I have decided to open a post specifically for BossPaper Beta tracking. I may periodically clear the comments as I integrate them into the main post to keep it clean looking. Here is the current list of reports and their current status. I will update the list as I take comments from this post and move them into the lists below:

Bug Reports:

1) Icon labels are grey – Status: Investigating. I think that the light grey is standard icon color and winterboard themes make the icon labels white. I added a feature request below.

2) Lag introduced on springboard when not using fade transition – Status: Investigating. I cannot reproduce this at this point.

3) Image swaps while on lock screen – Status: Investigating. Still researching if this is a battery issue or if it transitions just one more time after locking. If this is a battery issue, I will consider it urgent for a fix.

4) Dock swap is confusing – Status: Accepted. The dock change feature when winterboard is installed can generate some confusion. The dock is inserted as a winterboard theme and moved to the top. There is no way inside bosspaper to resolve this without opening Winterboard Prefs. But there is nothing that tells the user to do this. I will work something out to solve.

Feature Requests:

1) Allow for sequential display not just random – Status: Accepted. Will be implemented in future version.

2) White icon label switch – Status: Investigating. Theoretically this could get into “let me choose the icon label color” which was out of scope for the project since it focuses on wallpapers, but I may do it anyway.

3) Lockscreen wallpaper – Status: Investigating.

4) Allow single image select – Status: Accepted. Will be implemented in future version.

5) Release for 2.2 – Status: Investigating.

6) Cube Transition – Status: Investigating. (I do not want to use any opengles in springboard).

7) Import from stock wallpaper folder - Status: Accepted. This is obvious. I cant believe I missed it. You can still import wallpapers using “Browse Folders” and get to /Library/Wallpapers, but this should be a default option.

8) Lock Screen Wallpaper With home button to change – Status Investigating. I like this idea and will probably get to it.

Issues reported closed out:
1) Cydia issue after installing BossPaper – Status: Closed. This is an unrelated issue. See other Cydia bug reports. The comments in this post (not the post itself) offer suggestions for resolving these issues.

2) Theme Icons – Status Closed. Icon theming is out of scope and makes bosspaper become a full winterboard replacement. I may, however, create something that allows for a pick-and-choose for various winterboard themes (this is on my todo list).

I am releasing BossPaper v0.91 BossPaper v0.93 beta tonight for testing (if you grabbed anything < 0.93, please update). There are still a few features that I plan to implement that are not in this version, but I think it is a good idea to start getting feedback.

In order to test it, you must install the bigboss beta repository, which I have also released into Cydia for those of you that said you are a “hacker” or “developer” when you loaded Cydia the first time. BossPaper will automatically install logmailer because if you have any problems, I would like a logmailer output of your syslog. If you don’t plan to send syslogs to me when having problems, well then you should not try to beta test this. Of course the first non-beta repo version will not require logmailer. If you hate having logmailer icon, you can hide it for now using SBSettings.

Based on the success / failure of this release, I may move it into a public repository before adding the remaining features.

Currently, the app requires 3.0. I am not sure if I plan to support 2.x or not. Every day there are less 2.x users and more 3.x users. It makes little sense to focus on 2.x for a new app.

Features missing are:

1) Ability to select a single image. If you want a single image make a folder with that image for now.

2) Ability to exclude a single image or images. For now you have to delete it off the folder. In future you will have a way to tell it to not load that image again.

3) Photos – Camera roll is working because these are photos. If you sync pictures using iTunes, these are actually no longer images but an sqllite database of images. Therefore, you cannot use these images. (I haven’t tested this very much. So it could be in accurate).

4) I may examine lock background as well, although I am worried about performance. The lock background should be stationary so that you dont drain your battery while locked. I will think about this more.

5) Other things I didnt list here.

I am also releasing some BossPaper paper packs to go along with it.

Other developers: I have a beta repository so if you want to use this service you can submit beta level apps for the beta repository to get early feedback before going “live”.

Edit: Results based on comments:

1) Some people find disabling EDGE as is in SBSettings works fine. (These folks probably have push disabled and are not using any apps that have notifications / push services.)

2) Some people find this method did work for them.

3) Some people find that a fake APN works for them without battery drain. Others experience massive battery drain.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have a solution that can be implemented yet.

