iPhone Dev Team releases iPhone 3GS jailbreak and unlock tools

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 08 July 2009 12:18

Your IT - Mobility

The iPhone Dev Team has released its redsn0w jailbreak and ultrasn0w carrier unlock tools for the iPhone 3GS.

Since the original iPhone was released, Apple has been engaged in a cat and mouse game with enthusiastic owners that want to be able to install software not supplied by Apple (whether it comes from the company itself or is sold through the App Store) and to use SIMs from carriers other than the one that supplied the phone.

The latter point is especially significant in markets such as the US where Apple has entered into exclusive carrier deals.

The earlier than expected arrival of new versions of redsn0w and ultrasn0w was prompted by George Hotz's recent release of the purplera1n jailbreak tool for the iPhone 3GS.

At the time, Hotz (also known as GeoHot) chided the Dev Team for planning to hold back on its jailbreaker until iPhone 3.1 was released.

The Dev Team responded by reiterating that the decision was made to maximise the number of iPhone 3GS handsets that could be hacked before Apple plugs the security hole that's used to inject the code.

It turns out that Hotz and the Dev Team both used the same security vulnerability.

"For those of you without 3GS phones, it's a race against the clock to use this particular hole. There's nothing we can do about that, but we will always be looking for new holes," observed the Dev Team.

The new versions of redsn0w and ultrasn0w are said to work on the iPhone 3GS with iPhone 3.0 as well as earlier models and OS versions.

The redsn0w release is also notable as it is the first to run on Linux as well as Mac OS X and Windows.