GeoHot Releases Purplesn0w To Unlock iPhone 3GS

Last time, GeoHot delivered the first Jailbreak solution for iPhone 3GS. Today he releases his own unlock solution for the latest generation of iPhone, as an alternative to ultrasn0w, which is the unlock tool developed by iPhone Dev team.

Known as purplesn0w, as GeoHot claimed, it is the best unlock solution for iPhone 3GS, that it improves issues with Wi-Fi problems, battery problems, and misc. unlock problems. Quoted from GeoHot:

Wifi fails? Battery fails? Unlock fails? You need purplesn0w, the geohot 3GS unlock solution. Now I know you here a lot about different colors of sn0w, but I’m here to tell you why purplesn0w is the best. 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).

Many users reported losing wifi connection and not being able to get any signal after unlocking their iPhone with UltraSn0w, so hopefully PurpleSn0w will get better feedback.

How To Use Purplesn0w To Unlock iPhone 3GS

Step 1: First, you need to have a jailbroken iPhone (either use redsn0w, PwnageTool or Purplera1n for jailbreak) with iPhone 3.0 installed and that has been activated via an official Apple carrier (e.g. AT&T).

Step 2: If you are on T-mobile or any other carrier without 3G, disable 3G service in Setting before proceeding.

Step 3: Launch Cydia and add “apt.geohot.com” source. If not clear how to add sources via Cydia checkout my post here.

Step 4: Install com.geohot.purplesn0w and wait for the installation to complete.

Step 5: Reboot your iPhone, put in your desired SIM card.

Note: Purplesn0w is still under testing. So, use it at your own risk. But base on comments in GeoHot’s blog, it seems the solution does not work very smoothly and not all users can unlock the iPhone 3GS. So, for now, if you’re looking for unlock solution for iPhone 3GS, I suggest you to check out UltraSn0w, which can also be downloaded freely from Cydia.

GeoHot also posted technical information about PurpleSn0w. If you’re into dissecting lines of codes, GeotHot made the source code available for you to play with.