————————–

Disabling EDGE on iPhone v3.0 has been very hard. It’s still not certain, but after some testing and user reported success (a big thank you to Jorge Rendon!). The main reason the EDGE toggle in SBSettings and BossPrefs hasnt been updated is because I have not known what it takes exactly to disable EDGE on 3.0. The problem is that the OS reenables it. If you “mess up” your APN, the OS goes crazy trying to enable it draining your battery in about 90 minutes from full charge. So that’s not the way either. These steps do seem to work, however. Give them a try. If the reports are mostly positive, I will integrate this into the EDGE toggle.

1) Open settings app and disable Notifications. These appear directly under carrier, if you have them. They only appear if you have installed an appstore app that requires push. If you don’t have these, skip this step.

2) Disable push mail fetch.

3) Disable EDGE using SBSettings

4) Load settings app, enable airplane mode. Wait at least 10 seconds.

5) Load settings app and disable airplane mode. Wait for you to get service again.

6) Load SBSettings. You should have no Data IP (IP N/A).

7) Try using safari on Data. It should fail. Wait a bit, Load SBSettings your data IP should remain N/A.

Feel free to test this. If you get a Data IP address, you have indication that your Data may be getting reenabled. I am interested in the results of this.

Most likely a reboot of iPhone will retain the state.

Edit: v3.0.3 alert. It seems 1/2 the people loved my status bar sensitivity change and 1/2 the people hated it. I have made it an option in v3.0.3. It defaults to “off” which is like it is in 3.0.2. If you want to re-enable the sensitive swipe allowing for downward motion and all, hit the more app, extras, and the bottom option for “More Sensitive Swipe”. Set that to ON for the more sensitive version like 3.0.1 and older. This 3.0.3 release will be out tonight before I sign off.

Anyone having a hard time opening the window, it opens very easily if you use two fingers and tap one on the carrier logo and the other on the battery then let both go at same time.

SBSettings 3.0.2 comes with a very minor code change and a packaging fix.

The processes button “Free Memory” apparently has never done anything for anyone at all! I had one user report this and no one else. I found this today while installing SBSettings on a friend’s iPhone and noticing that there was no free memory after hitting the button. So none of you have ever seen how awesome this is! It is fixed now. Turns out I packaged the 3.0.1 toggle pack up poorly and the file was copied to the wrong folder.

v3.0.2 of the app changes the way the window opens slightly. It now requires at least 50 pixels of swiping before the window opens. This is to help prevent accidental opens. You can swipe left to right or right to left, it doesn’t matter. You cannot swipe down. (Let’s see if this one generates me any mail).

I have been working on a new FREE app called “BossPaper”. This is a very configurable advanced wallpaper app that lets you control what wallpaper shows up on your SpringBoard. You may be saying, “But Winterboard does that!” Sort of, but not like this. BossPaper can work with Winterboard (or without). Read on for details.

Last year, Saurik released Winterboard. This enabled some new features none of us have ever seen before such as rotating desktop wallpapers via Javascript HTML pages. While this was revolutionary for us iPhone owners, it also came at a cost. Performance running these themes sucks. There are a few ways the Javascript based images can be implemented and all of them have problems. If you load them all into memory, Springboard uses a signficant amount of memory. If you fade them, Springboard uses a lot of CPU. Javascript is very memory / CPU heavy. In addition, the Javascript runs behind all applications and while applications run. This impacts performance heavily and causes apps to lag even while you’re using them and not on SpringBoard. In addition, the script continues to run even while the iPhone is locked draining battery.

I have had it on my list to solve this for a while. The result is BossPaper. BossPaper is an advanced wallpaper manager that puts total control of wallpapers into your hands. BossPaper has these features:

• You control which images are displayed. You can use camera roll, installed themes, or a combination of! With Winterboard, you could only install a theme and use what came with it. Now you can use images from many themes or other sources such as BossPaper packs.
• BossPaper stops rotating images as soon as an app launches. This prevents battery and CPU drain.
• BossPaper stops rotating images as soon as the iPhone is locked. This prevents battery drain.
• BossPaper uses very little memory and CPU! It does not inject into apps only SpringBoard so you should not notice any application lag running it.
• BossPaper can use one of many transitions such as fade, water drop, page curl – you configure which one(s) you want. Configure how long the transitions last.
• BossPaper lets you control when to rotate images. You can rotate it on a timer you configure or you can rotate when an app closes, or both!
• BossPaper lets you hide icon labels so those that do not want to install Winterboard can use it without.
• BossPaper lets you dim the wallpaper.

