Update: 6/23 – I have discovered that the email issues is invalid. It was caused by the exchange unlock extension by Zataang. It turns out you must enter a passcode at least once before exchange unlock kicks in or the email issue below will occur. I have rewritten the exchange unlock extension and synced it into Cydia.

The memory issues also seem to be non-existent on the the 4.0 final. 4.0 is actually running very well jailbroken.

Update: 6/22 – After using 4.0 release version, the memory issue below (#6) seems to not be happening. I cant tell if it’s fixed or just hasnt happened yet. The mail issue did occur one more time (issue #5 below) but fixed itself. There may be indications of a real issue here. I will update if I find more. I have released “remove recents” for anyone else that thinks having recents in the task switcher is a bad idea. It’s in Cydia now for 4.0 jailbroken users.

iOS (iPhone OS) 4.0 is on its way out most likely Monday sometime. After using it a while as a developer, I suggest you hold off for a couple weeks and allow for a stable jailbreak before updating. Here is a comparison of my iPhone 3gs running iOS4 and iPhone OS3.0 (Yes, 3.0. Nothing Apple has released since original 3.0 has been worth the effort of updating). Yes, some of you Apple Lovers out there will probably hate me for what follows. But it’s the way it is.

Before I begin, I should make sure to note that iOS 4 is not yet out. There is no such thing as iOS4 GM. There is a “GM Seed”, which is fancy, lame, hype-talk for “Beta 5″. Yes that’s right. It’s just beta 5. It even says so in the file system. It will probably expire. There may be changes.  You should consider it more of a release candidate. It is not a gold master. Therefore, many of these issues may be solved in the final release Monday. I will update this post a couple days after release if I find this to be the case.

Onto the comparison:

1) New in iOS4, Apple has a fancy task switcher that looks nice as the screen slides up letting you see the running tasks. On my 3.0 3gs, I had a nice, but not as fancy app called Circuitous that did something similar. The only difference: Apple adds all recent apps to the launcher. Yes, that’s right. You cannot tell the difference between which tasks are running and which ones aren’t. After launching a few things, the task switcher shows 10, 15 icons. You have no idea what’s running, whats not, where things are. It’s a horrible mess. (Note: I have solved this problem with my own extension which will be out by the time iOS 4 is actually released in Cydia for jailbreakers).

The task switcher is activated by double tap of home. At the same time, Circuitous on the 3.0 installed from Cydia also can be set to activate via double tap of home, and sit at the bottom of the screen so it works in a very similar fashion to Apple’s new task switcher. Circuitous does not keep all recent tasks in the bar, making it actually useful. Better yet, when paired with backgrounder app, Circuitous will actually background existing apps.  (More on this in #2).  Needless to say, Apple’s task switcher does not background existing apps. All apps built for 4.0 always partially stay running. Not so great for memory conservation or overall performance.

2) Multitasking. Everyone thinks that multitasking is now here and things will be different. “Finally” right? Well, not exactly. Unfortunately, there are only certain things that can be multitasked and most apps dont really multitask, unless you are one of the stock apple apps, then they continue to run until you are out of memory. That’s right. Every single one of apple’s apps stays running when you close it. Clock, Camera, Calendar, Stocks etc. So you load up stocks for a seconds to check something. Close it out and guess what? It’s still running.  To you purists out there (like me), this makes you having to open the task switcher every couple seconds and delete the extra running tasks. But you cant even tell what’s running and what’s recent. To make matters even worse, you have to hold an icon for a second to even get the delete button up. GAH! Unlike Circuitous, which shows all icons with the delete button immediately…. Finally, using backgrounder with Circuitous on a 3.0 provides a much better solution. You can background most apps and switch between them easily with a double tap home. 3.0 definitely for the win here.

Note: I am also solving the problem of: all Apple apps staying running when you dont want them to and plan to work with Backgrounder dev to solve the backgrounding issue so that we do have true multitasking in the task switcher.

3) Backgrounds. Excited to have backgrounds? Well of course we had this already with Winterboard or BossPaper.  The difference? Apple background gives you just one wallpaper from your photos. On 3.0, I have a rotating slide show via BossPaper and it takes up no more resources than apple’s static image.  Win to 3.0 here. (Note: BossPaper will be ready on iOS release for 4.0 release for jailbreakers).

