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!
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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…
Representative Ed Mackey (D-Mass) wants to make Apple & ATT (and all other US providers) cry. How? By copying the French. Well, technically, by adopting a law similar to France’s which mandates that cell companies “shall offer to consumers the opportunity to purchase subsidy-free wireless customer equipment.”
Under this proposal, Apple & ATT would likely be forced to offer an unlocked (and unsubsidized) version of the iPhone. (Bidding to start at US$999?)
Potentially worse for the telcos, it would mandate a level of clarity, detail, and (gasp!) understandability for rate plans, including itemization and disclosure of taxes and early termination fees.
Hit up news.com for the details…
Does it seem like, with each update to the iPhone, it takes longer and longer for Jailbreaks and SIM Unlocks to shake out? Here’s the latest for those of you who want both a SIM Unlocked phone and the latest OS from Cupertino – a SIM unlock from Zibri. There’s caveats, though, as you can see:
This is Version 1.3 Of anySIM.
This version unlocks baseband 4.03_13_g
It’s only for bootblock 3.9 don’t use on 4.6
To use it, upgrade the baseband then
put the iPhone in airplane mode and run it !
It works also in JB 113 OS… – Zibri [via]
Short version of the above: unless you’re very clear on what exact firmware versions you have loaded on the various radio bit on your iPhone, steer clear.
In the Phone different forums, surur (with the help of marcol) has posted up some fine analysis on the question of all those missing iPhones we mentioned a couple weeks back. The question: whether or not iPhone sales had slumped over the holidays (they didn’t), but more importantly, how big is the gap between what Apple says they’ve sold and what AT&T says they’ve sold. As you can see in the graph above, it’s a big gap that’s getting bigger.
I’d previously doubted that a significant part of that gap was unlocked iPhones and unsold inventory. It seemed like the 1.5 million gap had to be some error in reporting or other such strangeness. But based on what analysis is available, it’s starting to look like “unlocked and unsold iPhones” are exactly what makes up that gap.
The real question, then, is what the ratio is of unlocked to unsold. Actually, the real question is what does this gap tell us about how Apple is going to be able to talk about the iPhone. Read on for the answers to both questions, after the break!
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There’s a lot of talk today (here and here for starters) about the iPhone’s sales numbers from Apple’s quarterly conference call and how they didn’t match up with AT&T’s numbers from their conference call. The gist is that Apple sold 3.7 million iPhones and AT&T had about 2 million iPhone subscribers. So where are the rest?
Of course, many were sold overseas, but most people very much doubt that Apple sold 1.7 million of them. Which has led to speculation that as many as a third of all iPhones have been purchased and unlocked. That’s a lot, and it strikes me as an unrealistically high number. Naturally, we’d like Apple to help us understand this riddle. Naturally, we are sure they won’t. Fake Steve Jobs agrees:
Why not just break out the numbers and share more information and tell Toni Sacconaghi and his pals on Wall Street exactly where all the iPhones are? Well, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to break out any numbers or share any more information on this topic or try to explain how we arrived at the 4 million figure. We’re just not going to do it, so stop asking.
It could be that Apple’s number includes those shipped out to AT&T (and international carriers) for them to sell but haven’t actually sold yet. It could be that hundreds of thousands of people bought iPhones just because they’re really shiny. Whatever it is, it’s clear that a significant number of these un-accounted for iPhones have been unlocked.
