New iPhone 3GS Unlock – Purplesn0w
George Hotz has taken it upon himself to create a new iPhone 3GS unlocking solution which he calls purplesn0w. It seems the original iPhone hacker and creator of the jailbreak software purplera1n, was once again not happy with the Dev Teams software, this time it was their unlocking tool, ultrasn0w.
First off, what is purplesn0w? It’s a soft unlock for your 3GS that I’d actually use day to day. It’s not a daemon that takes any resources, and it doesn’t add a task to your baseband. It’s very close to a true unlock. All it does is patch three files, CommCenter, lockdownd, and your wildcard activation plist (which you need, activate w at&t sim first, no hacktivation support yet). That’s it, no other files are installed.
So as you can see Hotz needs to do some more tweaking to get purplesn0w in pristine full working condition. If you do choose to use this software now be prepared to jump thru a few hoops such as having a legitimately activated AT&T sim card. On the bright side – Hotz claims that all of the issues people have had with ultrasn0w, such as Wi-Fi loss, battery fails, unlock fails, etc… are now gone if you use his unlock. If you can hold off for a day or two, do so as Hotz will release an update according to his twitter account.
For the full details on purplesn0w be sure to check out his blog. In the meantime, the competition is heating up between the Dev Team and Mr. Hotz. It’s time to sit back with some popcorn and enjoy the show!
July 14th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Although I don’t use unlock, that’s good stuff. Go dev team!!!
July 14th, 2009 at 9:00 am
@dmys.. You mean go Mr. Hotz.
I don’t need an unlock, but I’m glad that Hotz is pushing the dev team to be better.. I am now running purplera1n.. and it was very easy to install.. I would say, I prefer it over the dev teams tool.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:53 am
i agree the dev team is looking bad right about now imo. this is great for us the more competition the better the products
July 14th, 2009 at 10:08 am
anyone knows if I can use Hotz’s purplesn0w to unlock an iPhone 3G with 3.0 update?
July 14th, 2009 at 10:27 am
purplesn0w is 3GS only
July 15th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Huge fan of dev team but Mr.Hotz has set the standard with purplera1n. It doesn’t get easier then that. More power to him if he keeps pushing or working with them to provide us with great jb usage.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I used purple rain to jailbreak, and was running ultrasnow. Uninstalled ultrasnow and installed purplesnow and had no signal, not even with my att sim card. uninstalled purplesnow restarted and now my phone will not boot. It constantly reboots by itself on the apple screen. I am at work so I can not restore my phone.
Just a warning, uninstalling purplesnow may mess up your phone and cause a restore!!!!!
July 21st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
hi everyone, Got my new iphone 3GS (no contract )from states,i stay in saudi arabia. I have jailbreaken the phone using the redsn0w and tried to install ultrasn0w but cydia keep giving me this error message of size mismatch. later installed purplesn0w for unlocking the iphone and it got installed. But the problem is that i have inserted my sawa( saudi stc) sim in the iphone but the network is not there, is there something i have missed or overlooked, any suggestions or comments are welcome. Appreciate your efforts in advance.,
p.s. forgot to mention that before jailbreaking i have added some songs from itunes on it, later while jailbreaking kept the at&t sim, not much sure about which sim should be present whether the one i want to use or the at&t one. it looks in the cydia that purplesn0w has been installed but i am unable to get the network signal.
Regards Ridhwan
July 24th, 2009 at 1:36 am
@ridhwan just reboot if that doesent work then make sure that it is activated with a ATT sim card not activated through jailbreaking methods only ultrasn0w supports that.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@nick
Thanks mate you saved my life. It really worked.
July 25th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I activated the phone using ATT sim. Installed purplera1n and purplesn0w last night. After reboot, it recognized Chinamobile sim card, but signal level was zero, rebooted a few times and left it alone for a while. Then everything worked fine. Took about half hour. However, this morning, batter was totally dead, it was 90% full when I went to bed last night. Looks like still have the battery problem.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
sorry to sound noobish.. but i’m new to the iphone and was wondering if i could use this jailbreak to unlock the 3gs
August 15th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
help…
i recently restored my iphone and i think from unlocked i am now LOCKED… and i cant access my phone… there’s this emergency dial only..
before i restored this is what i have: firmware: 3.0 itunes ver 8.2.1 Mac Os X
i restored because i have no other options except RESTORE.. i just got this iphone 3GS now i cannot use it..
October 31st, 2009 at 10:30 am
Dear All,
Can Any body can help me to unlock my Iphone 3gs Fw3.1
Please help me in this case