iPhone 3GS Jailbreak & Unlock Confirmed

Less than a week after the launch of the iPhone 3GS, the Dev Team confirmed it will soon be possible to jailbreak the 24Kpwn exploit that the hybrid team used on the iPod Touch 2G. This 24Kpwn exploit applies for the bootrom of the iPhone 3GS. In other words, you will soon be able to use RedSn0w to jailbreak your iPhone 3GS.

The other news is that once jailbroken, you will be able to use the current version of UltraSn0w to unlock the iPhone 3GS.

This is great news, but how did it happen?  Why didn’t Apple fix this in their normal cat&mouse fashion?  Well it seems this bootrom was cut in about the August 2008 timeframe, so the unintended early reveal of 24Kpwn earlier this year didn’t affect the iPhone 3GS.

Important: Apple has not given up on the cat&mouse game, and in fact there are challenging aspects of the 3GS jailbreak that aren’t in the other devices.  It’ll take some time to safely work these into our tools, but the fundamental weaknesses are there:  The bootrom is exploitable via 24Kpwn, and the baseband is exploitable via ultrasn0w.  (And just like with the 3G, ultrasn0w for 3GS requires that you not update your baseband when Apple comes out with new firmware.)

If you’re really into iPhone hacking, the Dev Team released the technical notes about the 24Kpwn exploit in the iPhone 3GS. These notes can be found here.

There is no information so far on the expected release date of the iPhone 3GS jailbreak but I am confident the Dev Team will have it ready within the next 2 weeks. The sooner, the better. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going nuts with my unjailbroken iPhone.