iPhone 3.1.3 Out. DO NOT UPDATE

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Jailbreak, News

Note: the warning applies only to 3gs, ipod touch 2 and 3 users. Regular 3g, 2g, and ipod touch 1 users can use redsn0w 0.9 to jailbreak 3.1.3.

iPhone OS 3.1.3 is now out from Apple. Supposedly it fixes some battery issues. (Doesn’t every release make things faster and fix battery problems?) There are no new features. The release only stops jailbreaks. That’s right. No new features.

DO NOT UPDATE YOU WILL BE SORRY.

Currently there is no jailbreak for this firmware. Unofficial sources have confirmed that they have patched up the method we used to jailbreak 3.1.2 so you will not be able to jailbreak. If you update you will lose all your jailbreak apps and will not be able to get them back. In other words, updating means you lose a lot of stuff in return for almost nothing back. In addition, there is no ETA on a jailbreak for 3.1.3. It may never be jailbroken. It is likely that they (dev team, geohot) will not waste another hole on 3.1.3. They will most likely hold it for the bigger update that will come with the release of the iPad and iPhone 4.0.

One more thing, as of right now, Apple is still signing 3.1.2 for you 3gs users but no one knows for how much longer they will be. Make sure you *rush* into Cydia or Rock and get your keys signed on the front page if you have not. This will make certain you can always restore 3.1.2 even in the future using Saurik’s server.

To summarize:

- Update adds NO NEW FEATURES, do not update.

- Update kills your jailbreak. Do not update.

- Get your 3gs 3.1.2 keys signed by Cydia/Rock now if you haven’t.

Read dev team info about this update here.

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ProSwitcher Is Awesome

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps

Backgrounder + ProSwitcher

I realize this isn’t new news, but I just had to write it because ProSwitcher is just awesome. (And yes, it’s totally free). I have updated my why jailbreak iPhone page adding ProSwitcher. ProSwitcher is written by developers rpetrich and chpwn and backgrounder is written by ashikase.

There are severe limitations imposed on AppStore apps. One of these is “no background processes.” This means that if you have an app, such as an instant messenger app, every time you press home to go to something else, the app is closed out. You are disconnected. You get no messages, no notification, nothing.

Backgrounder is an attempt to fix this. Backgrounder allows you to select an app that you want to allow to run in the background. Then when you press home, that app will keep running. Perfect for an IRC app (try flowchat + backgrounder) or such that you do not want to get disconnected everytime you tap the home key. This adds critical functionality that you cannot get unless you jailbreak! On 3gs, you have plenty of memory to use this fully!

Combine this with ProSwitcher and you have a beautiful and simple interface into backgrounding one app and starting another. Activate ProSwitcher (in my case I have it to activate by double tapping status bar) and you get a coverflow view of all your running processes:

With this you can background and kill apps easily. While composing an email, quickly look something up on the web without closing your email program. Uses are endless.

3g / 2g users: you don’t have enough memory to really background a lot of apps, use it sparingly. 3gs users, you are in for a treat!

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Redsn0w 0.9b3 Out

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: News

As a point of interest, the iPhone dev team has released redsn0w v0.9b3 which handles 3.1.2. For the most part, if you are already jailbroken with blackra1n and everything is working ok, no need to use redsn0w. If you need to jailbreak and dont want to use blackra1n for some reason, you can use redsn0w as an alternative. Redsn0w also has options to change boot logos. The redsn0w page has more details as well as download links at the bottom for both MAC and Windows users.

Note: if you have a 3GS newer than week 40 of last year then you still have a tethered jailbreak. That means if you ever reboot, you have to rerun blackra1n (or redsn0w). You don’t have to restore. Try not to reboot if you have these devices.

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Bluetooth Keyboard In Cydiastore

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps, Jailbreak, News

With this app called BTstack Keyboard from Matthias Ringwald, jailbroken iPhone users can now use a bluetooth keyboard for text entry in your iPhone. Great for college or taking notes in a class or meeting at work! The app should work with most any bluetooth keyboard available. For more details see Ringwald’s product page.

The keyboard is available for $5 on Cydia Store. Added to reasons to jailbreak!

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SBSettings VPN and Tether Toggles

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps

Interestingly enough, within one day apart from each other, two developers have released a tethering toggle for SBSettings. Yesterday “Tethering” toggle was released by Filipe Pina. Today, rpetrich released a VPN and Tethering toggle caleld “Tether”. Both tethering toggles work well although they both take a different approach on how to make the actual changes. Rpetrich’s toggle uses the preferences frameworks and calls the functions that the settings app calls. Filipe Pina’s version makes the changes to the files that the preferences framework makes and then restarts the internet service. In both case, you can tether with usb or bluetooth. If you want to tether with bluetooth, you must enable bluetooth in sbsettings separately.

Rpetrich released also a VPN toggle. I believe these two toggles were the most requested. Many thanks to the two mentioned developers.