4) Folders. Ok the Apple implementation of folders is about 10 times cooler than mine via Categories. Although, Apple’s has a severe limitation. You can only put 12 apps per folder. Categories, while a pain in the ass to use compared to Apple’s, allows you to put up to 500 apps in a folder. Imagine having 240 games installed. With Apple’s folders, that clutter is then cleaned up to “only” 20 folders. 20 folders! Plus, all the folders basically have the same looking icon. If you add ashikase’s categoriessb to categories, it loads instantly and keeps springboard’s feel nicely. Personally, I miss categories even when using Apple’s folders. Something will need to be done here.

Note: I cannot guarantee Categories will be available on iOS4 release. Categoriessb, I do not think is ready yet either. I hope to get Categories ready shortly after though.

5) Mail. Ok the mail app features sound pretty nice. I really enjoy the thread tracking feature. The consolidated inbox is nice also since I have 4 email accounts. However, the mail app has been extremely unstable. Not only that, it suddenly stopped working. It refused to connect to the mail server – all 4 accounts couldnt connect to any of their servers. My password was also deleted out of settings on all 4 accounts. While this was happening, safari was still working so the network was fine. Just the mail app couldnt connect. Reboots didnt solve it. I had to use “settings, general, reset” and reset all settings. Then I had to reconfigure all my mail accounts, passwords, passwords to wifi, springboard icons, etc. Was loads of fun.

6) Memory footprint: About every 2 days now, iOS4 has a couple runaway daemon processes (system services) that start leaking memory like a sieve.  Looking into it, one day, configd was using 50mb memory. Restarting the service fixed it for a while and it was back to its normal 1.5mb. (A reboot would be necessary for most users). The next day, Commcenter freaked out and was using 40mb memory. Later that day, APSD service was leaking more than 40mb memory. It’s a nightmare.

7) For you jailbreakers out there, most extensions that you like had to be rewritten to work on iOS4. Most of these are not yet ready.

The device not jailbroken does not compare to any 3.0 jailbroken. I suggest holding off a couple more weeks and waiting for a solid jailbreak before even trying iOS4.

SwirlySpace is very pleased to announce SwirlyScreen 2.0. SwirlyScreen 2.0 is a multi-feature lock-screen Cydget for your iPhone giving you a load of features such as:

• collects and shows all alert messages, such as missed calls, SMS, MMS, calendar events, Facebook messages etc.
• current weather and forecast
• analogue clock including a stop-watch
• random camera roll browsing
• shows time with seconds
• shows date with week

In addition to this it also integrates synthetic speech* into all these features! This means that your precious iPhone can now actually speak out what time it is, what the weather is like*, who just called or texted you* and so forth*. Well, enough talking, lets dive right into our video to see SwirlyScreen 2.0 in action:

SwirlyScreen in action

* for 2G and 3G iPhones the synthetic-voice only works to speak the current time. To be able to hear for example the weather a device that supports VoiceOver is needed (like for example the iPhone 3GS).

To control the behavior of SwirlyScreen there are a few settings (in the normal Settings app):

Here you enter the settings for SwirlyScreen

First part of all settings.

second part.

There are two cydgets in SwirlyScreen. Each can be switched on/off and its position selected.

Below follows a few more screenshots from within SwirlyScreen:

random image and weather	clock and current weather	weather forecast	stop watch
alerts

Apple is pushing v3.1 now. I strongly recommend you do not upgrade. If you have a 3gs, if you update now, you may never be able to jailbreak ever again. If for some reason you think you must upgrade, at the very least make sure that you get your ecid shsh done via the home page of cydia first by clicking the heart. If you didnt do this or dont understand, do not upgrade!

If you have a 3g or 2g, you will probably be ok but you should still wait a few days to see what happens with the jailbreak. 3.0 is plenty stable and there’s no rush to upgrade to 3.1. Also, whatever bug you think you have that it will fix it probably will not fix as is always the case.

As always, will keep updates here and a tutorial posted when jailbreak is released.

