UPDATE: Here are the prices. 16GB will trade for Rs. 35,500 whereas 32GB for Rs. 41,500. Additionally, users will get 500MB worth of free data every month for a year.

Airtel’s official twitter account spilled more details regarding iPhone 3GS. We wouldn’t have to wait for months as told before because the iPhone 3G’s successor will arrive on March 26. Airtel hasn’t mentioned any price but the phone will be available at authorized Airtel stores in 16GB and 32GB capacities.

Product Page

UPDATE: Product Page added below. The small FAQ on the page says “the handset will be available at Airtel Authorised Stores very soon” and will mostly be bundled with a 3G plan.

While most countries are waiting for the updated version of iPhone, Indians will officially be getting the iPhone 3GS soon. Airtel, India’s biggest carrier has issued a small note confirming to bring iPhone 3GS in the coming months. The price is still a mystery but don’t expect it to be anything south of Rs. 30,000.

We expect more operators to come out and confirm their affiliation.

Product Page

Take this with a pinch of salt but if couple of BGR sources are to be believed, Apple and AT&T might have something interesting for the consumers this Christmas. According to them, the $99 iPhone 3G will be replaced with an iPhone 3GS bearing the same 8GB capacity. The reasoning sounds a bit way off but is said that the price cut is done to combat DROID.

Unlock for iPhone 3G/3GS users on baseband 05.11.07 was impossible until now but as promised, Geohot has released Blacksn0w that unlocks iPhones running on OS v3.1.2 with the new baseband. The new unlock comes with hacktivation support, 15 second faster than previous solutions, tethering and easier than ever.

For new users:
- Go to blackra1n.com
- Download the app as per your OS
- Connect your iPhone and run the app to “make it ra1n”
- Phone will reboot and run the blackra1n.app that will be on the screen
- Install blacksn0w and feel liberated!

For existing blackra1n users:
- Run blackra1n.app
- Icy will be replaced with “ra1n”
- Run it and it will upgrade the app
- After that run blackra1n.app again
- Blacksn0w will appear and run it. Voila!

BlackSn0w

[Via iPhonejtag]

Sure, it has missed the promised August date but it looks like iPhone 3GS is due anytime now. One of our tipster let us know that iPhone 3GS has hit the Apple India website. We are not sure if it has been added today or for the past few days but this definitely is an indication.

iPhone India

[Thanks Raj!]

As confirmed by O2 UK yesterday, Apple has pushed an update to its iPhone OS 3.0. The new v3.0.1 update fixes the SMS vulnerability that allowed the hacker to gain full control of victim’s iPhone. As for users using jailbreak and unlocking solutions, the iPhone Dev team has given the nod that it’s safe to update the firmware but need to select the 3.0 IPSW when asked.

[Via Macrumors]

UPDATE: O2 spokesperson has confirmed that the SMS patch will be available tomorrow via iTunes. No confirmation from Apple though. [Thanks, Jay]

While Apple seems to be dealing with superfluous issues trying to save cell towers from jailbreaking, security researcher Charlie Miller at the Black Hat security conference showed that the phone maker has something big to deal with – saving iPhone users from hackers, jailbroken or not.

To give a short harmless demonstration, Miller sent a SMS to CNET’s reporter that rendered her phone useless. Now swap the harmless intentions to dangerous ones, the hacker can send a message and steal all the data, make calls, SMS all from the victim’s iPhone.

Miller says the exploit works because of a memory corruption bug in the way the iPhone handles SMSes. All the hacker needs to know is the victim’s phone number.

[Via CNET]

iPhone 3GS maybe the device that gives you endless hours of entertainment but when it comes to security and encryption, it fails miserably. Jonathan Zdziarski, an iPhone developer and a hacker claims that iPhone 3GS encryption is useless and “It’s kind of like storing all your secret messages right next to the secret decoder ring.”

Even there have been many businesses adopting iPhone 3GS as their working device, Zdziarski points out that “it’s just as easy to access a user’s private information on an iPhone 3GS as it was on the previous generation iPhone 3G or first generation iPhone. Live data can be extracted in as little as two minutes, and an entire raw disk image can be made in about 45 minutes.”

There are other risks too, like pressing the Home button or zooming in creates a temporary screenshot and the keyboard cache logs the keystrokes. The keyboard cache can be recovered to identify credit card information, passwords etc.

Zdziarski says app developers should not rely on Apple’s security fully but try to integrate of their own.

[Via Wired]

Oh iPhone 3GS unlockers, you really are spoilt for choices now. If you thought the iPhone Dev team were Gods in this scene, GeoHot too has come to the party to attain the same tag with his Purplesn0w unlock tool. Even though it’s a soft unlock, GeoHot claims it as good as a true unlock that is very light and does not add additional tasks to the baseband.

Here are the instructions to follow:

Be sure to have legit activated 3GS
Disable 3G if you don’t have it(like T-Mobile).
Add apt.geohot.com to Cydia
Install com.geohot.purplesn0w
Watch for success output in Cydia
Reboot, and enjoy your unlocked iPhone

For the geeks who want to know how GeoHot did this, check out the full source code over here.

[Via iPhonejtag]

The iPhone Dev team has updated its jailbreaking and unlocking solutions to v0.8 that integrates iPhone 3GS jailbreaking and unlocking support. Download the redsn0w for Windows, Linux or Mac from the link below and then install Ultrasn0w 0.8 from Cydia. Though we’re not sure, the ultrasn0w unlock should work with purplera1n jailbroken devices since it uses Cydia to download the app.

Download redSn0w

[Via Twitter]