All Articles Tagged jailbreak

Avast ye scurvy 2.0 firmware — prepare to be pwned! Erica Sadun of TUAW tells us the cartoon Jobs’ing, Russian slang’ing, custom firmware making, iTunes loading unlock solution has hit version 1.1:

The new tool allows you to add custom packages, logos and fixes EDGE settings under 1.1.4. Either pop over to iPhone-dev.org or choose PwnageTool > Check for Updates (Command-U) directly from the app.

But don’t raise the Jolly Roger too soon, rumors are also circulating that Cap’n Jobs is coming about hard, cannon’s loaded, and may just be upping the ante soon in the great unloack cat’n'mouse game.

Will Apple be able to hang the rascally pirates from the highest yard arm? Are the pirates too far ahead at this point? And how ironic is it that Jobs and co. once styled themselves as the pirates? What do you think?

Real nice, Bohn. Fine. Let’s do this.

As most probably know, Canada doesn’t have the iPhone. Well, we do, but it’s a cr@ppy piece of VoIP. Nothing near as revolutionary or useful as Le Steve’s little universe denter. We also have a GSM monopoly with data rates so high Warren Buffet wants no part of them. (A national newspaper once calculated that to even approach an AT&T type iPhone plan on Rogers would cost well over $1000 a month, and would still offer less service).

Despite that, there are many iPhones up in the frozen north, unlocked, unsupported, but much loved by their users. I’ve personally been rocking a 1.1.1 firmware iPhone ever since I stomped my WinMob into oblivion and skipped my Treo across the St. Lawrence seaway.

Today, I decided to take the leap and upgrade my most precious of gadgets, my Unix in-the-pocket, my multi-touch new-interfacer, to 1.1.4.

Since I’m petrified of bricking the poor little fellow, I’m going with the easiest and most straight-forward solution, iLiberty X.

First I sync everything. Nice and safe. Now I’m going to restore to 1.1.4. Not upgrade — restore. They’re pretty clear on that point.

Okay, launching the iLiberty X GUI. iTunes shuts down, iTunes service shuts down, I bite down — hard enough to draw blood, and pray to every god and deity I could think of.

GUI starts to work — Step 1. iPhone streams tons and tons of text. UNIX friend over my shoulder seems to think it makes sense. Seems to…

Step 2… Some parts seem to tic away for an exasperatingly long time… Will it brick any second? Is Steve Jobs chuckling even now, cracking his knuckles, and preparing to “unleash the hounds”?

YES! Complete!

iTunes is coming up and recognizing an iPhone! Quick test — we have jigglies!! Looking for cell network… CAN Rogers! (Used to just say Rogers, the CAN part is new…) Installer.app is there, non-AT&T SIM is working, phone is working. That’s jailbreak, unlock, and activation FTW!

Okay, now all that’s left is to re-enter a bunch of Wi-Fi keys, reassign favorites, and I’m sure fix up a dozen or so other minor settings, but after languishing in the 3rd world for so long, it feels nice to be a second-class citizen again.

Hello proper podcast place-keeping! Hello screen dim and sleep! Hello 1.1.4!

Hmmm, now what’s this about 2.0…

Note: jailbreaking, unlocking, and activating are not Apple approved procedures, might violate your ULA, certainly voids your warranty, and could well brick you phone. No one here advises anyone to do it, or takes any responsibility for results, good or ill, from doing it. Proceed at your own risk. Ed. Note: Actually, we fully support you doing whatever you want to your iPhone, just don’t blame us if it goes wrong! :p

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.”

As previously mentioned, US Apple Store’s have been surprisingly (or suspiciously) out of iPhone stock lately.

Some have speculated that this is due to the immanent release of a 3G iPhone, others have cited atypical supply chain management issues, component shortages, or shipping problems.

In a long post based on info from an anonymous source nom-de-tip’d, Tantrum, Roughly Drafted brings a third option to the table: Pirates. (JAR!)

“Demand for iPhones outside the United States, particularly in emerging markets, is out of control and has reached the point where it has started to impact Apple’s normalized supply chain projections,” Tantrum wrote. “It’s okay to have a delta of, say, 100,000 units or so per year between actual and forecast. International demand is driving that delta upwards of 1 million. That’s a whole different ball game for component sourcing, quality control and production ramp-up and some things are starting to come unstuck, even for a finely managed company like Apple.”