Here are some screenshots of the “in progress” configuration app:

I plan to release a beta of this app in the next couple days in Cydia. Keep on the lookout.

I met with the major repository owners today and we all think SwagBucks apps are a scam against the user. Basically, it’s an app that you use to do some shopping. The guy that wrote the app then accumulates swag buck points or such to buy products.  It wasn’t so bad, but it seems that [...]

So things go back and forth. Ultrasn0w has been updated and is even better yet! First, dev team has removed the daemon and used a method more similar to Geohot’s purplesn0w method. However, they did it in a manner that seems safer as it will not corrupt memory and uses less memory. From dev team blog:

To put it into perspective, ultrasn0w uses 152 bytes of properly malloc’d baseband RAM, which is 0.015% of what purplesn0w uses. Put another way, purplesn0w uses 6900 times more RAM than ultrasn0w (and doesn’t let the O/S know that it’s using it, so the O/S still thinks it’s free to use. When it does use it, the baseband will crash).

Also, there is another benefit. This uses mobile substrate to patch CommCenter unlike Geohot’s method which actually patches the CommCenter file. The benefit of this is that you are not modifying your system files and it is very easy to uninstall safely. You could probably just disable it with SBSettings mobile substrate menu as well.

I consider the current ultrasn0w the recommended unlock.

Geohot released a better 3gs unlock. It installs with his Cydia repository and patches some files on install. After this, no process or daemon is left running. This sounds like a better replacement for ultrasn0w. However, unlike ultrasn0w, it cannot be disabled with a toggle. A restore will restore the iPhone to stock locked state. Sounds very nice. Here are details from his site:

Wifi fails? Battery fails? Unlock fails? You need purplesn0w, the geohot 3GS unlock solution. Now I know you here a lot about different colors of sn0w, but I’m here to tell you why purplesn0w is the best. First off, what is purplesn0w? It’s a soft unlock for your 3GS that I’d actually use day to day. It’s not a daemon that takes any resources, and it doesn’t add a task to your baseband. It’s very close to a true unlock. All it does is patch three files, CommCenter, lockdownd, and your wildcard activation plist(which you need, activate w at&t sim first, no hacktivation support yet). That’s it, no other files are installed. Props to Oranav for the at+xlog exploit!
A full explanation is coming soon, but I think you clever reversers out there will see what it does, and see why it’s so pristine :-) The payload is radically different from other varieties of sn0w. beta as usual, back up first.

Be sure to have legit activated 3GS
Disable 3G if you don’t have it(like T-Mobile).
Add apt.geohot.com to Cydia
Install com.geohot.purplesn0w
Watch for success output in Cydia
Reboot, and enjoy your unlocked iPhone

I have made some minor updates to SBSettings tonight, but the major feature is the new “Free Memory” button in the processes widget. With this you can free up system memory without killing tasks.

Here is an example (note the free mb number in the statusbar):

We start with 3 processes running and 24mb free.

After hitting the button, we are down to 40mb free. Open SBSettings and still 39mb free and the same 3 processes still running.

The dev-team’s jailbreak for 3GS is released. You can view the guides and download the binaries from here.

This jailbreak supports 2g, 3g, 3gs, and iPod touch 2 on 3.0. Key features:

1) Stable jailbreak tested by dev-team
2) Icy + Cydia problem solved (we think).
3) Ultrasn0w tested and working on 3gs
4) Proper kernel patches which will enable logome (after it’s updated for 3.0).
5) Mobile Substrate + Winterboard now working on 3gs.

Again, for download links and redsn0w installation guide, go here.

Note: If you used purplera1n RC2 or newer, you do not need to redo your jailbreak. You will be unable to use logome in the future, but that should be the only downside. If you used purplera1n RC1 or older, you should redo your jailbreak. I believe you can run redsn0w right over the top of it.

FlowChat is by far the best internet chat (IRC) client for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I have personally been testing this IRC app for months. It feels more like a real desktop client than a mobile IRC clients. It’s really good. FlowChat combines a gorgeous interface with an extensive feature list that rivals that of most desktop chat clients.

Upload and share photos and screenshots immediately with your friends, type in either portrait or landscape mode, visit links and browse the web without leaving FlowChat using the embedded web browser, autocomplete commands, channel names and nicknames, use one of the 5 bundled themes or create and install your own on-the-go, manage user and channel modes, or even get down and dirty with an unfiltered console view. And all of this from a sleek and elegant interface designed by professionals committed to bringing you the best possible internet chatting experience.

