[Question] iPhone 3GS jailbroken

Once upon a time, a lovely and thoughtful wife bought her husband a used iPhone 3G as an upgrade to his luddite-esque phone. She didn't know that they couldn't use the phone with their tyrannical carrier. What a bore. So, the phone sat. It sat and sat and sat. Then one day, the couple had a child, and this child became overly obsessed with the shiny new LG phones in the household. She loved to touch the screen and see pictures of herself, but her favorite activity was to throw the shiny new phones onto the cold hard hardwood hard floors. Did I mention the floor was hard and unforgiving? This frightened the child's parents. Taking the phones away from the toddler caused the child to emit screams so loud that the father's only escape was to drink. Gin. Lots of gin and cheap beer. This only exacerbated the situation. The days and weeks following were dark days. Grimdark. Gray, murky muddy days of woe. Edgar Allen Poe stuff.
One morning the child's father opened his desk drawer looking for his hidden stash of booze for he had to hide his drinking these days. And, there it was! An iPhone box! It sat in the drawer in a tangled viper nest of usb cables and a grab-bag of tech paraphernalia. The sleek black box looked down-right sexy with its inviting icons and ivory font. Their prayers had finally been answered! This device would serve as surrogate to the device-devouring toddler. Surely, it would satiate her hunger. With a smile and sparkle in his eye, the father delicately opened the satisfyingly heavy box. He actually gasped when touched the sleek phone. The messianic device was cool and smooth. He connected the umbilical cord between laptop and newfound savior. Oh the apps he would install! Glorious apps like PBS Kids and, and he could sync Disney movies and Yo Gabba Gabba episodes! Hours of blissful entertainment! Oh joy! Oh rapture!
The phone’s screen lit up with the comforting Apple logo. It reassured the man that all was going to be okay now. He was finally home after being lost at sea. The man sat smiling while the devices interfaced in an exchange of bits and bytes. He hadn’t smiled in days. It really was going to be okay.
The father in his haste fired up iTunes and ignorantly clicked “Update”. Oh dear reader the devastation that followed was, well, devastating. We’re talking Biblical ruination - Job and sackcloths and gnashing of teeth. The phone’s display showed only a USB cord and the iTunes logo. It was in a loop of despair. The man desperately watched Youtube videos and scoured tech forums, but to no avail. No patch, no script, no app helped alleviate the pain. It was futile. Hope was gone. It is folly after all to have hope.


tl;dr
I have a used unlocked/potentially jailbroken iPhone 3 that I would like to use as portable media device, but it’s stuck in recovery mode (I think?). I have tried looking into jailbreaking it or following steps on various sites, but I can’t seem to get it to work. If you have any suggestions or sites that I should use to fix it, I would appreciate the advice.
 
Even if it were able to connect to iTunes, I'm thinking it's well past it's sell by date for any of those apps you want to install to work. :(
 
Not sure what the deal is, iTunes should be able to update it, jailbroken or not.

--Patrick
It's odd. It may just be a bad phone.[DOUBLEPOST=1438703190,1438703156][/DOUBLEPOST]
Even if it were able to connect to iTunes, I'm thinking it's well past it's sell by date for any of those apps you want to install to work. :(
I think some should work. At the very least, I can put some media on it for the kiddo.
 
Even if it were able to connect to iTunes, I'm thinking it's well past it's sell by date for any of those apps you want to install to work. :(
There is that, yes. They can run anything up to iOS 6, but the list of useful apps that can run that far back keeps getting smaller and smaller. Whatever you do, though, don't throw away the SIM card.
To get it restored, you can try forced recovery mode, or you can go straight to DFU mode.
If there is an app that you want that tells you "Oh you can't buy that your phone is too old," you can try buying it on your computer first, and then telling the phone to download an older version (but the purchase has to already be on your record before it will let you do this).

--Patrick
 
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