Tantrum mentions 5 specific reasons for the increased international demand:

Ease of jailbreak/unlock with new GUI-based solution. Organizations specializing in getting iPhones into Eastern Europe and Asia. Spread of Wi-Fi and EDGE being “good enough” in most countries. GSM compatibility. Low price (due to weak American dollar and high local smartphone costs).

There’s much more in the original post, so be sure to check it out. Could the pirates (JAR!) be sucking the US channels dry? Or is this just another crazy theory in face of the impending 3G monster birthing any minute now? What do you think?

JAR! The “Cat and Mouse Game” between the nasty pirates and the royal Cupertino navy seems to have shifted decidedly in the pirates favor, or so says Engadget:

Those crafty kids on the iPhone Dev Team have already hacked the 2.0 firmware, but now they’re getting ready to release the oh-so-creatively-named PWNED tool, which takes iPhone hacking to the next level by patching the bootloader to let you load any firmware image you want — even images not signed by Apple. That means custom patched firmware can now be loaded directly from iTunes, which simplifies the jailbreaking / unlocking process tremendously, and also means that a patched version of the 2.0 firmware is coming soon.

Video after the break!

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If you have an iPhone on firmware 1.1.4 you’re just dying to jailbreak and/or unlock, or an iPod Touch you want to liberate (and add apps to before June!), and you trust software created by 13-year olds(!), then iJailBreak may just be what you’re looking for.

If you’ve previously used iJailBreak, you can update automatically. If you’re new to the pirate scene and don’t mind violating the ULA and your warranty, then this implementation is about as simple as it can get. Ars Technica reports you just download, install, run, connect, and viola!

A pirate’s life indeed…

Gizmodo raises the Jolly Roger this morning with news that the scurvy Pwned Project DevTeam has forced the iPhone SDK beta firmware to walk the plank:

• Jailbreak? Aye.
• Unlock? Aye Aye.
• Unsigned Apps? JAR!

Old Install.app applications will need to be updated to the new APIs, but by using a firmware patch rather than hack, DevTeam believes this Jailbreak will be hard for Apple to counter. Prepare to be boarded!

Has the DevTeam got Apple’s treasure for good this time or is Cap’n Jobs already coming around, cannons primed? The cat and mouse game continues!

UPDATE: Ars Technica explains:

The new exploit works by taking advantage of the boot loading process on the iPhone, using the AppleImage2NorAccess extension to load a custom firmware to the device in the same way that the standard restore process works. After the patched firmware has been written to the device and restarted, any unsigned app can be loaded and run.

Catch the video after the break!

Read the rest of this entry »

Engadget has put together a veritable jolly roger of an update to iPhone firmware 1.1.4 jailbreaking and SIM unlocking.

These methods include the usual scurvy gang of iNdependence 1.4 beta 5 for OS X, Zibri’s cross-platform Ziphone 2.5, and a new, and potentially mega-infringing stow-away: iTunes (looks to be purely proof-of-concept at the moment).

As always, jailbreaking and unlocking are not for the faint of heart, so explore at your own risk, lest your precious iPhone end up on the receiving end of a one way trip to Davey Jones’ locker…

Well the news about 1.1.4 is that there’s no news — the apps are the same, the features are the same. The good news is the popular ZiPhone / iJailBreak method of jailbreaking works just fine — for Jailbreaking. Unlocking is apparently still a no-go, but just you wait, it will be.

We’re also hearing reports that the Bluetooth-dropped call issue has been fixed, along with the SMS order bug. Huzzah!

Wired.com

Two good pieces of good news on this cold Valentine’s Day Morning. First, the SDK is still on track to be released this month despite earlier rumors it could be delayed, according to tuaw. Apparently Apple employees are working triple overtime so we can love our iPhones just a little more. Our advice: take tonight off, kids, and love the one you haven’t been with just a little more since you’ve been putting in so many hours.

If you just can’t wait for the Apple-approved native app solution, ZiPhone 2.0 had been released, which combined with the convenient and simple interface of iJailbreak means Mac users can unlock without the command line at all. Windows user can just go with ZiPhone, of course, because it’s packaged as a .exe file they can click on. [via]

Or you could, you know, put your iPhone down and go buy some flowers.