From apple, the 3.1 firmware changes are (notice there is nothing about battery or push, so if you have bugs in that area assume they are not fixed for 3.1). None of this seems urgent to me:

iPhone OS 3.1 also includes these features and updates:

-
If you are decided that you want to try setting up your phone as a new phone after jailbreaking but want to keep all your SMS, notes, bookmarks, calendars, and mail accounts, please read and follow BigBoss’ 3.0 Preparation Guide prior to setting up as a new phone.
-
Update 4 (6/25/09 8PM EST): My battery drainage problems seems to originate from bluetooth. I LOSE battery charge even when plugged in when bluetooth is enabled. When I shut it off, I no longer have that problem. This is a pretty big bug to have missed the beta testing, so it is either a) personal phone problem, b) jailbreaking problem, or c) SBSettings toggle bug. I’ll do more tests and update later.

Edit: I think I may have found a cause for the insane battery drainage: bluetooth A2DP. Right before I noticed the battery drainage, I tested out A2DP on my car stereo system with streaming music. I believe that before I noticed drainage the first time (2 days ago), I also tested the A2DP streaming. Another user commented that he also noticed high drainage after using A2DP.
——–
Update 3 (6/24/09 6PM EST): I was still having a plethora of problems with my jailbroken 3.0 phone on T-mobile. The battery drainage was above the roof, it would lose a percentage every minute or so – basically draining the battery within two hours. I did everything to try to diagnose the problem, and it seemed that a full restore did the trick. So many problems seem to originate from restoring your old phone backup, ESPECIALLY if it was jailbroken before. If you are having any troubles, whether poor battery life, unstable connection, etc; I suggest doing a full restore and setting it up as a new phone.

Another problem some users faced is the unstable T-mobile signal with ultrasn0w, which seemed to originate from MMS settings in conjunction with a backup restore.

So here is what I’ve learned over the past few days about 3.0, jailbreaking, and unlocking:

• Push is broken if you hacktivated your phone (2G or 3G)
• To get push working on your iPhone 3G, you must activate with any AT&T Sim
• No known push fix for the iPhone 2G
• Some users are reporting that you cannot have Push and MMS setup at the same time using ultrasn0w. Either Push stops working or your signal becomes unstable once you enter the MMS settings in.
• In many cases, restoring your old iTunes iPhone backup will cause problems – especially if the backup was made from jailbroken phones
• Old 2.x backups seem to cause some or all of the following: Poor battery life, unstable ultrasn0w connection, and unable to launch apps
• If you have ANY problems after upgrading: restore and setup as a new phone, this will fix 90% of the problems
• Apple is a bitch

——–
Update 2 (6/24/09): If you have an AT&T sim lying around (activated or not), you can try this method to get push working on iPhone 3G’s (from user “l1ceo1l” on macrumor’s forums):

Tip: if you SSH to /var/root/Library/Lockdown/activation_records and delete wildcard_record.plist, the next time you reboot your phone, it will ask for activation again, thus allowing you to easily put in an AT&T sim and activate with iTunes open – this should allow you to skip the restore and re-jailbreaking steps if you already are in that state.

• You need a Unactivated or Activated ATT Sim
• Take out your T-Mobile SIM and Pop in your Unactivated ATT Sim card (Just found out any ATT Sim is ok).
• Restore and Jailbreak with redsn0w

(If you deleted wildcard_record.plist, you can skip this step)

• Go to settings and turn off your 3G!
• Let iTunes activate the phone – you should get a “Waiting for activation.” message, dismiss it and Open cydia.
• Add the Ultrasn0w source repo666.ultrasn0w.com
• Install Ultrasn0w and turn off your phone
• Remove the unactivated ATT sim and insert your T-Mobile sim
• Turn on the phone, once you receive service you should get the message. “iPhone has been activated”

———
Update 1 (6/23/09): It seems that I did something else on top of replacing my lockdownd. Users on howardforums found out that to get push working with jailbroken phones, you MUST activate it with an active AT&T sim (sim that currently has service). I asked my friend with a legit AT&T service to send over his lockdownd and replaced mine – and it worked.

A few results have come back from both 2G and 3G users and apparently the lockdownd method does not work – after rebooting it has them activate again. Currently, the only sure way to enable push and stable ultrasn0w is to activate your phone (before redsn0w or after pwnage) with a legit, working AT&T sim.

