The Geeks' Den

From the DevTeam today (08/02/10):
On Tuesday, Apple released firmware 3.1.3 for the iPhone and iPod touches.  Unless you’ve personally observed a problem with the reporting of your battery percentage, there’s no reason to update to 3.1.3.  We know some of you will want to anyway.  Superbowl Sunday’s PwnageTool 3.1.5 for Mac OS X will let you do so safely, preserving your jailbreak and ultrasn0w unlock.  (If you use the blacksn0w unlock (at baseband 05.11.07), you need to stay at 3.1.2.)

iPhone 3G and 3GS unlockers should always be very wary to update their firmware.  This is no exception.  If you make a mistake along the way you may find yourself updating to official 3.1.3 in which case you will lose your unlock, possibly forever.

iPhone 3GS users (regardless of unlock) should stay away from this and all 3.1.3 jailbreak tools unless you know you have your “SHSH hashes” backed up via Cydia.  That’s because if you make a mistake you may find yourself stuck at official 3.1.3 with no way to jailbreak or come back down to 3.1.2 to jailbreak.

If you really truly feel that you need to update, this version creates a custom 3.1.3 IPSW for you to restore to on your iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS with early bootrom, iPod touch 1G, and iPod touch 2G with early bootrom.  If you don’t know if you have an early bootrom or not, please avoid updating until you learn more.

You don’t need to be pre-jailbroken on anything but the iPod touch 2G early bootrom.  And really for that device, it’s faster and easier to use redsn0w 0.9.4 as mentioned in our last post.  For that matter, if you have an ipt1g, iphone2g, or iphone3g (and don’t need an unlock), you should use redsn0w too (but version 0.9.3).  It’s faster and you won’t have to go through a full restore process (just do an update then run redsn0w, pointing it at 3.1.2 FW instead of 3.1.3).

If you have an iPhone 3GS, PwnageTool works if you’re currently at version 3.1.2 or below (down to 3.0).  You don’t need to be already jailbroken — PwnageTool will ask you if you’re jailbroken after you’ve created the IPSW.  Don’t use PwnageTool on the iPhone 3GS if you’re at 3.1.3, it just won’t work.  Downgrade to 3.1.2 using the methods described here.  If you can’t downgrade because you don’t have your 3GS 3.1.2 hashes on file with Cydia, you’ll need to sit out the 3.1.3 jailbreak.

We aren’t revealing any new exploits to Apple with this jailbreak. Everything here has been used before, it’s just a straightforward port of Pwnage2 and 24Kpwn to the new firmware.  It’s possible the new firmware was released largely to flush out new exploits before the next big release.  We won’t be biting.

We’d really like the above warnings and disclaimers to sink in. Please don’t download the files below and use them blindly.

Official Bittorrent Releases

• PwnageTool 3.15 Torrent  - PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg.5344262.TPB.torrent
• SHA1 Sum = 16611fb60d088edd2fa5128e4f95f35d8e56a603

Unofficial Mirrors

The following links are unofficial download mirrors:

• http://www.2shared.com/file/11210627/e3508a77/PwnageTool_315.html
• http://www.hackthatphone.net/PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg
• http://www.ipodtouchmasterfr.com/files/PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg
• http://apfelportal.de/host/images/PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg
• http://zombisoft.com/tools/PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg
• http://www.accesoriigsm.net/PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg
• http://files.bestblog.de/iphone/PwnageTool_3.1.5.dmg

1. Run Safari mobile web browser on the iPhone.

2. Visit the following Mobileconfigs website: http://help.benm.at/tethering.php or http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/

3. Select your country.
    
4. Select your mobile service provider.
    
5. Tap Install to install new profile.  
    
6. Select Install Now to download and install new profile. 
    
7. On iPhone interface, go to Settings -> General -> Network -> Internet Tethering. 
8. Set Internet Tethering to On.

    

9. If prompted that Bluetooth is off, select Turn on Bluetooth or USB Only according to your preference.

   

10. Internet tethering is enabled, connect iPhone to PC computer via USB or Bluetooth to start connecting to Internet though iPhone as tethered Internet gateway modem, with typical mobile broadband connection speed, normally up to around 1.4 Mbps.

