[How-To] Unlock Your Apple iPhone 3GS Using PurpleSn0w

Earlier i wrote about a post with a video shoot of UltraSn0w, the software by the iPhone Dev team which allows you to unlock your iPhone 3GS. In this article, lets walkthrough another interesting software for unlocking your Apple iPhone 3GS, called PurpleSn0w by George Hotz. The two key terms to be aware about when unlocking your iPhone 3GS using PurpleSn0w are “jailbreaking” and “unlocking” ( from an Apple iPhone context).

Apple by default, doesn’t allow installing unapproved applications ( third party applications) on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Therefore, whenever you read about Jailbreaking an iPhone, all it refers to, is the hack which can allow installation of third party applications on your iPhone or iPod Touch. These third party applications are available through searcheable repositories provided by applications like Cydia and Icy.

Unlocking your Apple iPhone on the other hand refers to the hack which lets you use your Apple iPhone on another cellular network.

This article assumes that you have a Jailbroken Apple iPhone and walks you through the step by step process of unlocking an Apple iPhone 3GS using PurpleSn0w.

As per George Hotz, author of Purplesn0w

Purplesn0w is 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. Props to Oranav for the at+xlog exploit!

In order to unlock your Apple iPhone 3GS, follow the steps below. As always, do ensure that you have taken a backup of your jailbroken Apple iPhone 3GS before following the steps below.

1. Disable 3G: Go to “Settings” –> “General” –> “Network” and then tap the slider that reads “Enable 3G” to set it to the OFF position. Exit back to the main screen when finished.

2. Add the Geohot Repository to Cydia: Since you have already jailbroken your iPhone, you should have the Cydia app on your iPhone’s screen. Launch the app and select “Manage” from the set of buttons at the bottom of the screen. Tap “Sources” –> “Edit” –> “Add.” Type in apt.geohot.com and hit “Add Source” when done. Tap the “done” button and exit out of the “Manage” section.

3. Install purplesn0w: Look for “Purplesn0w” using Cydia’s search utility. You need to lookout for the package com.geohot.purplesn0w. Once  found, tap to see the details. Next, tap the “Install” button and then the “Confirm” button just as if you were installing any other Cydia app. Wait while it installs and watch for the success message output in Cydia. Tap “Return to Cydia” when it’s finished installing and then exit from the Cydia app entirely.

4. Reboot your iPhone: Keep the power button pressed until you see the message “slide to power off” appear. Use the slider to power off your device then turn it back on.

Once you have followed the steps mentioned in points 1 to 4 above, your iPhone 3GS will be unlocked.

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Related posts:

1. Unlock iPhone 3GS using UltraSnow