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Petition Apple Competition

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Jailbreak

Here is a petition that I recommend you all sign. Click here to sign it. It is to petition the FCC to keep the iPhone free. Jailbreaking lets you make a decision on what you want to do with your iPhone. Apple will have none of this. The utlimate goal of the petition is to have Apple open up access to us iPhone users without having to jailbreak.

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Categories v2.29

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps

Categories v2.29 is released tonight. This should fix the issue (that was very hard to reproduce) where icons were duplicated for some people and not removed off springboard.

I plan to rewrite the icon selector screen next to show pages of icons rather than load them all at once. The way it currently is takes up too much memory. For now, you will have to use “edit” to change your icon until this is done.

Right now, I am focusing on stability releases. I believe most the internal rewrite is completed and changes will not be as radical as have been for 2.25-2.28.

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Categories v2.27.90 Beta

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps

We have another version of Categories with more internal changes for testing for any testers. Install instructions are:

1) Download the deb
2) Copy to iPhone via ssh into /tmp and install with dpkg -i /tmp/categories_2.27.90.deb

The major changes from Ashikase:
- Categories now support non-English character names; this includes punctuation
- All category creation/deletion/updating is handled by new CategoryTool
- Categories no longer runs as root

Other notes:
- As part of the non-English support, newly created categories use a
generic /Applications/Category### directory name. To help themers,
Categories.app now lists the path below the name of each category.

- CategoryTool is designed to be used by end-users as well, if they want
to use it. It includes a built-in help that describes the options. (Would require command line support in SSH).

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Categories v2.27 beta

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps, Development

Developer ashikase is helping out with updating categories app. ashikase is the author of the springboard addon CategoriesSB (as well as Backgrounder and other stuff).

Anyways, what we have here is a pretty heavy internal rewrite. The modifications are going to allow for some cool features in upcoming versions. The changes in this version are:

  1. Internal rewrite of the config app
  2. Transitions added in GUI
  3. Reworked how folders are layed out internally. This will allow for apps like taptap 2 and taptap 3 to both be put into folders (hopefully).

We are posting the deb for beta testing for anyone that wants to test it.

Note that if you have CategoriesSB installed you should not try this beta. While the final version will work fine and be released with a CategoriesSB update, the beta does not support current CategoriesSB.

To use this beta, you must know how to use SSH. If you do not understand any of these steps (which are purposely sparse) you should wait for a release version rather than using this beta.

  • Get categories beta here.
  • SSH it to /tmp on your iPhone
  • as root, run dpkg -i /tmp/categories_2.26.6.deb
  • Manually respring or the ‘i button won’t work.

This beta will convert your existing category folders into a new format. If you uninstall the beta and reinstall categories from main repository, you will have to set up your folders from scratch again (or just wait for this to be final in the repository in which case you will not have to re-set up folders).

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iPhone 3g/3gs 3.1.2 unlock

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Jailbreak, News

Geohot’s Blackra1n RC3 now includes blacksn0w unlock. Good job Geohot on figuring out how to unlock the 3.1.2 baseband so fast! I have updated the blackra1n guide to include instructions on the unlock. Instructions are quite simple though. Just install the sn0w option when installing cydia or rock. Also, thankfully, Geohot has removed the buggy Icy from the RC3 build.

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Blackra1n Icy Warning

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Development, Jailbreak, News, Uncategorized

Edit: It looks like this may be fixed in latest blackra1n. I have not tested this personally but have been told it is the case. Finally.

Just a warning about blackra1n. Geohot released blackra1n a couple weeks ago, and it was pretty good. Unfortunately, Geohot has included a very buggy version of Icy which, when installed, will pretty much screw up your whole jailbreak causing you to have to restore.

Shame on Geohot for not fixing this. We have told him numerous times there are issues. Users have messaged him, he has been notified, he just doesnt care. Anyways:

–> Do NOT install Icy in Blackra1n <–

The icy bundle is broken and does not have permissions to install software, but that’s not the worst part. Blackra1n install of Icy breaks cydia and rock your phone since it has a very old version of dpkg. This is the core to all these installers. Since icy is usually installed last, it overwrites dpkg with its own. This causes things like winterboard not working, sbsettings not working. What is really happening is mobile substrate cannot be installed (among other things).
I get about 20 emails a day on various issues that all stem from this one issue. So please spread the word. Do not install Icy in blackra1n.

Note: Icy is not to blame here, but the installation of Icy on blackra1n. Icy bundle in pwnagetool is fine. The problem is Geohot found a very old Icy and did not get it from rip-dev guys.

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Categories SB Addon

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps

Developer Ashikase has written a Springboard add-on for Categories app. What this does is takes categories an moves the folders directly into springboard. The result is that everything loads very quickly, instantly more like. Also, the icons are rounded and badges are supported. Another interesting feature he has added is that if you make a category folder called “Recent” and leave it empty, it will track your last loaded applications. Pretty neat!

