Taimur Asad on June 19, 2009, 11:33 pm

Unlock and Jailbreak iPhone OS 3.0 firmware

Awesome folks on the Dev-Team have released the much awaited PwnageTool 3.0 for Mac to unlock and jailbreak iPod Touch 1G and both the first-gen iPhones and its successor the iPhone 3G. iPhone Dev-Team has announced the availability of PwnageTool 3.0 and so now you can easily unlock your iPhone with firmware 3.0. Here’s what all you need to know before unlocking or jailbreaking your iPhone with OS firmware 3.0 (From Dev-Team):

GOLDEN RULE: If you are using a 3G iPhone with yellowsn0w and rely on yellowsn0w to obtain cellular service, then you should NOT use PwnageTool right now. UltraSn0w is not included with this release and therefore your baseband will be locked and unable to use an operator other than the official one it was bought for. UltraSn0w will be release via APT (cydia and icy) soon. If you have an original iPhone (1st generation) then 3.0 unlock works with this PwnageTool release.
Yellowsn0w in its current form will NOT work with the baseband version that is present in the 3.0 update, you will need Ultrasn0w, which will be released sometime soon, Ultrasn0w will work with all iPhone 3G models (but not 3GS), even ones that were previously unlockable, Ultrasn0w (when available) will be released via APT (this means you can get it via Cydia or Icy).
Please read all parts of this post before downloading and using these tools.
Read items 1, 2 and 3 again and again.
At the bottom of this post are the bittorrent files for the 3.0 capable version of PwnageTool.
This app is suitable for the recent 3.0 release.
PwnageTool will NOT work for the iPhone 3GS.
PwnageTool WILL work for Original iPhone (1st Generation), Original iPod touch (1st Generation) and the iPhone 3G.

Baseband 101

The ‘baseband’ is the generic nickname given to the internal components of the iPhone that handle the phone calls and Internet access. This ‘baseband’ is a tiny and unique independent computer system that runs inside your iPhone, it is separate to the main system that handles the applications (such as email and google maps) and it talks to the main part of the phone over an internal communications network. Think of it like a cable modem or other peripheral that is attached to your home PC that needs occasional updates. When a software update is released and presented to you within iTunes the baseband is sometimes updated (to fix bugs or add new features). The 3.0 update for the iPhone 3G contains such an update, so running the vanilla updater straight away with iTunes will reprogram and update the baseband.

iPhone 3G

This applies if you bought your iPhone 3G for $$$$$$$. This model of iPhone 3G doesn’t have an Service Provider lock (aka factory unlocked) and you are able to put any SIM card into the phone and get service. Your phone is already unlocked so you do not need to worry about baseband updates, simply upgrade to 3.0 using iTunes and then use PwnageTool to create an ipsw and then use this to jailbreak your phone.

iPhone 2G (1st Generation)

Use PwnageTool to do the magic and then restore with iTunes using your newly created .ipsw ‘nuff said, you don’t need to worry about anything, the baseband will be unlocked, the phone jailbroken.

iPod Touch 1G (Original iPod Touch)

Use PwnageTool to create a firmware image and restore with that .ipsw using iTunes.

iPod Touch 2G (New iPod Touch)

Sorry, no support at this time within PwnageTool, use Redsn0w for an earlier (pre 3.0) firmware release instead.

Windows users will have to wait for a while before they can jailbreak & unlock their iPhone’s on PCs. We will be soon up with a complete guide on how to unlock and jailbreak iPhone with OS 3.0. So stay tuned!

UPDATE 1: I have written a complete guide here on how to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone with OS firmware 3.0 on a Windows PC. Make sure you check that out.

UPDATE 2:

ultrasn0w is out! iPhone 3G users can now unlock their phones running jailbroken iPhone firmware 3.0 by following the step by step guide here.