14 DAY TRIAL // The iPhone Dev Team, best known for its PwnageTool and QuickPwn hack software, has confirmed the completion of the iPhone 3G unlock. Those interested in jailbreaking their devices are advised not to upgrade to OS 2.2 using iTunes alone.
“Over the Christmas break some of our members will be talking at the Chaos Computer Club’s 25C3 Congress,” a Dev-Team Blog post reads. “This talk will be a juicy technical talk relating to iPhone platform and our previous exploits.[...] We have been working hard on a few other things. The main one being the 3G unlock codenamed 'yellowsn0w.' This is now completed and is currently being packaged into a user-friendly application with the simplicity that you see in QuickPwn or BootNeuter.”
Some facts for visitors of the blog are also listed. Readers are assumed to be OK with jailbreaks, hence the team's advice of refraining from updating the iPhone 3G's baseband. Read on for the details:
The target release date for the unlock is New Year’s Eve 2008. This unlock method is available to iPhone 3Gs that have 2.11.07 baseband or earlier, we did warn you. You can tell what version baseband you have by going to Settings->General->About->Modem Firmware. The unlock requires a jailbroken 3G iPhone. It’ll be installable via Cydia, and so it doesn’t matter if you have a Mac or PC. Please refrain from updating your baseband, regardless of what version you’re at. We’ll have complete directions on New Year’s Eve. We’ll stream a live demo of the unlock before Christmas (see the update at the end of this post).
It has been recently revealed that the newly-released Mac OS X 10.5.6 update keeps Macs from recognizing the iPhone in DFU mode, making it impossible to jailbreak / unlock it using PwnageTool or QuickPwn. Taking on the DFU Issues in OS X 10.5.6, the Dev Team explains that “Lots of users have been experiencing problems with the use of DFU mode after applying yesterday’s 10.5.6 system update. We believe this behavior is due to a kernel bug not a specific countermeasure by Apple.”
The team offers some workarounds, but asks not to be held responsible should anything bad happen. It's probably best if you wait until New Year's Eve to jailbreak your device. Of course, it's probably even better to read the text in red and act accordingly.
Softpedia doesn't condone jailbreaking / unlocking your iPhone / iPod touch or any other device. Using hacks may render your device unusable, or may considerably reduce the quality of your experience using the respective device. If you choose to download and install the PwnageTool, you do it at your own risk.