Here are some of the features:

• Awesome user interface
• Monitor multiple chats with one glance
• Chat in portrait or landscape mode
• Manage your channels from a beautiful interface optimized for the iPhone
• Fantastic desktop-style nickname, channel and command autocomplete
• Share photos and screenshots with your friends
• Extensive logging with full search
• Supports all IRC commands
• Full support for SSL connections
• Full support for psyBNC, ezbounce, znc and all other IRC bouncers and proxies

Available in appstore here.

Update July 5, 2009: The purplera1n app is now released for OSX as well. Guides and links are updated. Install instructions are the same. OSX users can use the same guide.

Update July 4, 2009: The purplera1n app has been updated. Same download link. This fixes several issues such as Vista and Windows 7 not working. It also fixes teh kernel signing issues and Saurik’s vmcheck passes now paving the road for Winterboard soon!

If you already jailbroke with the old one, just run this from the pc over the top of your existing jailbreak. You will not get a freeze icon, the kernel and fixes will be updated wtihout it. If you didn’t jailbreak, now is the time as it works very well. Guide is updated for new version.

If you’re having problems such as it just hangs forever, make sure you have “purlera1n 3GS jailbreak by geohot RC2″ in the application window titlebar. If you don’t you may still have an old version.

—

So GeoHot released a 3gs jailbreak this evening. Exciting news (see SBSettings shows 159mb free RAM!):

It’s currently for Windows only. Personally, I don’t think that he wants to polish it but wanted to use this to egg the dev team to release theirs now. Anyway, there is a tool, it works in Windows only. Before you try to use it, please read my caution below and the guide.

There are issues with this jailbreak. As exciting as it is, I recommend that you guys wait. I believe that the dev-team will release something in the next couple days that will be more solid and proper. (GeoHot is amazing, and I have nothing bad to say about him). In case you didn’t want to wait, I do have a purplera1n guide below. Here are the issues (probably not a complete list):

1) The update on July 4 solves almost all the issues. The jailbreak is very easy to run! It is finicky. I had major problems running this jailbreak. First, the iPhone is put into recovery mode and if it doesn’t work (and it didnt many times), the iPhone is left in recovery mode. Most of you will have to restore to get it out of recovery mode after this. Not too fun. I will detail some steps to take you out of recovery if you cannot get things to work.

2) This is for Windows and OSX. This is for Windows Only, but not only that, it is for 32 bit Windows XP SP2 only. I do not know anyone that has had success on Vista.

3) You must have iTunes 8.2.0.23 installed.

4) This is solved on July 4th update. Winterboard does not run, it requires an update. Wait for it! The jailbreak is incomplete. The kernel vm_mem patch is not present so Winterboard will not work as some other critical tweaks. (SBSettings does work!).

5) Solved July 4th. The jailbreak has some code signing issues. I haven’t determined what this will mean yet.

In short, the process is very easy. You don’t even have to hassle with DFU mode. Just run the tool, click a couple buttons, wait, when it’s done, you have an app on your iPhone 3gs called “Freeze”. Run that, download Cydia, reboot, and you’re done.

Guide:
Geohot released a beta jailbreak called PurpleRa1n. It is beta and has some issues, but it gets the job done if you’re patient. Here are some steps and troubleshooting to accomplish the task:

Requirements: You must have
1) Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 or OSX.
2) iTunes 8.2.0.23
3) Purplera1n software downloaded get here.

Step 1) Connect your iPhone to your computer. Close iTunes if it is running.

Step 2) Run the purplera1n file that you downloaded from the requirements section. You will see this screen on Windows:

or this screen on OSX:

Step 3) Click “make it ra1n”. It will respond with “waiting for reboot”. Your iPhone will now reboot into recovery mode and you should see this image on your iPhone screen:

If you do not see this image and instead see the cable connecting to iTunes, wait 1 minute. If it stays that way then this did not work and you can assume you have to repeat the process. It’s ok to start it while you’re in recovery mode. It will just go right to the image above. If not, close purplera1n and repeat step 2 & 3. If you cant get past this, see troubleshooting.

Step 4) After a couple of minutes, your iPhone will reboot and you will see a new app with a blank icon called Freeze on your iPhone screen:

Step 5) Now we want to get Cydia installed. We’ll do this over the network. Make sure you have wifi or very stable 3g before running this step. When you do, run Freeze.