    

    Note: Tethering computer through USB to iPhone to access Internet is much easier. Normally, Windows or Mac system will automatically recognize the tethered iPhone, and create require network connection to take advantage of the shared Internet access via iPhone. For Bluetooth connection, other than usual pairing, user also has to select “Connect to Network” from the Bluetooth device option in order to access the Internet from desktop or notebook/laptop computer via tethered iPhone.

After downloading and installing the new Internet tethering enabled profile, some users may report MMS and/or VVM (Visual Voicemail) problem, where MMS or Visual Voicemail stops working. To fix the MMS and VVM not working after enabling Internet tethering error, go to Settings -> General -> Reset ->Reset Network Settings. After the short reset, iPhone should be able to be used for MMS, Voicemail and Internet tethering.

1. Install Spell Number from the iTunes App Store (it's free).

2. Launch the application.
 3. Type 91929394.59

4. Press the About button, then the Done button, and then the Home button to exit the application.

5. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards > Japanese 6. Select/Turn On Emoji7. Now head to your messaging app and you will see a new icon at the bottom left of the keyboard which will give you emoticons!
 8. Delete the app (if you want) because the emoji icons will still be there.

When the iPhone screen is locked, the only option you see on screen at the time of incoming call is ‘Slide to answer’.

So how do you reject if you don’t want to answer the call?

1. You can let it ring and Mute the ringer by clicking the power button at the top of the phone ONCE. Alternatively you can press the volume bar at the sides to mute the ringer as well.
2. If you don’t want to accept the call at all and want it go to your voice mail instead, press the power button at the top of the phone TWICE. That will reject the incoming call immediately and send the caller to your voice mail.

NB: If your iPhone screen is not locked, you are presented with an option to Answer or Reject the call.

If you jailbreak your iPhone with anything other than GeoHot’s balckra1n*, then the first thing you ABSOLUTELY MUST DO is change the default filesystem password.

*blackra1n doesn’t install SSH by default, therefore this should not be a problem if you used blackra1n to jailbreak, unless you installed the OpenSSH package from Cydia.

When you jailbreak, the filesystem’s password is set to the common password “alpine.” As people usually don’t bother changing this password after performing a jailbreak, it’s really easy for hackers to get access to any jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch on a public network.

An Australian guy called Ashley Towns demonstrated this by circulating the first known iPhone worm, known as Ikee, which replaces your lockscreen wallpaper with an image of Rick Astley. Luckily Town’s Rickrolling is benign. He wrote the worm to demonstrate how easy it is to break into jailbroken iPhones.

Note: There is no need to follow this guide if you haven’t jailbroken your iPhone/iPod Touch.

You need:
- Jailbroken iPhone / iPod Touch
- Cydia
- MobileTerminal

Here’s how to change the default SSH password after jailbreaking:

1. Make sure you have Cydia or Rock installed on your jailbroken device. If you don’t already have MobileTerminal installed, launch Cydia or Rock and tap the ‘Search’ tab in the bottom navigation bar.

2. Type ‘MobileTerminal’ in the search field and select the first result. Select ‘Install’ on the top right corner and tap ‘Confirm’ on the next screen. It will now install MobileTerminal on your device. Now, tap on ‘Return to Cydia’ and tap home button.

3. Navigate to the newly installed ‘Terminal’ application and tap to open.

4. In MobileTerminal, type ’su root’ and tap return. It will ask you for a password, enter ‘alpine’ and tap return again.

5. Now, type ‘passwd’ and then tap return. Type in a new password such as ’donthackme’ and tap return. Retype the new password to confirm and then tap return one last time to change the password.

6. Now, your SSH password will be changed and your device will be protected against any future hacks that use SSH to access your device.

I’ve found the best free app to upload my own ebooks is LexCycle Stanza.

