Since the release of PurpleRa1n, the first iPhone 3GS jailbreak, you are now able to unlock your iPhone 3GS.

To do so, you first have to jailbreak your iPhone with PurpleRa1n (see PurpleRa1n tutorial), and then, simply install UltraSn0w from Cydia.

It’s that simple! Note that even though PurpleRa1n got an update, it’s still a little buggy.

Not even a week after showing solid proofs of a successful iPhone 3GS jailbreak, GeoHot officially released PurpleRa1n, a tool to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS. The Dev Team planned to release their 3GS jailbreak after the OS 3.1 update but GeoHot just couldn’t wait.

Normally I don’t make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn’t how the game is played. We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn’t worth waiting because you might have the “last” hole in the iPhone. What last hole…this isn’t golf. I’ll find a new one next week. Also your purplera1nyday files ensure that you can always get back to a jailbroken state, so if you have it it’s just a matter of tools.

Before going through a short PurpleRa1n tutorial, there are a few things you need to know:

• This is a beta release with some major hiccups. It is not stable at all.
• PurpleRa1n only works with 32 Bit Windows XP SP2
• You must have the latest version of iTunes installed
• The jailbreak is incomplete and many apps won’t work (ie WinterBoard)

Jump the break to read the full tutorial. (more…)

The Dev Team posted a message yesterday suggesting that iPhone 3GS owners should prepare their device for jailbreak.

Remember we warned you to stay away from any updates to 3.1 if you want to be able to jailbreak or unlock your 3GS.

Well this is an additional message to all you 3GS owners that would like to jailbreak your device sometime soon, but this advice comes with a warning! A warning that if you accidentally upgrade to 3.1, you will not be able to use Ultransn0w, so please re-read and double check this warning at the bottom of this post before proceeding.

During the restore process iTunes nicely keeps these oh-so-top-secret-files in a lovely accessible place for us to copy out and backup, that place?  /tmp on Mac OS X or %TEMP% on Windows.  Thanks Apple — handy!

The downside to this approach is that you actually need to go through the restore process to get these signed files, which has risks if you are anywhere near 3.1 or 3.1 beta

Jump the break for instructions on how to get the iBEC and iBSS of your iPhone 3GS. (more…)

My fiance Tina is a mental therapist and she regularly has appointments with clients. She usually uses her old Samsung phone as a calendar but needless to say it is not very practical. I recently “forced” her to get an iPod Touch and one of my sales argument was that she could use it as a calendar and that she would be able to sync it with Google calendar over the air. Note that these were just arguments I pulled out of my butt so she agrees to get an iTouch (yes, the iTouch is more for me than for her)…

We finally bought a 32GB iPod Touch and I started looking into ways to sync an iPhone calendar with Google calendar. I found many options but all involved some third party apps and that’s clearly not what I was looking for. I was very surprised that Apple hadn’t included this feature in the iPhone/iPod Touch until I actually found an article on JAIB saying that the new OS 3.0 supports CalDAV with SSL so your are technically able to sync Google calendar with your iPhone or iPod Touch, as long as you have internet access.

Here is how to set up your iPhone or iPod Touch to sync calendars with Google over the air:

1. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account > Other > Add CalDAV Account

2. For the CalDAV settings, enter the following information. Note that your username should be the email address you use to access your Google calendar as well as the password.

3. Then tap “Next” and it should verify your information.

4. If you can’t get your account verified, tap “Advanced settings” and make sure that “Use SSL” is On, that the port is 443, and that your Account URL includes the sign “@” in your email address.

That’s it!

Now every time you add an event to your iPhone calendar, it will also show up on your Google calendar, and vice versa. You obviously need to have internet access from your iPod or iPhone for the data to sync. Note that the sync is not immediate. It sometimes takes a few seconds but besides this, it works very well.

There is a simple trick to enable the emoji keyboard on your iPhone. This trick has been around for a few days but for some reason, I never wrote about it. Loyal reader David emailed me earlier today and reminded me of this.

1. Install Spell Number from the App Store (it’s a free app)

2. Launch the app and type 91929394.59

3. Press the home button

4. Go to Settings > General > Keyboards, and under “Japanese” select “Emoji”

You can now use these crazy little japanese icons. Note that you can delete the app if you don’t want to keep it. Your Emoji keyboard will still be activated.

There is a new simple hack that allows iPhone 2G users to enable MMS on their iPhone. Your iPhone has to be jailbroken to enable MMS. If you don’t know how to jailbreak your iPhone, please read this.

Now go to Cydia and look for the application called ActivateMMS2G from the iSpazio source. Install and reboot your iPhone and bingo!

