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need help unlocking my iphone 3gS

P

PUCCY

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 18, 2008
150
0
OK so before I start I do apologize if this was brought up on here before.

I have a 3GS iphone that i have from the US (used to live there now in UAE). The phone is locked but ever since i moved here i haven't been using it. So yesterday I thought of jailbreaking it. I need to unlock it for it work.

I looked online including this site but it all seemed to complicated for me to do it.

It's on 3.1.3 so i decided i'd go to a phone shop where they unlock it for you yesterday. Today they called and they said they can not unlock it.

When i went to pick it up i noticed that they updated it to 4.2.

This pissed me off, now i'm sure it's hard to unlock it. Can I unlock it now? or do i have to wait for it?
 
LMAO:D
The dumbasses messed it up.
Your first mistake was to bring it to a shop and pay to have it unlocked.
You could have asked a question here and done it yourself in less than 10 minutes. We would have provided you with tutorials and tools you need to JB and unlock it.
 
actually i didnt pay them. but so there isnt a way to go back to 3.1.3?
 
You just gotta love those phone shops that think they know what they are doing. I'm sure they are fine motorola dumb phone experts.....

Sure you can go back to 3.1.3 if you have your SHSH for 3.1.3, of course your modem firmware isn't budging at all. The end.
 
i dont know what that shshs thing ok so there isnt anything i can do?
 
Top problem you face is do you have to unlock? If yes you might want to read up on the iPad baseband trick on the dev-team blog as that is the only way you can jailbreak now.

You may just want to get a prepaid phone for a while and use your sim in that...
 
max, im using a regular nokia phone so im ok for now but im stuck with a locked iphone which i would rather be using.

Could u please post a link of the ipad thing you're talking about?
 
i didnt install the ipad base yet. or did the guy at the work shop do that?
 
PUCCY said:
i didnt install the ipad base yet. or did the guy at the work shop do that?
Click to expand...

Since the shop screwed up, you are now running 4.2.1 firmware and 5.15 baseband (can't be unlock). If you want to unlock the phone, you will need to upgrade from the 5.15 baseband to the hack iPad 6.15 baseband.
 
ok what if i sell the phone to someone who has AT&T. would it work for them?

I dont want to upgrade to ipad firmware then be stuck with it and end up with a worthless phone.
 
To answer your questions so far;

1. No you cannot now roll back to anything lower than 4.2 since you haven't saved any SHSH blobs. In the most basic terms, they allow us to trick iTunes and allow us to install a previous iOS version. They're unique to every phone.

2. Your phone IS unlockable, BUT it will be permanently 'scarred'. You have to hack your baseband, and there is no way to restore it. If something goes wrong with your phone, that's it - Apple will NOT look at it. The baseband is essentially the signal processing system, so a fairly fundamental part of the phone. I believe hacking this also kills GPS functionality on your phone.

To unlock, you should hack your baseband to the current iPad baseband (which is unlockable). You could also try patience - an unlock for iPhone basebands will eventually come about. To ask your next question 'how long?'. The answer is absolutely unknown. Could be today, could be in 2 years. All suggestions of timeframes you see are complete guesses or hopeful answers.

To do the above, read the following: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/
The first post explains to you what needs to be done, and the risks involved.

I strongly suggest waiting, especially if this isn't vital now. Updating your baseband to the iPad one, in my opinion, is like signing your iPhone's death wish.

Alternatively, sell your iPhone on eBay and buy one from the UK, carrier unlocked. We roll in carrier unlocked ones over here ;)
 
PUCCY said:
ok what if i sell the phone to someone who has AT&T. would it work for them?

I dont want to upgrade to ipad firmware then be stuck with it and end up with a worthless phone.
Click to expand...

If the phone is locked to AT&T, using it on the official carrier would never be an issue.
 
thanks guys for all the information you provided.

So ok I think what I might do is buy an unlocked version and sell this one to someone in the US with AT&T?

Is that wise to do?
 
PUCCY said:
thanks guys for all the information you provided.

So ok I think what I might do is buy an unlocked version and sell this one to someone in the US with AT&T?

Is that wise to do?
Click to expand...

That is wise, but make sure you buy a carrier unlocked iPhone. We sell them here in the UK, and we can usually get our iPhones freely, and officially, unlocked by our carriers. There's so many on eBay, you shouldn't have a problem. Just make sure it's a decent UK seller.

A carrier unlocked iPhone will never need to go through any of this unlocking business. Each time you restore, iTunes will unlock the iPhone again for you without asking. I don't understand why more people do this, but there we go.

Best of luck finding your iPhone. I'm sure you're competent with eBay, but do check eBay user reviews first - the iPhone is a hugely valuable/popular device and, as such, brings about several scams. Do keep in mind that a carrier unlocked iPhone will come with a slightly higher price tag than a locked one.
 
come to think of it im planning on visitin the US in the future, maybe next month or so.

Maybe i should just keep the phone for me and use it when i go visit. but im assuming i can only use it with AT&T? Does anyone know if i can just plug in a pre paid AT&T sim card and be able to use it ?
 
PUCCY said:
come to think of it im planning on visitin the US in the future, maybe next month or so.

Maybe i should just keep the phone for me and use it when i go visit. but im assuming i can only use it with AT&T? Does anyone know if i can just plug in a pre paid AT&T sim card and be able to use it ?
Click to expand...

Yes, a prepaid AT&T sim will work fine.
 
andy9l said:
A carrier unlocked iPhone will never need to go through any of this unlocking business. Each time you restore, iTunes will unlock the iPhone again for you without asking. I don't understand why more people do this, but there we go.
Click to expand...

Look at the money they want for those factory unlocked phones $700~900 US if we are talking iphone4. This is why old bootrom 3GS with an unlockable baseband are still selling north of $300 even if they are broken. Then the price of those has been driving up the price of the unlockable ones from people that don't know better. iPhones are just expensive and everyone is looking for ways to save, hence all the traffic here.
 
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