Jailbreak and unlock your iPhone 3GS with purplera1n and ultrasn0w!

The original iPhone hacker has returned to work his magic on the iPhone 3GS and its iPhone 3.0 OS. Thanks to George Hotz, the iPhone 3GS is now officially jailbroken and ready to take full advantage of its faster processor and boosted RAM stores! That also means the iPhone 3GS can now be unlocked to work with any GSM network in the world (more on that below).

While the iPhone Dev Team has elected to withhold the iPhone 3GS jailbreak until Apple releases the impending iPhone 3.1 OS update, iPhone hacker George “Geohot” Hotz has just released his own iPhone 3GS jailbreak solution, dubbed “purplera1n.”

Continuing the tradition of oddly-named iPhone hacking utilities, purplera1n can successfully jailbreak any and all iPhone 3GS’s running the latest iPhone 3.0 OS (which comes pre-installed from the factory). The iPhone 3.0 OS has been jailbroken for some time, but only for iPhone or iPhone 3G hardware. With Geohot’s purplera1n utility, iPhone 3GS owners can now install unofficial third-party iPhone apps like “backgrounder” (allows you to multi-task your iPhone apps). Once jailbroken, any iPhone 3GS can be software unlocked using ultrasn0w.

The purplera1n jailbreak is still very much in beta, so use it at your own risk. The jailbreak works fine, but you might have to repeat the process more than once to get it to take. If you’re more comfortable with the iPhone Dev Team’s official jailbreak releases, you can just wait for them to release their PwnageTool update (it shouldn’t be too much of a wait). You can download the iPhone Dev Team’s redsn0w jailbreak utility for all iPhone hardware running iPhone 3.0 OS. Ultrasn0w can still be used to unlock your iPhone 3GS after jailbreaking with redsn0w. Otherwise, iPhone 3GS jailbreak guide after the break…

Here’s what you need to do to get your iPhone 3GS jailbroken (this guide is done on Mac, but all screenshots have analogs in Windows):

1. Download “purplera1n” (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X) here
2. Make sure you have iTunes 8.2.0.23 (upgrade if necessary)
3. Unzip the purplera1n .zip file
4. Double-click on the “purplera1n” icon
   
5. Click “make it ra1n”
   
6. You should see “waiting to reboot” – your iPhone 3GS will eventually go into Recovery Mode and splash this screen:
   
   • If iTunes intializes and complains of your iPhone being in recovery mode, just close iTunes.
   • If you get stuck at the Recovery Mode screen, give it a minute or two. If you are still stuck after a bit of waiting, try clicking on “make it ra1n” again.
   • If all else fails, restart the process from the beginning.
7. Your iPhone 3GS will reboot. Find the newly installed “Freeze” application on your homescreen and fire it up
   
8. Freeze only has one button/purpose – to install the Cydia jailbreak applications store. Click “Install Cydia”
   
9. Once Cydia is installed, reboot the iPhone 3GS
10. Fire up Cydia and perform a “Complete Update” (you can get away with “Essential Update” but you might as well just perform a full update)The below steps are optional. iPhone unlock directions below. Continue if you want to remove the now useless Freeze app and/or perform a software unlock on your iPhone 3GS using ultrasn0w
11. In Cydia, search for “CyDelete”
12. Install “CyDelete”
    • This will also install Mobile Substrate, and could cause iPhone 3.0 OS to freeze. If that happens, just hold the power button down until your iPhone 3GS turns off. Then just reboot and continue with this tutorial
13. Configure CyDelete to delete the “Freeze” application by navigating to Settings>CyDelete and enabling “Non-Cydia Deletion”
    

    

14. Return to the homescreen and hold down on any app icon to enable app-delete mode (icons will jiggle)
    
15. Go ahead and delete “Freeze”
    

    The below steps will help you perform a software unlock of your iPhone 3GS, allowing it to work on any GSM network in the world.

16. Download the iPhone Dev Team’s “ultrasn0w” software unlock utility through Cydia
    

    

    • You’ll need to add this repo to your Cydia “Sources” list:
      repo666.ultrasn0w.com
17. Install the “ultrasn0w” utility
18. Reboot your iPhone 3GS with whatever SIM card you choose
19. NOTE: T-Mobile USA users need to first disable “3G

Enjoy your jailbroken and unlocked iPhone 3GS!