All Articles Tagged hack

Turns out all you need is an old PDA keyboard, the iPhone 2.0 SDK, and a dream. Okay, that, plus tons of smarts and hackery. Hey, at least this one isn’t as hard as the previous workaround we saw. Says Ars Technica:

The work is built on a 1200 baud modem that connects to the iPhone via the headphone port. This allows two-way transmission of data using frequency shift keying, the same method used in early modems. This modem was modified to accept input from infrared and USB connected devices, allowing the use of a keyboard. Further, a 2.0 SDK-compliant terminal app enables text input.

Will Apple ever open up the iPhone to real Bluetooth keyboard support? They did just announce A2DP Stereo, P2P, and SDK access for peripherals at the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Peek event, but not keyboards… Are we waiting on a special Apple designed iPhone keyboard to make an appearance at WWDC perhaps? Or will hacking continue to be the only game in town?

As our forums keep gaining more and more members the threads just keep getting better. Here are some of the latest and greatest Jailbreak-related threads from the forums today!

The first thread is a pretty straight forward poll, are you Jailbroken or not? As of right now the amount of members Jailbroken are way ahead of those who choose not to. So what about you?

Next thread comes to us from BKSinAZ, and he asked the following question. If he is using AT&T, is there any reason to jailbreak? I’m sure all of our readers who are currently Jailbroken can give BKSinAZ some reasons on why he should.

A lot has been said recently about the legality of Jailbreaking your iPhone. So is it a surprise that there are a few threads revolving around that topic? Be sure to check these two threads out: Jailbreak Illegal - What now? Restore? and Apple Says Jailbreaking is Illegal.

For everything that is Jailbreaking Apps… be sure to check out the forums iPhone Jailbreak Apps section. You will just begin to scratch the surface of what is exactly available to you.

In order to discuss these topics on TiPb forums you must be registered, which you can do right here, and it will only take a minute of your time.

See you on the forums!

The inimitable iJustine has tastily blog snacked about an App Store goodie named frostyplace (iTunes / $0.99), a Japanese RSS reader that by-the-way works around the iPhone’s limitation of only allowing Emoji (the massive emoticon collection used in Japan that adds to smiley face things like panda bear, train station, and mountain) on it’s official Japanese carrier.

Basically, you download and install the app, use it to browse some Japanese RSS feeds (i had to do it for a couple minutes, exiting and re-doing it 3 times), and then the Emoji option will miraculously appear in your settings and you’re golden.

Check out her site for the details and instructions, but I tried it and it worked for me. Let us know how you do!

Ok, I will admit I have never heard of Emoji (“Picture Characters”) until it was announced that iPhone firmware 2.2 would support them. As it turns out, however, the only iPhones that were blessed with this feature were on Japan’s SoftBank network. Until now that is…

Important Note: If you are not familiar with editing code we here at TiPb do not recommended that you try this.

No matter what carrier you are with, you can now apply a hack that was found on Gizmodo that will enable Emoji emoticons. Keep in mind any iPhone will be able to display the icons hacked or not, while “other” phones out there need to support Emoji in order to display them.

You need to edit the file /User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preferences.plist on the device -> whether you use a jailbreak to achieve this or merely some iTunes backup editor is up to you. Add the following boolean key as ‘true’: KeyboardEmojiEverywhere. Then merely go to the Keyboards section of the Settings app, hit Japanese, and turn on Emoji. Will work for any text field/view in the OS, including on websites, AND including the titles of items on SpringBoard (e.g. if you save a bookmark to the home screen).

The easiest way to do this would be to Jailbreak and run your iPhone as a SFTP server for editing the config file. Again TiPb does not recommend you try this if you are not familiar with editing code.

[Via Gizmodo]

While most of us have installed the 2.0.1 update (or, ahem, are still waiting for a backup we started last night to finish so we can install it), there’s a key group of folks that should stay away: Jailbreakers and unlockers. As is always the case when a new update comes out, our advice to these users is to wait and see how the iPhone hacking community responds. Right now, according to iphone-dev [via Engadget Mobile], they appear to be responding with a teensy bit of bravado:

We don’t see any major problems with the release that Apple made, but we have not released an update for PwnageTool for it as yet and therefore PwnageTool 2.0.1 will currently not work!

Their advice is pretty sound and mirrors ours: if you never intend on leaving your carrier, feel free to update away whenever if you don’t mind losing jailbroken apps. If you do (or already have), stay the heck away from updates until things clear up.

What about you? Are you law-abiding and currently enjoying a bug-free existence? Jailbreaker glancing longingly at 2.0.1’s reportedly better keyboard response? Unlocker living on the periphery of the cell phone ‘Verse, staring into the black and in danger of becoming a Reaver? Let us know!

So a new employment opportunity popped up at Apple’s job listings the other day and Apple is looking for an experienced iPhone Security Engineer to create “proof of concept” attacks on current security mechanisms and provide risk analysis of potential security threats. Basically, Apple needs an iPhone Hacker to prevent future jailbreaks, unlocks, and security breaches.

So if any of you are good at what you do and want to work for the “good guys”, go give it a try. Apple is trying to ramp up security to protect enterprises who are adopting iPhone 2.0 and more selfishly, protect their own App Store from competition ahem Cydia & Installer. Either way, Apple is getting serious about security and the iPhone.

