[matthew858]

As stated above, the 3GS can now be jailbroken! But this is not a iPhone Dev Team jailbreak, it's a Geohot Jailbreak. Geohot was actually the first person to be able to jailbreak the original iPhone and now the 3GS, then he handed his work to the iPhone Dev Team. The jailbreak is called purplera1n, and can be downloaded here. As a side-note, this is only available for Windows (not Windows 7 either). A mac version is promised soon (thanks Beau).

The blog post from Geohot himself with info is On the iPhone: I make it ra1n

Happy jailbreaking!

Edit:
The DevTeam have come to the party, and Redsn0w .8 (which supports the 3GS) can be found here

[Beau]

You forgot to mention that there's only a Windows release out, for now anyway

[gehenna]

if it's not from the dev team i wouldn't touch it with a barge pole

[Beau]

It's also missing the vm_map patch so some apps (namely Winterboard) won't work.

[anarchron]

Originally Posted by gehenna

if it's not from the dev team i wouldn't touch it with a barge pole

Well, it is from geohot who was the first guy to actually unlock the iPhone via the hardware hack. So, I'd say he's a fairly reputable source unlike Zibri who ripped off the dev-team's work.

[gehenna]

means nothing to me. dev-team is the only way i'll go.

[boddiz]

did mine a hour or so ago, works great. dunno why your saying winterboard isn't working, but mine is.

Geohotz has been a big player in the jailbreaking industry since day one, there is no reason not to trust him.

I followed these instructions (thanks chaos209!) for anyone who's keen:

(VISTA)

1.) Open iTunes
2.) run purplera1n

3.) press "make it ra1n"
4.) wait for it to get into recovery mode

5.) now for some reason it might stay at recovery mode while the program saying done, wait for reboot

6.) wait a minute if nothing happens leave the iphone alone dont try to maunally reboot it 

7.) close the purplera1n program and re-run it all over again while the phone is still in recovery mode
8.) it should now work

9.) you should see the purplera1n picture, wait.
10.) Your phone should reboot with the app "freeze" in the springboard
11.) run freeze and install cydia
12.) if it doesn't show up, reboot your iphone

13)after reboot it should now be on the springboard


(XP)

1.) Open iTunes.
2.) run purplera1n

3.) press "make it ra1n"
4.) wait for it to get into recovery mode

5.) you should see the purplera1n picture, wait.
6.) your phone should reboot with the app "freeze" in the springboard
7.) run freeze and install cydia
8.) if it doesn't show up, reboot yours iphone

9.) after reboot it should now be on the springboard


Hope this helps ,

Beau

[ozron]

Not sure that I see any point in JB the 3GS, apart maybe from running multiple apps. What are you guys going to use JB for?

[Linux_insidev2]

Originally Posted by gehenna

means nothing to me. dev-team is the only way i'll go.

That's a bit moronic

If you're afraid your phone might spontaneously combust you can always restore and re-jailbreak when the devteam one comes out.

The devteam are a bunch of douchecanoes, geohot has contributed a tonne to the community and with the help of a few other guys he released the first network unlock to the community that didn't cost money.

Not to mention that some of the latest developments with the dev team have been contributed by him.

I have no doubts that the devteam isn't happy about this, but the douchebags couldn't organise their way out of a wet paper bag.

:edit: and all this jailbreak does is install a Cydia installer which is downloaded from the the developer of Cydia - Saurik.
Saurik hasn't been telling anyone not to download it, just that it doesn't work with winterboard at the current time.

I'm sure the dev team will be pushed into releasing their one now, just because they don't like being beaten.

[boddiz]

Originally Posted by ozron

Not sure that I see any point in JB the 3GS, apart maybe from running multiple apps. What are you guys going to use JB for?

Im only JBing mine so I can use winterboard. I can't stand the stock apple thing, it was nice 3 years ago.

[mitty]

I'm trying to do this in a VMware of XP on my Mac but the VM won't recognise my iphone in Itunes, and therefore Purplera1n won't either. I tried it on Win 7 (as some people claim it works) but ended up having to restore my phone (painful). I don't have a "proper" XP install to try this with.

Waiting for a Mac version.

[eaglesteve2]

Thought that I would document my entire journey for jailbreaking to give a flavour to others wanting to try to know what might and can be expected to happen:


I'm using XP.

After step 4, my phone is in recovery mode, but I did'nt see any picture of purplera1n. Instead on the PC there is a pop up message saying "iTune must check the iPhone software update server to identify this device" and give me the button to either check or cancel.

Is this the expected behaviour? When I press cancel, the device remains at DFU mode and nothing happens after that.

Repeat it second time. Start the downloaded purpleri1n program, and now I select the check button after step 4, and I see the picture on my device now.

It's a long wait after the picture shows up on the device. at least 5 to 10 minutes before the white apple shows up and rebooted the device.

In my case, after the device rebooted, the "freeze" application did not show up, and also failed to show up even after a manual reboot. I wonder what's wrong. Let's do a second shut down and reboot....Nope, still don't see the "freeze" application.

Let me repeat the entire procedure again and see what happens.

Hmmm, iTune says it is in recovery mode, and that I must restore. Choosed not to restore.

Now I can't get out of DFU mode. Google the web and found many sites providing procedures for getting out of DFU mode. Tried all, but none of the procedures works for me.

Now decide to go back and try to jailbreak anyway with it already in DFU mode. So, now I start iTune, plug in my device, and run the let in rain program. Now my device shows the rain picture, and makes me wait...

After 5 - 10 minutes later, my device rebooted on its own. Checked for the "freeze" application on the springboard. Nope, it is not there.

Next let me do a manuall reboot...

Still can't see the "freeze" application.

I'm not giving up. Let me give it another go.