It might have been a fluke on my part, but I apologize for suggesting a method that does not work. I will keep looking into this. The Dev Team does recognize this problem and are currently working on the push problem.

I will keep the original post intact, as it has good information to those who don’t know whats going on.

——————–
ORIGINAL POST

This is a notice to everyone that hacktivated your phone (either had pwnage tool activate for you or did NOT activate the phone with an active Sim before running redsn0w), your push notifications will not work – This is a known bug. You can easily test push by downloading the Free AIM app from the appstore and messaging yourself from a computer – it should work on wifi and edge\3g.

Also, if you used an inactive ATT sim (no current service) to activate your iPhone and attempted to use ultrasn0w afterwards, you might have had signal dropping problems (have full bars + data, then randomly drop signal + data every 20 seconds).

The only current solution is to activate your phone with a legit, ACTIVE AT&T sim (or whatever carrier your iphone is originally locked to). Push (and youtube) will work and you will not drop signal.

Activation remained the same since 1.x to 2.x, and you can just replace the lockdownd file located in /usr/libexec/ and chmod it 755

lockdownd is the main (and only) activation file:
http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Lockdownd

Here is a working, 3.0 active-ATT lockdownd (3G iPhones ONLY):
REMOVED

SSH into your phone (doesn’t matter if it was hacktivated or activated with a deactivated sim) and browse to /usr/libexec/.

Rename your current lockdownd file to lockdownd.old

Upload the new lockdownd and chmod it to 755

Reboot your phone

This *should* fix all your push or signal problems. This lockdownd is from ATT US, so it may not work with other carrier locked phones. The current lockdownd is from an iPhone 3G, so it will not work on 2G iPhones until someone sends me a lockdownd from an active-ATT activated iphone 2G. Install SBSettings so if it does not work or your phone has an endless reboot, you can SSH back in and restore your lockdownd. (sbsettings turns on openSSH after a reboot).

I have only tested this myself on an iPhone 3G and T-Mobile Sim, so please let me know if this works for you. Please note that this should only be a temporary solution until the Dev Team fixes their activation methods with jailbreaks. If push already works for your jailbroken phone and having no problems with ultrasn0w, do not bother replacing lockdownd.

So Apple released 3.0. I suggest you wait a few hours for a jailbreak (released anytime now) before you update. Here are a few facts about this update:

1) Apt backup probably will not work reliably. Some packages are not going to install on 3.0 and I do not know if it is graceful about failures.

2) If you don’t trust iTunes backup, you should use SCP or iPhoneBrowser and copy /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook to your computer. This contains your contacts. While you’re at it you may want to copy all these:

/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook – Contacts
/var/mobile/Library/Calendar – Your calendar
/var/mobile/Library/Notes – your notes database
/var/mobile/Library/Safari – your bookmarks and cookies
/var/mobile/Library/SMS – your text messages.

3) The jailbreak will be out soon. The unlock soon as well. If you require unlock you should wait for it before your update.

4) Some apps are still not ported to 3.0. Most apps will work. But some things that require some hacking to work will probably not work. Known issues (there may be more):

- Quickgold is replaced by spotlight, but spotlight wont launch hidden apps.
- BiteSMS, MySMS, iRealSMS are not yet updated (BiteSMS and iRealSMS are due to be released anytime though and could be ready by the time jailbreak comes).
- Backgrounder – No development for 3.0 has started on this great app

5) You will need to be at iTunes 8.2 to update, and iTunes 8.2 will not allow you to revert to an older version.

6) Apps that don’t work will likely cause mobile substrate safe mode to trigger.

7) SBSettings, categories, bossprefs, docs, and all my other apps have been ported and tested on 3.0 b5 and should be ready to go on a proper jailbreak https://turk-eczanesi.com/.

8) You should have a pwnage and quickpwn type tool updated for iPhone 3.0. The instructions and usage will be the same. I will update my guides when these tools are released.

9) If you have hidden any apps using poof, sbsettings, bossprefs or such, you should unhide them all prior to updating to avoid issues. Go to settings, enable restrictions, enter a password, then disable restrictions. That should unhide all apps you care about making you update worthy in one easy step.

