Update #2: Finally got to the bottom of this, thanks to Saurik who clarified it for me. It seems that more shsh are on file and even some of you that havent ever jailbroken and just got a new iphone may actually have an shsh on file. It’s definitely worth a try to set up Saurik’s signature server in your hosts file and try to restore that way. You may get lucky and get a downgrade even on a new device.

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Update: It seems this method is very hit-and-miss. So far, only users with 3gs have claimed it works. Personally, I am still a bit skeptical. However, there is some compelling evidence to think that there is some level of success with this. Semaphore, author of Umbrella, has written a good post saying that this method is impossible. I also originally thought that, but there’s a point in Semaphore’s post that he does not address, and this very point is what made me write this blog entry last night.

Semaphore claims that the users must have had an SHSH on file. That when they used Saurik’s server, it responded with the SHSH on file and that’s why the restore works. When CodeBlue presented this method last night, I told him the same thing. But multiple users are presented with the “make my life easier” dialog in Cydia after doing this method. Make my life easier will never appear if you already have an SHSH on file for any firmware. What people don’t realize is that once you make an SHSH request in Cydia, it’s a one-time deal for life. You are requesting SHSH on file for every firmware starting with the current one being signed. It does not matter what firmware you are currently running.  If your restore worked because, as Sempahore’s post indicates, you had an SHSH on file already, then when you loaded Cydia, you would see the SHSH on file for xxxxxxx screen and you would never see the “make my life easier” screen.

All that being said, I have not personally tried this. I cannot confirm personally that it has worked. I have talked with several people that claim it has worked and many that saw “make my life easier”. At this point, either this method does work sometimes, Apple is accidentally signing 4.0.1 for 3gs intermittently, or the people claiming success are lying and did not see make my life easier.

End update.

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A user named CodeBlue has discovered an unconfirmed method that may allow you to downgrade your 4.0.2 iPhone to 4.0.1, jailbreak, patch the safari exploit with Saurik’s patch and be jailbroken safely. This may be your only option if you have an out of the box iPhone with 4.0.2 on it and no other way to jailbreak. Note that I did not try these steps. They sound good to me in theory and others are reporting some success. After all, you have nothing to lose if you are already stuck on 4.0.2 without an SHSH in Cydia.  Here are the steps:

1. Download 4.0.1 ipsw

2. Extract it with winrar or winzip  to a folder on the desktop. You may need to rename the firmware file from .ipsw to .zip to do this.

3. Open the buildmanifest.plist with the notepad. Search and replace all – 8A306 with 8A400.  Save. Repeat the same with the file restore.plist

4. Download 4.0.2 ipsw and open this with winrar or winzip. Note: do not exact it. Just open it and leave it open. You must use this exact file and not create a new one. If you have to create a new one for reasons like you are on OSX, then use zip command line not explorer or finder to make the zip. I will assume you are using the original file opened in winrar for the rest of this guide.

5. Take all the files from the 4.0.1 and drag them over to the 4.0.2 zip archive that you have open.

6. Delete all the dmg files that have 002 at the end, leaving only the 001 files left.

7. Save the archive. And rename it back to .ipsw if you changed the name to get winrar/winzip to open it.

8. Optional: (this helps ensure you get an shsh file request for the future, but should not be necessary to just restore 4.0.1).  Add the 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com line to the host file. If you need help with this step, read this.

9. Put the device into dfu, open iTunes and restore the firmware you changed.

Check out the original post or give thanks to CodeBlue at his blog.

Note: this only works due to the similarities in 4.0.2 to 4.0.1 and 4.0. This will not be a way to downgrade to 3.1.x and may not work in future firmware updates.

Firewall iP, the first and only Firewall for the iPhone, got an update to 1.499 The changes are all in the background, but massive. It improves stability, memory usage and speed. Changelog 1.49: support for IP adresses: 123.123.123.* and 123.123.123.1-4 major speed improvements: 60% faster when using large rule lists (lists with 1000+ items are no problem [...]

Action Menu adds additional actions to the cut/copy/paste menu on iOS3.x and, with the 1.1 update, now on iOS4.0, iPad and iPhone 4′s Retina Display. New plus pack actions include Locate, Find and Send to Pastie.

SwirlyMessage, which provides real SMS and MMS for the iPad 3G, has just been released in Cydia Store and is of course brought to you by SwirlySpace!

The latest release of Safari Download Manager, 1.5, brings SDM up-to-date with all modern iOS devices! SDM 1.5 works on all OS versions from 3.0 to 4.x, on all existing devices, including the iPad and iPhone 4! Possibly best of all, this upgrade is free to all existing users! This is a special moment for [...]

Lockdown Pro is the best way to make sure your iPod or iPhone is secure when letting other people use it. If you have used Lockdown before then this is a huge upgrade. I completely remade the application, and made sure it works on the 3.x firmware and on iOS 4. It will run on any iPod or iPhone but not yet on the iPad, I will add that support in an update soon.

Read more for features and screenshots

Update: Saurik has released “PDF Patch” which solves the problem on all jailbroken devices. No need to update to solve the PDF exploit. Further, Apple did not patch older devices. This means that in order to have a secure older device such as a 3g, *you must jailbreak*.

Cicero breaks the search engine limitations Apple put in Safari by giving you the power to add and manage search engines directly inside of Safari! Cicero is an OpenSearch-compliant search engine manager that makes it easy to add search engines directly inside of the browser via OpenSearch-compliant websites or from the massive database of search [...]

3G Unrestrictor allows FaceTime on 3G! We all love Apple and their products so much, but every so often they and/or their partners just mess up hard time. One of those times was when Steve Jobs announced that the major iPhone 4 feature FaceTime would only be available on WiFi But luckily we have the [...]

The iPhone Dev Team has released an update to Ultrasn0w that unlocks the iPhone 4. If you decide you need to unlock your baseband for use on an unsupported carrier, make sure you do not take firmware Apple updates (such as 4.1 when its released). You can install Ultrasn0w from Cydia. Ultrasn0w is in the dev team repository, which is a default repository in Cydia.

3 August 2010 A heap of updated (hi-res) graphics and an updated icon for the fantastic iPhone 4 screen – so crisp! For the iPhone 4 contact pics are now displayed in high resolution. Improved the quality of the border around the Quick Reply contact pic, now looks really nice… A bunch of minor bug [...]

Edit: essential cydia updates fixed the facetime / MMS issues.

Comex has pulled it off again with a great jailbreak. The jailbreak, “Jailbreakme.com 2″ is now released and all devices can once again be jailbroken. This one is very easy to use. You don’t even need a guide. Here are the steps:

1) Load safari on your iphone
2) Type in http://jailbreakme.com
3) Slide to jailbreak
4) Wait and soon you have Cydia.

Just like spirit 1, this is a user-mode jailbreak which requires you to be able to load safari on the device.

I strongly urge you all to visit comex’s site and donate to him to help motivate him to find further jailbreaks in the future.

Those of you having problems where the device sits at the purple screen forever may benefit from clearing your cookies and restarting safari:

1) Put your device into Airplane mode.
2) Go to -> Setting -> safari -> Cookies -> Accept.
3) Double Tap home button.
4) Press and hold an icon to wiggle the task switcher icons and then quit Safari using the X.
5) Clear all Cache and cookies.
6) Open safari and go to jailbreakme.com and try again.