Start itune. Connect to cable. Start the downloaded program. Now iTune says I'm in DFU mode and I must restore. I cancel and exit iTune.

Now restart iTune, connect cable. Start the download program. See the rain picture on device. Wait, I almost miss seeing the "iTune must check the iPhone software update server to identify this device" message. (I must have missed seeing this the previous time). Now say check the server.

Now the device reboot, and the "freeze" program is there finally.

Start the freeze program and click install Cydia. It says Cydia is installed. Press Home button to exit freeze program. Don't see Cydia on springboard yet. Reboot. Cydia is there. Let's go and install winterboard...

Winterboard installed, system reboot with a message that system has crashed and springboard has gone into safe mode. I reboot my device now. It still crash. However, I can go in to Cydia to uninstall winterboard. After uninstalling winterboard, springboard boots up normally, but the icons positions are all messed up (not a big deal, I can rearrange that later).

Next, installed backgrounder. Tested. Seems to be working okay, minus all the additional features of course.

Installing sbsettings now. Yes. It works. Nice to be able to see memory status and date on the taskbar again, and to be able to toggle wifi, 3G, etc.

Next installing rotation inhibitor to stop all those annoying unwanted rotation. When I use my Ipod, I never want to see any landscape mode album cover, just as an example. Oh no. Problem. It foes into a loop of showing the lock screen, restart springboard, lock screen, restart springboard.... Let me reboot to get out of it. Now it alternates between the white apple, lock screen, and goes on and on without starting the springboard.

It does not look like there is a way to get out.

I think I've got a good feel of the quality of this jailbreak by now. I'm going to restore and wait for the developement team.

Oops, the device comes back to the springboard in safe mode again while I was downloading the firmware for restoring. I uninstalled Rotation Inhibitor, and everything is peechy once again. So, only the backgrounder is not causing problem so far. May be just for that alone I'll leave it temporily jailbroken in this manner. Backgrounder is too important not to have for me. Without it, my golf score card is terminated each time a telephone call comes in. I think some navigation software (don't have one yet, still waiting for TomTom) may have the same problem.

So, with backgrounder and sbssettings both working perfectly, I'm happy to use this jailbreak until the real thing comes.

[mitty]

I know it's the nature of the beast, but Geohot sounds less than professional (though it appears he's some kind of skating hacker). Obviously he's a clever guy and the jailbreaking "community" owes him a lot, but I just love how he posts on twitter "Going to sleep... partying this weekend... maybe monday for osx and win7".

You trust your $1000 device to this?

Problems so far I've read:

a) it appears sometimes you lose your wifi. This maybe related to ultrasn0w.
b) if you install winterboard your phone may crash (though this might not be true as well, see above)
c) works in XP... sometimes in vista, sometimes in 7. but sometimes not.
d) there hasn't really been a clear explanation about the whole ECID thing, if it was even needed for this JB or not.

Again, nature of the beast. But after one annoying restore (it takes an hour to reload all my music) I think I'm waiting for the dev team.

[politik]

You guys realise geohot has worked with the iPhone Dev Team in the past right?

[Linux_insidev2]

Originally Posted by mitty

You trust your $1000 device to this?

We trusted geohot with the original iPhone hardware unlock, which had a great potential to completely destroy the baseband of your device

Problems so far I've read:

a) it appears sometimes you lose your wifi. This maybe related to ultrasn0w.

Definitely would be

b) if you install winterboard your phone may crash (though this might not be true as well, see above)

don't know about crashing, but Winterboard is not compatible with the 3GS due to the need for some patches that haven't been included with this jailbreak

c) works in XP... sometimes in vista, sometimes in 7. but sometimes not.

Works in XP English only and Vista, haven't seen it work in 7 and is not compatible with iTunes x64

d) there hasn't really been a clear explanation about the whole ECID thing, if it was even needed for this JB or not.

the ECID thing is only needed for the future, when apple releases a new firmware they might prevent downgrades by not signing the earlier firmwares when you attempt to restore, as explained by geohot itself and theiphonewiki.com

Again, nature of the beast. But after one annoying restore (it takes an hour to reload all my music) I think I'm waiting for the dev team.

All you had to do if it got stuck at the restore screen was close the app and relaunch and re-run it.

[eaglesteve2]

The way I look at it, you can always restore if you don't like it. Fo me, it is worth it, and a big thanks to matthew858 for posting this.

Cheers.

[Linux_insidev2]

Originally Posted by eaglesteve2

The way I look at it, you can always restore if you don't like it. Fo me, it is worth it, and a big thanks to matthew858 for posting this.

Cheers.

Exactly

[jack112006]

Does anyone know if this also jailbreaks the 3.1 beta or is it just 3.0?

[mitty]

Originally Posted by Linux_insidev2

All you had to do if it got stuck at the restore screen was close the app and relaunch and re-run it.

I did that, several times, nothing.

Though I have now read that you can get back out of restore mode by using an earlier version of quickpwn.

There's also lots of different reports of:

a) getting stuck on the picture of geohot on the phone... nothing happens after that
b) the freeze app installs, but cydia doesn't then install, or looks like it does but it's not there after a reboot
d) no freeze at all, after a sucessful picture of geohot and then a reboot.

It looks like it works for some people but obviously the "conditions" are all correct.

The other thing that concerns me is this new way of restoring. At the beginning of the Restore Itunes communicates with Apple (obviously generating these "keys" that are required now). But we have no idea what else might be happening here. It's all conjecture and stupid conspiracy theories but for all I know Apple now knows I at least attempted a jailbreak and some Steve Swat team is heading for my address right now to smack my bott bott.

[eaglesteve2]

Like to report that iFile and Safari download plugin both works. These are both critical requirements fir me, to be able to download file, and manage files.

Mxtube works perfectly too. Now I can save my YouTube fovourites.