First things first: unlocking your iPhone is illegal according to new DMCA rules. However, the rule applies only to those units bought and activated on or after 26th Jan 2013. Which means a large part of the iPhone users can legally and safely unlock their iPhones (provided you’ve bought it before 26th January).
We’ve not much heard about iPhone unlocks in recent times (other than a couple of times when an iTunes restore unlocked AT&T iPhones and Verizon admitted that all their iPhones came unlocked). This is because there hasn’t been a proper untethered jailbreak till Evasi0n came up a few days back. And without a jailbreak, you really don’t think much about unlocks.
The U.S. Federal courts ruled that unlocking the iPhones out of the carrier contracts is illegal with monstrous penalties.
While the usual stuff (petitions, signing, outcry, freedom etc.) goes on, ultrasn0w got updated silently without much ado. iPhone 4 and 3GS users who run iOS 6.1 with the basebands mentioned below can now unlock their iPhones using Ultrasn0w.
Update: Ultrasn0w 1.2.8 appears to be problematic for iPhone 4 users running iOS 6.1 on baseband 1.59.00. If you are on it, don’t – repeat, DON’T – install it. – thanks to our reader Deepesh for the comment.
Ultrasn0w 1.2.8 can be found in Cydia. As always, make sure you’ve got a compatible baseband and iPhone – otherwise, it just won’t work.
To check your baseband, go to:
Settings -> General -> About -> Modem Firmware.
The Modem Firmware number is your baseband.
Ultrasn0w 1.2.8 is compatible with: iPhone 4 and 3GS/3G
These are the basebands:
iPhone 4: 01.59.00
iPhone 3GS/3G: 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01, 05.13.04, 06.15.00
Incidentally, if you are on these basebands but not on iOS 6.1, you might want to try ultrasn0w. Then, if it fails (which it most certainly would), upgrade to iOS 6.1 but via Redsn0w. But when you upgrade, make sure to preserve BB: open Redsn0w → Extras → Even More → Restore and select Preserve baseband.