This extension to categories was not written by me. Ashikase has written other apps such as backgrounder. He is selling it for 99c in cydia store. If you are interested check it out. If you don’t want to fork out 99 cents, then you can still use categories as it is.

And yes, Categories is still in development and will remain free, but I have been distracted with other stuff recently. But there are plans to integrate some native support for this new extension in the GUI of categories app as well as a long list of things I’ve had planned since 1.1.x time frame…

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Pwnage 3.1.4 Supporting 3.1.2 Out

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Jailbreak, News

iPhone dev team’s pwnage tool v3.1.4 is out supporting firmware 3.1.2. The dev team’s official post gives details. This lets you unlockers that need to update without updating your baseband do so. Pwnage currently only supports OSX so if you don’t have a MAC you are left with blackra1n as your only option at this time.

The pwnage guide posted on this site still applies to this release other than the updated download links at the bottom of the post.

Also, after you are done jailbreaking, make sure you select the option in the Cydia home page to save your ECID SHSH signature so you can always restore to 3.1.2 firmware in the future no matter what Apple decides you should do. This applies to both pwnage and blackra1n users.

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Blackra1n iPhone 3.1.2 Jailbreak

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Jailbreak, News

Geohot has released blackra1n. This is a 3.1.2 jailbreak for all devices: iphone 2g, iphone 3g, iphone 3gs, ipodtouch 1, 2, 3 (note: ipod touch 3 8gb users say this isnt working). It’s pretty easy. You just load the app and click the “make it ra1n” button and follow the prompts. Unfortunately, the ipod 3 is tethered which means if you reboot you have to run blackra1n again.

This is also a jailbreak only. There is no hacktivation or unlock. If you have updated in itunes to 3.1.2 or have an out of box 3.1 iPhone 3g / 3gs, you cannot unlock due to the new baseband, you can only jailbreak. If you have a 3g / 3gs running an older iPhone software and want to update and unlock, wait for pwnage type exploit that lets you update without updating the baseband.

From geohot: So, what is blackra1n? blackra1n is a 30 second ALL device 3.1.2 jailbreak. Even the ipt3, but the ipt3 is tethered. In order to boot it, just rerun blackra1n. As far as donations go, they are much appreciated, but not until after blackra1n works for you.

To use: load the app and follow the prompts. It’s pretty simple. If you have problems, see troubleshooting section below the last step of the tutorial.

Step 1) Install blackra1n and iTunes 9 or newer.

Step 2) Close itunes and kill iTunesHelper.exe in taskmanager.

Step 3) Attach your device to your computer using the cable, and run blackra1n. You see this:

Step 4a) Hit the “make it ra1n” button. You will see this:

and this

and finally this. This step should only take a couple seconds. If it hangs on running you have itunes helper still running.

Step 4b) Now, watch your iPhone. It will soon show this. When it reboots it is done:

Step 5) Now the jailbreak is done, it’s time to install cydia.

Note: There is plenty of discussion on whats better between cydia, icy, and rock app. I can tell you that Cydia is strongly recommended even if you don’t want to use it. It does everything right and installs a proper BSD base. Rock app is flashy and cool also. The jailbreak install of Rock does not install rock extensions so it is ok to install. The icy install is broken on this jailbreak (version RC1). At this time, I recommend not installing it. It does not get installed with super user permissions and cannot install software properly.

EDIT: ABSOLUTELY DO NOT INSTALL Icy. It overwrites dpkg especially if you install it last. Result will be you cannot install mobilesubstrate or anything that depends on it (libhide, sbsettings, categories, etc). This is because a bad Icy bundle was used.

On your device you now have a new icon:

Load this app and select your installer preferences. Remember, we are not skipping cydia, icy doesnt work in RC1, install Rock App if you want also.

Your selections will now install:

Step 6) When you are all done, load up blackr1n again and use the uninstall blackra1n to remove the blackra1n icon. It’s not needed any longer.

Step 7) Load Cydia, let it reorganize your apps, do the upgrades, and install your software!

Troubleshooting:

1) Blackra1n just crashes – You don’t have itunes 9 installed or your apple mobile device service is not running. Install itunes 9 or reboot to solve.

2) Blackra1n says it’s missing QTCF.dll. Put QTCF.dll into the same folder with blackra1n.exe and run it again.

3) Blackra1n hangs on running… – You need to kill iTunes and iTunesHelper.exe. This step should only take a couple seconds and something should happen.

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iPhone v3.1.2 – Another Useless Update

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Jailbreak, News

Apple has released 3.1.2. DO NOT UPDATE. This is another worthless update, there is no jailbreak yet, etc.

This claims to fix these issues:

  • Fixes an intermittent issue where iPhones may not wake from sleep (some users called this coma mode.
  • Fixed an intermittent issue that could interfere with cellular network services and require a restart
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a crash while streaming video.

I have never experienced any of these issues.

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