yellowsn0w 0.9.1 release allows network unlock on iPhone 3G 2.2
Pretty good progress has been made on the iPhone 3G unlock front. iPhone Dev Team issued yellowsn0w 0.9.1 beta release last night which is aimed at network unlocking iPhone 3G running firmware 2.2.
This is a pretty important release as previously the Dev-Team have recommended people to stay with old baseband when updating to newer firmwares in case the unlock they’re working on would only function on the baseband they were developing on. It looks like this is not the case as the newest yellowsn0w release will work on the newest Apple firmware.
Dev-Team has also issued some comments on how this unlock works. It requires a jailbroken iPhone, and once it is jailbroken, you download a little app called yellowsn0w through Cydia or Installer. There are proponents of both 3rd party installers but most of the community seem to be siding with Cydia lately but it is good to know that yellowsn0w will be available through both.
Once this app is downloaded it will run on boot or baseband refresh and it will allow a non-Apple permitted SIM card to be present in the iPhone.
As with all beta releases there are numerous bugs to be worked out. The SIM cannot be the type with SIM Toolkit menus (some prepaid carriers will have this) nor can it be a SIM with a PIN enabled (some carriers enforces this) so if you want to use yellowsn0w with one of this type of SIMs then you’ll have to wait until the next yellowsn0w release.