[Galaxy S III General (US Carriers)] pinoymutt:
*Disclaimer -- I just wanted to post this as an information source as people are just now starting to get their North American SGS III's and are eagerly awaiting ROOT and custom ROM access.

UPDATE as of 7/18/2012 -- Chainfire just posted a new version of Triangle Away that appears to work for the US/Canadian SGSIII variants.

Thanks to The Root for calling attention to it and directing folks to Chainfire's Twitter for quick testing (he's leaving for a month holiday) - http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1781104

And pop over to Chainfire's thread to grab version 1.70 (or get the donation version on Play if you want to show him some love) - http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1494114

With that said, if you are new to the latest line of Samsung Android devices, you should be aware that the latest devices have a Custom Binary Flash Counter built in.

What does that mean?

Well, for reasons still yet unknown, Samsung has built in code that will essentially track every time a user flashes certain unsigned pieces of code to their phone, including but not limited to recovery and kernels.

The general thinking is that Samsung and/or the carrier could take one look at this counter and refuse warranty service since modifying the phone is technically against the TOS. This is the risk.

Why is this important?

Many times the first (and most easily found) ROOT and CWM recovery solutions (if you don't know what CWM is, I highly suggest doing some reading up on this, as it's one of the basics of Sammy SGS ROM flashing) will trigger this counter. And once it's tripped -- it's not exactly easy on some devices to reset this counter.

How do I tell if the counter has been tripped?

It can manifest itself in many ways. For example on the SGS II, there would be a yellow caution sign with a triangle that would show up every time the phone would boot (hence the origin of the name Triangle Away which I mention below). On other devices, you see a counter when going into Download Mode. For example on the Galaxy Tab 2, in download mode there is a screen that mentions if a Custom Binary is loaded and a numbered counter of how many times a non-standard code has been flashed.

But what about Chainfire's Triangle Away and USB Jigs?

First, the USB Jig is an important tool to have since it allows folks to get into Download Mode without using a PC. Early on, users discovered on early versions of the SGS II, the USB Jig also reset the binary counter. However, in newer released bootloaders on the SGS II, as well as newer devices like the Galaxy Note, Tab 2, and SGS III -- Jigs don't reset the counter.

As for Triangle Away -- EDIT (7.18.2012) -- Version 1.70 is now compatible with the US & Canadian versions of the SGS III. Go show Chainfire (the dev) some love!

So what's the solution?

Now there are 2 choices (as of 7/18):

(A) EDIT -- thanks to MrRobinson there is now an way of rooting and adding CWM to the i747 w/o tripping the counter - http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1739426

(if devs from the other carriers ask MrRobinson nicely, I'm sure he'd be happy to share what he did to get the root injected since it took a bit of tweaking. The CWM part should be universal);

(B) Or if you have already tripped the counter, as mentioned above, grab version 1.70 of Chainfire's Triangle Away - it now works on the US & Canadian versions.

EDIT: 6/22 - Changed the title to better reflect the post contents.

EDIT: 6/26 - Added appropriate [tag] due to forum combination.

EDIT: 6/28 - New Root w/o tripping counter for i747 linked

EDIT: 7/18 - Chainfire upped Triangle Away v1.70 that resets the counter.