What do you think?

ReadVia

We haven’t covered the latest in the hacking front here at Phone different for a few reasons:

1. Dieter was busy this week
2. Rene dare not fiddle with his unlocked iPhone let it get bricked and he not be able to use it up there in Canadaland
3. Chad, Brian, and Casey are not madmen, they like their iPhones just they way they are, thank you very much.

Anyhow, here’s the deal. If you’re on a Mac, you can now go download the iPhone Pwnage Tool¹. What does it do? Well, it’s a full-on way to load any firmware (i.e. version of the iPhone OS) you want, including versions not even made by Apple (should some such version arise). Supposedly this will be remarkably difficult for Apple to lock down in the future. Naturally, the firmware we all are interested in is the current Beta of the 2.0 firmware. I’ll be making this my weekend project, so stay tuned to see if I have a new 2.0 Hands-On or a new Paperweight Hands-On.

Engadget brings us this video (embedded below) of the action as well:

¹ That’s pronounced “Ownage,” if you’re wondering, as in “Hey n00b, I’m totally like, gonna like, pwn joo n00b.”

Two fun little hacks for your iPhone this morning. The first comes from Nate True (aka iPhone genius), it’s a neat little way to get speed dial icons on your Home Screen. The trick? 1.1.3 allows you to add web shortcuts to the home screen and Safari allows web pages to initiate calls (with your permisison). Two great tastes that taste great together. True tells you how:

So the new iPhone 1.1.3 firmware allows you to put icons on your home screen for websites, but I know many of us want to put phone numbers on there for a Speed Dial screen.

I’ve put a little hack together that lets you have a (somewhat) speedy speed dial icon. There’s no jailbreaking required for this one - it can all be done using Apple-approved Web Clip creation. -

The next dialing hack is for those of you with jailbroken iPhones. This is actually one of the better apps I’ve seen for this gray market - real Voice Dialing on your iPhone. It’s done up by Makayama and it’s $27.95. You’ll need to add them as a source yourself:

To get a free tryout, start Installer on your iPhone, press Sources, then Edit, then Add. Next, type http://tinyurl.com/2t8cax

…It might seem a little crazy to be paying for an iPhone app when the SDK is just around the corner, though. Nate True himself makes it clear that 1.1.3 takes more steps toward safely-installed apps by reducing the number of programs that run as “root.” But if you’re jonesing for voice dial and have money to burn, you have that option now.

Voodoo doll courtesy ^Vanessa^

One of the biggest gripes about the iPhone is that its speaker isn’t nearly loud enough for many people. This problem was exacerbated early on because the iPhone’s alerts were originally too quiet to begin with. Apple themselves have fixed this problem by allowing you to change, say, the SMS alert volume. There’s also rumblings that Apple has quietly introduced louder speaker on iPhones manufactured more recently.

But if you’re one of those crazy early adopters, not only are you stuck with less money in your pocket (because of that unprecedented price drop), you’re also stuck with a quiet iPhone in your pocket as well. What to do? well, according to skorpiond at modmyifone,

I grabbed a needle and sticked it into every single tiny hold on the bottom left corner of the iPhone. I think it was dirty in there or something because now this *** is EXACTLY how I wanted it since day one… LOUD!!! I really hope I didn’t mess up the speaker though.*

…So basically you engage in some warranty-voiding dangerfun with your iPhone — presumably popping the protective cover over the speaker. Anybody brave enough to try this? We at Phone different already absolutely destroyed our first iPhone in the Video takeapart, so we’re a little gunshy about voiding more warranties.

via engadget mobile

Well, in iTunes 7.5, free ringtones are back. It turns out that you can do the old trick of renaming an AAC music file to turn it into a ringtone. To get it to work, take any 30 second m4a file in finder, rename the extension to be m4r, and drag it in to iTunes. Voila!

For the iPhone, folks figured out how to downgrade the iPhone firmware to the older 1.1.1 firmware to get all the fun goodies if you decide that 1.1.2 isn’t all that great, or you miss the ease of the jailbreakme.com installer.

It seems that the iPhone modem firmware has been unlocked as well, meaning that they’ve figured out how to unlock 1.1.2 iPhones once the jailbreak is easy enough. A simpler GUI app will probably show up in the next few days.

Hackers have figured out how to re-flash the radio in 1.1.2 so it is now safe to unlock the iPhone, as you can “revirginize” the iPhone after unlocking it to avoid any bricking with the next update.

The 1.1.2 iPhone software has already been jailbroken. The software isn’t quite out of beta yet, it works only with Intel machines, and you’ll have to read a readme.txt file to figure it out, but it’s available for download if you need it. If you want to jailbreak 1.1.2, you’ll have to do most of the work from 1.1.1, so keep that downgrade link handy.

And for the last little tidbits, if you have an iPhone with 1.1.2 firmware connected to iTunes 7.5, it gives you the battery status in a little icon next to the eject button in iTunes. And, if you put your computer with iTunes 7.5 to sleep, it will still charge the iPhone. Oh, and you can sync entire events from iPhoto ‘07 to the iPhone instead of just photo albums.