First foremost, I bought a new iPhone 3GS off Craigslist hoping that it will work with my T-Mobile SIM after unlocking. However, I had to face the reality that the newer 3GS MC model with firmware 3.1.3 cannot be unlocked!! I spent my entire Memorial Day long weekend hoping that I could find useful information provided by the iPhone Dev Team or geohot. I am not a programmer nor hacker. I just want to use this 3GS with my T-Mobile family plan. The best result was it could be jailbroken, but not unlocked.

I have been checking redmondpie.com and following Dev Team’s and GeoHot’s Twitters on daily basis after the iOS4 keynote was released. I know there will be an official unlock and jailbreak tools coming up after its official release on 6/21/2010 but I have been using this iPhone 3GS as an iPod Touch since Memorial Day. I have decided to give it a shot after this new post on Redmondpie Blacksn0w RC2 unlock .

I added geohot’s blacksn0w repo (www.blackra1n.com) on Cydia. (Yes, you can still jailbreak your iPhone 3GS with baseband 5.12.01 with spirit after putting a dummy AT&T SIM to bypass the iTunes activation screen.). Then I installed blacksn0w RC1, but it took forever to finish installing it. I waited like an hour and decided to reboot it. Bad news was my 3GS didn’t come back after the reboot, it got stuck at the Apple logo.

Basically I tried to recover the device by pressing home and lock buttons but this trick didn’t work. After another hours of struggling and waiting to download the official 3.1.3 firmware, I tried to restore the firmware back. I put my 3GS into DFU mode and manually select the official 3.1.3 firmware and waited like 20 minutes for it restore. After all, miracle had happened. iTunes prompted me this message “Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked.”

I immediately swapped the SIM card to a T-Mobile one and it alerted me I have new voicemail. I knew it was a good sign and quickly I turned off 3G. 3GS spent like 5 minutes searching for signal and boomed it picked up the E with some bars. Finally, it turned to T-Mobile and I dubiously made a call to my desk phone. It rang!!! I asked my wife to call that T-Mobile number on my 3GS, I was also able to speak perfectly.

This image is absolutely real, no BS! If you can’t wait until the official unlock is released and dare to give it a shot, please try!