Just as America gears up to celebrate Independence Day comes news that iPhone 3GS owners are getting some freedom of their own.

George Hotz, the teenage hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has let loose a jailbreaking app for the iPhone 3GS code-named purplera1n. It enables the installation of third-party software not approved for Apple's App Store.

For now, purplera1n is Windows-only (but not Windows 7) and requires the latest iTunes installed, as well as an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware. In a Friday blog post titled "I make it ra1n," Hotz says a Mac version is "coming shortly."

Hotz notes that he normally doesn't make tools for the general public and would rather wait for the iPhone dev team to do that.

More: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10279029-1.html