iPhone iOS 4.2.1 Ultrasn0w Unlock Issues: Severe Battery Draining, Hot iPhone in Standby Mode & Excessive Data Traffic

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The iPhone 3G and 3GS running iOS 4.2.1 have finally been unlocked but that doesn’t mean it’s only good news for early unlockers, especially those of you relying on these fancy jailbreak and unlock tools to hacktivate your device in the process.

What is hacktivation? If you don’t know what it means then your iPhone when initially purchased, has been activated by a supported SIM card, like the one AT&T provides, and you were able to use all of its features, less the phone capabilities, while waiting for an unlock solution.

Now if your iPhone 3G or 3GS wasn’t activated when you got it, then you pretty much owned a bricked unit that wouldn’t even act as an iPod. That also means chances are you rely on the recent jailbreak tools to hacktivate your iPhone 3G or 3GS and that’s enough for your phone to go bonkers and offer you some serious issues.

Why is that? Well it looks like iOS 4.1 and iOS 4.2.1 keep checking for valid push certificates all the time and they use whatever connection available at any given time, that’s Wi-Fi, EDGE or 3G. You know what will happen next don’t you? The phone can become very hot even during standby since data packets are sent and received even if you’re not using the device. Naturally the battery will drain a lot quicker, not to mention that, in case you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you will pretty much eat through your data allowance and incur extra costs whenever a Wi-Fi network is not present.

These are apparently some current issues that come with the jailbreak and unlock process and it looks like people have spotted them after the unlock thus blaming the new Ultrasn0w for them. But, according to a well known fellow that goes by the nickname Sherif Hashim, it’s not the unlock tool that’s causing the issues, it’s just a coincidence as the hacktivation is to blame here.

He also has some solutions for you, and the easiest one would be to activate your phone using a borrowed SIM and then go through the usual jailbreak and unlock process:

A) try to activate the phone using the official sim if u have it (even if the sim itself is old and not working) , or borrow it from a friend if it’s possible, by any means, try to have an access to one and use it
B) if A is not feasible, u can install SBsettings from featured cydia packages and turn wifi and data off when u r not using it (shuts down both 3g and edge) , till C is done
C) there is a very nice module being worked on by a trusted jailbreak app dev, namely @sbingner , which ll resolve that issue for those having it, the details of which shouldn’t be disclosed until he finishes his awesome work, till then, either use A or B to resolve the issue if it exists for you

Have you noticed any of the issues mentioned above? How is your unlocked iPhone treating you?

[Thanks to our readers for pointing these issues out]