Since the jailbreak is due very soon, I have created SpringFlash, the first iPhone 4 only Cydia app. SpringFlash is a springboard activator based LED flashlight for your iPhone 4. In short, you can have a touch of a button for a bright LED flashlight without hassling with unlocking your iPhone, closing your app, or even turning on your screen.

To use this, jailbreak, install it, go to settings app, activator pane, pick the activation method of your choice, and select the Flashlight. I am using short hold power, myself. It works very well.

Like all apps I write, this is free to jailbreakers in Cydia.

It looks like an exception has been added to the DMCA for jailbreaking and installing 3rd party “non-vendor approved” applications on a device like the iPhone. While this is something the community has always deemed as legal, it is now officially called out in a law as legal. More at the Washington Post story.

While I’m no lawyer, I would argue that jailbreaking has always been legal. In short, there was no law that said you could not jailbreak. Laws are drafted as such that they call out only what you cannot do or what you must do. Everything in between is considered legal. For example, there’s no law that says you may go to the store on Tuesdays, and no one is questioning whether or not that’s legal.

Still, it’s nice to be called out as legal.

Modmyi has written a great article on this subject and I encourage everyone to read it.

Attention all jailbreakers (hopefully this is everyone).

Comex has announced that he’s not waiting for 4.1 for his next jailbreak. So make sure you save your SHSH for 4.0.1 in Cydia or using firmware umbrella. Note also that as of 4.0, 3g devices also verify with apple before restoring. While there are other ways around a downgrade for 3g devices, you should also save your SHSH’s to be safe.

If you want to save your SHSH using firmware umbrella, grab it here.

If you want to use Cydia, even if you haven’t jailbroken yet, you can alternatively restore your device using saurik’s server (instructions here) and this will automatically put in an immediate SHSH request.

The firmware umbrella method is probably your easiest method and the one I recommend. Make sure you set it to Cydia on the advanced settings page so that you get it into Cydia this way. Whether or not you save the local file is up to you. (Probably a good idea, but I dont bother).

YourTube HD brings the simple YouTube video saving of YourTube to the iPad!

As you probably know, Apple released firmware updates today:

4.0.1 - iPhone 4, iPhone 3gs, iPhone 3g

3.2.1 - iPad.

iPod touches - nothing.

The firmware updates do very little. The update is cosmetic only. The download links to the firmware files are in the firmwares section here. They were to address the iphone 4 signal strength issue that the press is making a huge ridiculous fuss over. Anyway, this does not improve signal strength. If you are on an iPhone 4, I say go ahead and update since it cant be jailbroken today anyway. If you’re on an iPhone 3g/3gs, it’s a worthless update. The jailbreak chart is updated and there are unofficial ways to jailbreak your 3g and some 3gs on 4.0.1. See the chart.

The iPad got v3.2.1 which is the same signal strength fix and some rumored wifi fix, which probably is just another update to how the wifi bars are displayed. I doubt anything is improved, as always, with Apple. If you’re jailbroken or want to jailbreak your iPad before the iphone 4 jailbreak is released, don’t update your ipad.

The iPod touch got no update since the only change is the way signal bars are displayed, and it has no signal bars. (This further hints that the only ipad update was for the 3g version’s signal bars also).

12 July 2010

Fixed a number of orientation issues with Quick Compose and Quick Reply.
Polished up the animations for Quick Compose and Quick Reply, such that these are now 100% complete in the lock screen mode. Unlock screen mode is still being worked on.
Fixed up all known issues with the Apple passcode interaction on lock screen [...]

8 July 2010

Fixed all known issues with Drafts and Backgrounder consistencies in conversation list and conversations.
A nice NEW feature for all those users who have been so patient with the iOS 4 bugs. You can now backspace in Quick Compose to quickly get back to the “To:” field. Makes it much easier to change the [...]

1 July 2010

Lots of fixes in relation to the biteSMS conversation list and conversation contents now being consistent when opened after backgrounded via multi-tasking.
Contact pics are now displayed much FASTER and are cropped and scaled correctly.
Passcode feature in biteSMS now works correctly (except when using open from QC and QR).
Some draft bugs are fixed, but [...]

If your 3g on 4.0 is really slow, chances are you enabled backgrounds in redsn0w. This causes the icons to get a nice shadow, but this shadow processing is just too much for your little old 3g. You can disable the backgrounds by editing a file. How to edit this file will not be covered here in much detail. I will give SSH instructions expecting users to know how to do this. If you don’t know how, wait a couple days and I will release a tool to do this (or maybe add a switch in sbsettings).

1) SSH in as root and install ericas utilities
2) Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app
3) Convert the plist we need from binary to xml so you can edit it in a text editor:
plutil -convert xml1 N82AP.plist
4) Edit N82AP.plist file, and change this line:

<key>homescreen-wallpaper</key>
<true/>

to this:

<key>homescreen-wallpaper</key>
<false/>

5) Save the file, respring (maybe reboot).

Final suggestion to help get your 3g back up to speed if this isnt enough. Go to settings, general, spotlight and uncheck everything except apps and contacts.

If you want backgrounds after this, you can use bosspaper or winterboard (no javascript themes in winterboard though).