iPhone 3GS, 4.1 - is it absolutely impossible to unlock it?

j-a-x

j-a-x

macrumors 68000
I got an iPhone 4 with AT&T recently, and I want to give my girlfriend my old iPhone 3GS but it's locked to AT&T on iOS4.1, and she has a T-Mobile contract. I originally thought it was pretty straightforward to do a carrier unlock (it was back in the days of my 3G), but from what I've read, it's pretty much impossible to unlock a 3GS on 4.1. Is that true? Am I pretty much screwed or is there anything I can do? I don't care about jailbreaking, although I hear that jailbreaking is pretty much the first step to unlocking.

Is there any alternative to the software unlock through Cydia? Is there any type of hardware unlock using a SIM card or even modifying the hardware? There's a guy here in Houston who claims he can unlock any iPhone for $20 but I have a hard time believing that after reading about the difficulties of unlocking a 3GS on 4.1.

Am I better off just selling it on eBay or is there some way of unlocking it?

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Hi,

You can't unlock iphone 3gs (new bootrom) running iOS 4.1 but if you have your SHSH blobs saved on Cydia server for ios 3.1.3, ios 4.0 or ios 4.0.1, you can restore it on old os and unlock it using ultraSnow. :)

But at the moment, as far as I know there is no unlock for ios 4.1 on iphone 3gs (new bootrom) mobile, :confused:

You can also wait if you want to, I guess jailbreak will be launched next month (before apple launch ios 4.2) and unlock will also follow but chronic dev-team has not given any ETA yet. :rolleyes:

Regards,
CryingElectron
 
I don't have the SHSH blobs saved (I don't even know what SHSH blobs are but I keep reading about them and it's nothing I have done because I never had the need to unlock before).

So the way I understand it, if it has the NEW bootrom, it is impossible to unlock, but if it has the OLD bootrom, it is possible, even though the phone has the latest 4.1 firmware and baseband?

What about alternatives to software unlocking, like funky sim cards or other solutions? Do they work? I've searched but I've never found really straight answers and there are so many scam sites out there, and so much misinformation and spam, it's hard to know what to believe.
 
You are getting some incorrect info here. If you updated your 3GS to 4.1 firmware you now have an unlockable baseband (likely 5.14.xx).

There is no known exploit to unlock it.
Regardless of whom you pay, they will not be able to unlock it either, those are scam sites, they prey off desperate folks who upgraded but cannot unlock.

You cannot downgrade the baseband on a 3GS and if you are in the US, you cannot get a factory unlock.

So yes, it is impossible to unlock it.
 
You are getting some incorrect info here. If you updated your 3GS to 4.1 firmware you now have an unlockable baseband (likely 5.14.xx).
Click to expand...

Did you mean you you now have a-NON unlockable baseband?
 
Yes, what iPhone-power said. Your baseband cannot be unlocked since it has been updated to official 4.1
All you can do is wait for a new jb and unlock.
 
Hm so my options are to just wait (but nobody knows how long), sell my phone on eBay and consider buying a new one when the unlock becomes available (or sell and buy a phone which has older firmware), or convince her to join AT&T (ugh). AT&T has crappy signal strength in our neighborhood so she would probably get annoyed at that but if they offered a non-contract plan, she might consider it.
 
Sounds pretty crappy. I think I'll just try waiting it out for a bit and see what comes out in the next month or so, and if nothing I might just sell it on eBay.
 
j-a-x said:
Sounds pretty crappy. I think I'll just try waiting it out for a bit and see what comes out in the next month or so, and if nothing I might just sell it on eBay.
Click to expand...

I'd wait it out. It's supposed to be ready some where between 2 to 6 weeks imo. :D
 
Vbp6us said:
I'd wait it out. It's supposed to be ready some where between 2 to 6 weeks imo. :D
Click to expand...

And what reliable source did this come from. As many of us know, there is no known exploit (baseband crash) for the new baseband, so until one is found, there will not and can not be any new unlock. So, a 2 to 6 week time frame is little more than a wish !
 
It seems like most of the other baseband versions were hacked fairly quickly, so I don't see why this one would take so much longer, unless apple did something really out of the ordinary this time (maybe they did).

As I understand it, there IS a jailbreak exploit that is being worked on and there should be at least a jailbreak in the next few weeks... is that correct?
 
j-a-x said:
It seems like most of the other baseband versions were hacked fairly quickly, so I don't see why this one would take so much longer, unless apple did something really out of the ordinary this time (maybe they did).

As I understand it, there IS a jailbreak exploit that is being worked on and there should be at least a jailbreak in the next few weeks... is that correct?
Click to expand...

It took something like 6 weeks for the 4.0.1 JB; so in reality, if this JB follows a similar path, we've still got 2 or 3 more weeks left to wait. I haven't heard anything about an unlock, but the iPhone dev team always finds a way. But, yes, there is a JB exploit being worked on right now.
 
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