entitlement complexes act like they know more about developing a complicated software unlock than the people who actually did it, but in the future if you're using software for free that was developed for free it might help if you dig your head out of your own ass long enough to type "Thank you for all your hard work on this" instead of the caps lock rant above.
TYPING IN ALL CAPS MAKES MY E-PENIS BIGGER.
Still won't work with my carrier... sigh... effing Verizon
Verizon is CDMA, why would it?
man u all celebrating as if iPhone will now be free,.ok I have iphone 3g in LA with AT&T ,xlnt 3g coverage,should I do this? Would I save money? What benefit?will I get more apps,?more gps?is tmobil 3g faster?I want go keep my 3g coverage,what should I do,,,,?will 3g data plan still work if I unlock?is it worth losing my 1 year warranty ? I heard if I stop data plan I get $200 etf,what to do???!?
If you're on AT&T in the US, and don't need to use a different carrier, then no, there's no point in it for you.
I bought my iPhone in the US. Then I moved to Australia. I didn't want to continue using the AT&T SIM card overseas as that equals bill rape for roaming charges. Because of this I can now use my phone in Australia with a native SIM.
If you're on AT&T and don't intend to use another carrier, it makes no difference if you use the unlock or not.
Beta or not, it's working great here with T-Mobile in the California Bay Area.
I had a couple kinks, but this is what I did to get it working:
1.) Take out SIM card.
2.) Restore the iPhone using iTunes to firmware v2.2.
3.) While phone reboots, close iTunes.
4.) Use QuickPWN to jailbreak and install Cydia. (Also bypass activation.)
5.) Use Cydia to install yellowsn0w.
6.) Insert T-Mobile SIM card.
7.) Modify Settings>General>Network>Cellular Data Network and change the APN to "wap.voicestream.com".
Voice and data now works!
Can you make outgoing calls? Mine loses connection as soon as I try to make an outgoing call. Have to re-insert T-Mobile sim card to get the network again. Incoming calls as well as text messaging work perfectly though
Nice info guys...
No need to be an ass, clueless Engadget writer. Had you read any of the dev team's posts, you would realize that there is no way to brick your phone with their unlock. Besides, most of the 'problems' these people are experiencing are due to the fact that they can't read and follow simple directions.
So this unlock means it can be used on any carrier? Will this mean the phone's 3g connection will become useless? Pretty tempting if it means i can use a cheaper tarriff but still have 3g.
I was too drunk that I forgot, it's now January 2nd...
You idiots..........
the pwnage tool uses the Cyndia OS packet installer to unlock it.....just click on "AnySim" and it will work for most simcards, when installed. What they've just released is merely a separate unlock....nothing new. It could be done already...this is just a supplement.
GREAT JOB GUYS---YOU'VE JUST FIGURED OUT.
HAHA
Version .9.4 fixes everything with a 99% Success rate...
I tried that iclarified website..and wow...it worked great.
Thanks to the Dev team and iClarified for amazing tutorial you really helped out a n00b xD
Worked better when upgraded to the latest Beta..0.9.4
Had to place my orginal sim in first, then remove once signal found, then place my tmobile sim inside. Full bars, even when signal is lost, the signal then is recovered. sms,data,voice all work without issues. even turning airplane mode off and on, signal is recovered. Made sure to set data settings for apn are wap.voicestream.com
username to guest, as well password set to guest. turned off 3g and push services. all should be good.
Everything good and i have a good signal with a T- mobile logo, and i can send a message either the only thing i can do is make a call it drop a signal right away and said call failed. Do anyone know or have any idea about it please let me know.
No kidding. Stupid Verizon. Oh well. Off to the storm I go.
Buy iPhone 3G unlock from http://www.replica-cell-phones.com/
this really works my cousin unlocked my iphone 3g for me i was tired of using the tiny piece of plastic that connected to my sim it kept on crashing my iphone