Imagine you’re having a wonderful dinner at a fancy restaurant with your wife or fiance. As usual, you put your iPhone on the table so the others can see what a cool kid you are. All the sudden, the following text message arrives on your iPhone. Before you have time to hit “close”, your wife has already ripped your head off.

This accident likely happened hundreds if not thousands of times since the iPhone came out in 2007. Until then, there was nothing you could do. A few jailbreak applications allowed you to hide this but for some reason, Apple never felt it was a feature worth including in the iPhone OS.

Things have changed with the release of the 3.0 firmware which now allows you to hide the preview of any incoming SMS.

To activate this feature, simply go to Settings > Messages > and turn “Show Preview” off. As you can see on the image above, Apple also added a feature that will alert you two more times after receiving a SMS if you don’t read it right away. This is a feature that has also been available for a long time to jailbreakers.

Hiding the preview of an SMS won’t completely hide it from showing up on your springboard. You will still get a popup showing the name of the sender and “text message”, with the option for you to view the SMS or just close the popup.

That was a much needed option but I think it’s too bad you still see the name of the sender (or his phone number if not in your contacts). It’s a matter of privacy. A name showing up on your iPhone can still lead to awkward moments…

Have you ever had an awkward because of a SMS arriving on your iPhone? If so, please share it with us in the comments.

UltraSn0w, the soft unlock for the iphone 3G 3.0 firmware is now available thanks to the good work of the Dev Team. Don’t wait any minute to install UltraSn0w and unlock your iPhone 3G.

Before installing UltraSn0w, your iPhone 3G has to be jailbroken and running the latest 3.0 firmware. You can either jailbreak your iPhone 3G using RedSn0w (see tutorial here) or by using PwnageTool (see tutorial here).

After jailbreaking your iPhone 3G, follow these simple steps:

• Launch Cydia.
• Add the following source to Cydia repo666.ultrasn0w.com (note there is a “0″ in sn0w, not an “o”).
• After installing this source in Cydia, search for “ultraSn0w”.
• Install UltraSn0w and reboot your iPhone.
• Voila!

Note that T-Mobile users should disable 3G before using UltraSn0w.

Unfortunately, the new iPhone 3G S still can’t be unlocked because there is no jailbreak for it yet.

One of the great new features of the iPhone 3G S is its improved camera lens, and most importantly the fact that it can record videos. After shooting and trimming a video, you can easily upload this video to YouTube, or even email it to a friend. But what if you simply want to import this video to your computer?

There is an easy way to copy a video recorded with your iPhone 3G S to your computer.

If you’re on a PC, go to My Computer and look for “Scanners and Camera”. You should see your iPhone there. Double-click on it and and save your photos and videos to the desired location.

If you’re on a Mac, open the Image Capture app. It will recognize both pictures and videos recorded with your iPhone. Drag and drop the video where you want to save it and that’s it.

This RedSn0w guide & tutorial will show you how to unlock your iPhone 2G using RedSn0w. This guide is to unlock the iPhone 2G only. If you want to unlock the iPhone 3G, you will have to jailbreak your iPhone first using this guide, but you will have to wait for the Dev Team to release UltraSn0w, the unlocking tool for iPhone 3G. There is no way to jailbreak or unlock the new iPhone 3G S so far but I am confident the Dev Team is working on something.

Note that this RedSn0w tutorial is for Windows users but I assume the steps are similar on a Mac.

1. Before doing anything, make sure you have the latest version of iTunes and the latest firmware 3.0 installed on your iPhone 2G.

2. Create a new folder on your desktop. In this folder, download RedSn0w as well as the latest 3.0 firmware for your iPhone 2G from our iPhone downloads page (make sure you pick the right firmware). Also download the following bootloader files: BL 3.9 and BL 4.6

3. Unzip and launch RedSn0w.

4. Click “browse” and select the 3.0 firmware you downloaded in a folder in step 2.

5. Once the firmware has been successfully identified, click “next”.

6. Select “install Cydia” and “ulock”, then click “next”.

7. Browse for the bootloader files you downloaded in step 2, and click “next”.

8. Make sure your iPhone is plugged into the computer and that it is off. Click “next”.

9. RedSn0w will then guide you to put your iPhone into DFU mode. Hold down the power button for 2 seconds. Without releasing the power button, also hold down the home button for 10 seconds. Without releasing the home button, release the power button but keep holding the home button for 30 seconds.

10. If done correctly, your iPhone should reboot and the jailbreak process should start. This step may take up to 15-20 minutes so be patient.

11. Once this process is over, you will get a message saying that it is “done!”

12. Click the “finish” button and reboot your iPhone. The reboot may take up to 10 minutes so again, be patient.

13. Congratulations, you just jailbroke and unlocked your iPhone 3.0 with RedSn0w.