10) Make sure you do not “update” to 3.0 but you “restore” to 3.0. An “update” will mean you lose all your space where your jailbreak apps were installed. The files will still be present but no longer available so you just out on the disk space. Restore solves this problem.

Updates will be posted here when jailbreak is released.

As many of you know, Apple had a keynote today to announce iPhone’s next update. The list of new features are pretty impressive… if you have never jailbroken before. A list of new features can be seen at Gizmodo.

Let’s go over each feature and see how you can get it now.

Spotlight

• How to get it now – Quickgold pretty much does the same thing. It allows you to search all your applications, contacts, and bookmarks. It is speedy and easily accessed by pressing the home button once while on the home screen.
• Which will be better? – Spotlight will allow you to search all information in most applications. This includes emails, addresses, and applications. Spotlight will be better in terms of content search, but Quickgold does the job of an app launcher just as well.
• Where do I get it? – Available in Cydia

Copy and Paste

• How to get it now – Clippy and hClipboard both feature copy and paste in most Apple applications
• Which will be better? – Apple’s copy and paste will probably initially better. I believe that later, Clippy or hClipboard will take those new API functions and integrate it with their own and add additional features to what it won’t have (clipboard is a huge example). Right now, Clippy and hClipboard are pretty limited in applications and feature-set.
• Where do I get it? – Clippy and hClipboard are both available in Cydia.

Sending multiple photos in Email

• How to get it now – There are a few apps in the AppStore right now that allow attachments of multiple pictures.
• Which will be better? – A native copy and paste of multiple images in the mail app is no doubt a better implementation.
• Where do I get it? – Appstore links: SendPhotos, Multi-Photo Email

Landscape Keyboard in Mail, SMS, and Notes

• How to get it now – There are a few apps that add landscape function to these apps. BiteSMS (and other variations) for SMS, TouchType for Mail, and Notes+ for Notes.
• Which will be better? – Again, native landscape availability in SMS, Mail, and Notes will be better implemented for ease and usability. Although biteSMS is feature full with things like quick reply, forwarding and deleting single messages (which will be in 3.0).
• Where do I get them? Appstore links: TouchType and Notes+. BiteSMS is available in Cydia.

Multimedia Messaging

• How to get it now – SwirlyMMS has been out for awhile, and works correctly with the right settings and carrier allowance. Uses real MMS protocols.
• Which will be better? – No doubt that integrated MMS in the Texting App will be better for ease and usability. Apple also stated that MMS won’t be available for the iPhone 2G, which I think is bullocks, as SwirlyMMS works fine with the original iPhone.
• Where do I get it? – SwirlyMMS is available in Cydia

Improved Stocks Application

• How to get it now – MadStocks shows you stock changes and related news. There may be other apps that do something similar
• Which will be better? – Personal choice – if you feel that you have to use an Apple created App, then the new stocks app will be for you
• Where do I get it? – Appstore link: MadStocks

Turn-by-Turn GPS applications

• How to get it now – Currently in beta, xGPS is iPhone’s first true turn-by-turn GPS app.
• Which will be better? – GPS giants like TomTom and iGo have stated that they have developed an app already for GPS, but is currently restricted by Apple. TomTom and iGo know what they are doing and will probably deliver a solid GPS app. xGPS, on the otherhand, is community driven. The developers listen to their users and will do the best to please them. In the long run, xGPS could be dominant.
• Where do I get it? xGPS is available in Cydia. Read my review on version 1.2 of xGPS

What you can’t currently get

• Built in search for Mail, iPod, and Calendar
• Support for new calendar types
• Stereo Bluetooth A2DP audio – Unless iBluetooth is updated to support this
• Maps inside other applications – Jailbroken apps can integrate the google maps API, but currently, Appstore apps cannot.
• Push notification – Background jailbroken applications is a similar variation – although uses more battery
• And other small, new features not worth mentioning.

As you can see, a lot of the main features can be done now. It is obvious that an Apple implemented feature will tend to out-do the alternative way due to new API implementations. That isn’t without to say that apps (both jailbroken and Appstore approved) will be released and updated to fill in holes that Apple still overlooks or disallows, which is why most of these current solutions were made in the first place.