Step 6) Click “Install Cydia” and wait for it to download and install.

Step 7) When the install completes, close Freeze and reboot the iPhone.

Step 8) You now have a Cydia icon.

Step 9) Open Cydia and allow it to reorganize your apps (this eliminates the need for BossTool). After this, perform the essential updates or do a complete update.

Step 10) We no longer need the Freeze icon so let’s remove it. (Note: I do not recommend that we hide this icon using SBSettings as you may have this problem after you restore). Load Cydia and install “CyDelete”. Use the cydia search. By the way, notice how blazing fast Cydia runs on the 3gs! Wow!

Note: if springboard spins forever after the “restart springboard” just hold home and power until the iPhone shuts off, then power it back on. This seems to happen sometimes on 3.0 the first time mobile substrate installs. It all works after.

Step 11) Enable non Cydia deleting in CyDelete. Launch settings app and navigate to the bottom of the first page to find the settings bundle:

Step 12) Tap CyDelete and enable “Non-Cydia Deletion” (the top option).

Step 13) After the springboard reloads, hold any icon to get into wiggle mode and remove Freeze:

Step 14a) Optional. You no longer need CyDelete. You can uninstall this in Cydia now. I recommend keeping it however. It’s a very easy way to uninstall Cydia apps and you now have enough memory in your 3GS that you will not notice any overhead having it.

Step 15) Optional if you want to unlock now, you should be able to install Ultrasn0w. See my ultrasn0w guide.

Troubleshooting:

I would not be surprised if you’re in this section. This process was a nightmare for me. It took me many tries and several different computers. Here are some problems and possible solutions.

Purplera1n crashes as soon as you tap “make it ra1n”. Your Apple mobile device service is not running. On Windows press windows + r and type “services.msc” into the run box and hit enter. Then locate the Apple Mobile Device service and right click, say “start”.

The dev team announced that it has a jailbreak for iPhone 3gs but has delayed release on it until after 3.0.1 firmware release. Many people are upset over this and really don’t understand why. Here are some details in layman’s terms:

1) Jailbreaking is done by exploiting bugs in existing hardware / software in order to gain access to the device (that Apple should have given in the first place).

2) On all devices to date, the jailbreak is permanent, meaning that it is at the hardware level and Apple lost those platforms.

3) On 3GS, Apple added another layer of security, an ECID. This is a key that is retrieved from Apple on restore to sign your IPSW image. If the image isn’t signed, the 3GS and iTunes will reject it and you will not be able to restore your device with that image.

On the 3GS, we can use an existing single exploit to retrieve the ECID and use that to sign “files” allowing to restore custom firmwares. (This is really dumbed down, but you should get the idea). Once the jailbreak is released, Apple will patch this hole.

The hole is such that anyone that has 3.0 firmware, you can obtain the necessary signing key. But once the jailbreak is out, Apple will patch it on the next firmware release. Those with the older firmware that saved off whatever was needed will always be able to jailbreak. Those that update without doing so will probalby never be able to jailbreak. Such is the nature of the exploit.

The logic in waiting is this. There are only a few iPhone 3gs devices sold. A 3.0.1 firmware release is due soon to fix some obvious 3.0 bugs and to patch up Ultrasn0w. If the jailbreak is released now, when 3.0.1 comes out, the only people that can jailbreak, ever, are those that had 3.0 and did not rush to update. If we release after 3.0.1 then 6 months worth of users should be able to jailbreak forever. (This assumes its 6 months from 3gs to 3.0.2 release, probably not that bad of an assumption). This should be a significant amount of people, which is better than nothing. Releasing now gives apple a chance to patch the hole before the 3GS is even released in all markets around the world.

Note: those of you that are interested, you can save your ECID in a usable format using these instructions. Windows users can find USBView here.

Personal speculation: I believe that we may be near the end of the software jailbreaks. In the future, new devices may require some sort of tethered jailbreak. This means when you reboot your device you must be hooked up to a pc or such, do the jailbreak, and then unhook the device and use it – until you reboot again. I predict small tethered jailbreak devices to be sold from hong kong that you will be able to keep in your car or your pocket in case you have to reboot your iPhone. Not a perfect solution, but not that bad either. Personally, I never reboot my iPhone. But if it did crash, it would work as a “normal” iPhone until you attached the device and “hit the button” again or whatever.

Of course, you 2g, 3g, and ipod touch users will never have to worry. Your devices should remain jailbreakable forever.