December 17th, 2008
iPhone Dev Team announces iPhone 3G unlock (updated 2x)
The iPhone Dev Team yesterday announced an iPhone 3G unlock, codenamed “yellowsn0w.” It’s complete and being packaged into a user-friendly application. The Dev team is targeting for a release date in New Year’s Eve 2008. This unlock is available to iPhone 3Gs with the 2.11.07 baseband or earlier and your iPhone 3G will need to be jailbroken.
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.
In an interesting twist, the iPhone Dev Team believes Apple didn’t foil jailbreaking via DFU mode in Mac OS 10.5.6 on purpose, but that a bug in the kernel is responsible for the problems. They even have a workaround:
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. Possible fixes are (try at your own risk!) -
- Replace the following plugin kexts from within IOUSBFamily.kext with the ones from 10.5.5 and then rebuild kextcache (if you don’t understand this, then you shouldn’t attempt it!)
/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBHub.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBCompositeDriver.kext
- Use a USB hub in-between the DFU device and the Mac and insert/reinsert the iPhone’s USB cable.
- Use a PwnageTool created .ipsw on Windows! Oh the irony!
Tip: iPhone-Hacks
Update: Headline changed from “releases” to “announces” because the software won’t be available until the end of the year.
Update 2: The IDT has posted a video of the iPhone 3G unlock in action.
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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