There has been alot of events and drama in the iPhone Development community this weekend. In the interest of perspective and sanity, here is the long on the short.
Friday Jan 25th: Nate True's rouge release of a "soft upgrade" sparked much confusion, raised some ethical questions and produced a very low success rate. The end result seemed costly to his relationship with the dev community and third party users as a whole. Hopefully Nate will bounce back, his work and contributions in iPhone developer love and attention are legendary.
Sunday Jan 27th: In the wake of much ensuing panic and drama, In the early AM hours, the Dev Team releases the Official 1.1.3 "Soft Upgrade." By mid morning, after aggressive early hours of beta testing, one issue had arisen: address book sync with iTunes. Enter immediate response by NerveGas and viola! The patch is issued and the package updated. Further testing has yielded much success.
Many Thanks to planetbeing, NerveGas, ghost_000, dinopio, bgm, MuscleNerd, core and the iPhone -Elite and iphone/iTouch Dev teams.
You can grab the UPDATED files here. Follow the instructions in the Read Me Document. Please know, you must have a jailbroken iPhone running 1.1.2, as well as,
- You must have Auto-lock on your phone set to Never.
- You must have WiFi turned on to install.
- You must have at least 200 mb free space to accomadate the disk image.
- You must have the latest version of Installer.app ( Version 3.0b10 )
Important: To use, Copy the folder (all of the files) into your 1.1.2 jailbroken phone via ssh into "/" root folder. Then follow the command line instructions in the Read Me document.
One Last Warning. If you are not comfortable working in the terminal and executing from the command line, please do not use this method. As in the past, more than likely, an Official Installer release with fixes will be available soon.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
1.1.3 Official Dev Jailbreak "Soft Upgrade" Drink this Kool Aid
Friday, January 25, 2008
iPhone Jailbreak "Soft Upgrade" 1.1.3 Goes South
Just a quick update on soft upgrade 1.1.3... The issues are dropping faster than Apple's market share. My best advice to all who are considering this soft upgrade, Hold off.... Unless, of course, you want to spend your weekend hacking your way back to a half assed fuctioning iBrick. Still not sure? Read publisher Nate True's FAQ....
Thursday, January 24, 2008
iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 Jailbreak Goes Public
An iPhone dev Team splinter group has released the 1.1.3 jailbreak.The jailbreak is available for both Mac and Windows users. This update comes in the form of an "soft upgrade" so you must have a jailbroken 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 phone before you begin. A special edition of Nate True's iBrickr software will prepare the disk image for the update and a second installer portion will flash the phone. Smxy repository maintainer, Shawn Erickson has packed up the second portion of the jailbreak, which will be available on installer.app.
This is not a full jailbreak as much as it is upgrade process. This soft upgrade allows full use and functionality of firmware 1.1.3 without the dev team exposing its vulnerabilities. Their strategy is to keep another jailbreak in reserve if and when Apple patches this exploit with the SDK.
A distinction of this jailbreak is that you will not have to upgrade your baseband -- but google locations will not work unless you do. However, if you don't plan to unlock your phone. You can choose to upgrade your baseband. The easiest way to do this is to upgrade to 1.1.3 using iTunes and then downgrading your firmware for jailbreak/activation using this Guide.
One very significant consideration on upgrading your baseband then downgrading your firmware. Firmware downgrades are limited to phones with bootloader 3.9. iPhones with bootloader 4.6 allow you to downgrade the firmware but not the baseband. Not sure, and still interested? Check your bootloader!
What is a bootloader? Bootloader is the iPhone program that loads up the operating system. Apple has released several versions of the bootloader. Unlocks have been limited to what version of bootloader you have been running on your system. Firmware 1.0.2 - 1.1.1 shipped with bootloader 3.9. The newer phones ship with 4.6. You can check which version of bootloader you are running here.
As a rule, this does not matter - unless you want to or need to unlock your phone in the future.
See you on the other side!
Monday, January 21, 2008
Cat and Mouse
iPhone hacker extraordinaire Jonathan "Nervegas" Zdziarski has released a few photos and shed some light on the mystery surrounding the 1.1.3 jailbreak. Jonathan's credits include, development of the NES emulator for the iPhone and co-implementer of previous jailbreak methods....
Zdziarski's latest details confirm that the jailbreak will be a software based release. (This waylays the misconceptions that were beginning to swirl of potential hardware modifications.) He also confirms that The iPhone Elite and iPhone/iTouch Dev Teams have merged and collaborated on a software based jailbreak for v 1.1.3. Wow! Great news considering that two Dev groups exist and the two groups contain the most active minds in unauthorized iPhone development. Also noteworthy here, the developers plan to hold the jailbreak release until the official Apple third party software release. (Feb 29th according to Apple.) The Cat and mouse game is in full swing! You can, link here to Jonathan's blog for more information, details and Pictures.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Update: 1.1.3 Firmware Jailbroken
The iPhone Development community has done it again! Firmware version 1.1.3 has been jailbroken, full read and write access. However, the method is not yet available for public release.
Dust off your iPhuc and grab yourself a copy of iNdependence, you may be needing them soon!
irc.iphone-elite.org #iphone-dev
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Death Star Firmware Upgrade 1.1.3
Early reports are in and the consensus is: Since Firmware 1.1.3 has not yet been jailbroken, It is recommended that you do not update at this time If you wish to to continue using third party applications.....
If for whatever reason you've upgraded your unit to firmware version 1.1.3 and wish to return to an earlier installation, reports are in that you can. Sadly, You won't be able to use your iPhone, however, as a phone but only as a glorified iPod touch. Ouch!
To reiterate: because you can't effectively downgrade from iPhone firmware/software 1.1.3, applying the update means no access to any unlock methods or unofficial third-party applications until a new solution is discovered.
Stay tuned for more....
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
My New Year's Resolution for 2008
All is quiet on New Year's Day....... Nothing changes on New Year's Day. Mr. Hewson's aptly titled song and apropos sentiments ring true for the moment in the iPhone world.
Firmware bomb 1.1.3 is set to blow in the early days of this new year. But will it wreak the havoc and total chaos that most anticipate? Loss of read and write access? third party apps? Tricky and dexterous jailbreaks and activations? Not to mention, the time consuming tweaks, symlinks, plugin's and incrdible well spring of developers and knowledge bases?
Ok. So be it! Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead! Here's to the a brave new firmware world..... A Hello World of jiggly moveable applications, multiple SMS capability, google maps with movable push pins and the almost, but no cigar, world of cellular GPS.
Another firware update with little to no content. No Flash?!!? Where's the MMS? Ok, How about a little higher CPU and Bus frequency? C'mon, lets push Microsoft Outlook/Exchange mail. Stop it with the maps already.
Nevermind the SDK (Software Development Kit) is due out in February. It is nice to have what you've got. The unauthorized third party development for the iPhone has been the selling point in my opinion. The most stable and useful aspects of the device have come from the third party developers.
Obviously The Great Job's concedes this fact with the promised Apple SDK. It is just unfortunate that Apple's development for its own device pales in comparison. The firmware updates have offered little more in the way of content than annoyance and mild setback to a community of developers and users. This latest firmware, as leaked, is no exception to the Apple trend.
Honestly, I can't imagine a world without this amazing device. Everyone should, and eventually will have the opportunity to own his/her very own. And yes, Apple has rocked the Big Blue Marble with their creation. But, until some serious Apple updates and some useful applications..... Well void my warranty and call me hacked.