First install Stanza on your iPhone/iPodtouch, and then install Stanza Desktop on your PC (52MB) or MAC. Stanza Desktop is a desktop application used for reading ebooks (.pdf, .doc, .lit, .rtf, .txt, .azw, see all Supported Formats).

Now open Stanza and open an ebook file by going to “File” and go down to “Open File…” and browse through the directories of your computer for the ebook. Click “Open” to finish.

I have found that .lit files are the best for this as they provide book title information and a picture of the cover.

Now that the ebook has loaded go to “Tools” and make sure “Enable Sharing” is checked.

So now we launch Stanza on the iPhone/iPodtouch that’s connected to the same network as your computer. Note that you will have to be connected through a Wireless connection, see here for how to setup an adhoc Wireless network. As I have a jailbroken phone, I am using the MyWi App to create a WiFi Hotspot to connect my iPhone to my PC.

Now in the “Library” menu hit “Shared Books” and give it a few seconds to connect to your network. Now your computer name should be on the screen; mine says “derby”, click on your computer name and give it another few seconds to scan.

Windows will ask if you want to allow a connection between the two devices. After you’ve allowed the connection the ebook should appear on the iPhone/iPodtouch.

Click on the ebook and will get the option to “Download” to your device.

You can now view your titles via Cover Flow by opening the “Titles” section and tilting your device to the side.

My iPhone was causing me a bit of grief after the last couple of Firmware upgrades as when it would go to sleep it wouldn’t wake up. I would have to hold both the power and the home buttons simultaneously to reboot the phone.

The new Firmware 3.1.2 fixes this issue:

• Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone not to wake from sleep.
• Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular services until restart.
• Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video stream.

So far so good, I haven’t had to restart it once in the last week, whereas I was having to do this about 3-4 times a day.

I have finally found a free bit of Open source software that I can use to convert my .avi tv shows and movies to a format that is compatible with my iPhone (.mp4).

HandBrake

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

As you can see all you have to do is choose the output format on the right hand side of the screen and set up the output filenames and it does the rest for you. I’ve found it very easy to use.

Download here: http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Every since I updated my iPhone to Firmware 3.0.1 the sound in my phone calls would randomly drop off. The call doesn’t actually cut off, but the sound would “mute” where I can hear the other person, but they cannot hear me.

The firmware patch 3.0.1 was sent out to fix the SMS (text) messaging hole, however they seem to have broken the audio function during phone calls. This affects ANY version of the iPhone (original, 3G, 3GS) running the updated firmware.

When Apple releases the next Firmware (v3.1) in a few weeks this will apparently be fixed.

Temporary Work Around:

When you’re on a call and the audio suddenly drops, look down and turn on your speaker phone, then turn it immediately off again. It somehow reactivates the audio.

Additionally, this problem seems to occur less when you are not using the 3G network. So you can use the EDGE network more often if you want. (under Settings, General, Network) Turn off “Enable 3G”. This will reduce your internet speeds, but improve call quality. If you want to surf, you can turn it back on.

FYI, here is the patch they originally released for the SMS fix:
http://www.techspot.com/news/3567...ekend.html

What you need:

* A jailbroken iphone. See my How to Guide for Jailbreaking the iPhone for Firmware Version 3.1.2 here.

* Use IphoneBrowser v1.93* or Winscp to view the file structure of your iPhone.

*Important Blackra1n note:
-Blackra1n does not create the afc2 service needed by iPhoneBrowser.
-Install the afc2add program by searching in ‘Rock’ to add the service.

* Download these pre-made iPhone SMS tone sets (Approx 80Mb). You can rearrange the sounds and rename the top folder name (e.g. SMSTones1 to SMS1) anyway you like, as long as the file name of the UISounds folder and the file names within remain exactly the same.

* iTunes (For Creating SMS tones – converting tool).

Change the factory SMS Tones:

1. Using IphoneBrowser or Winscp, copy the SMS tone sets into the following folder in your Jailbroken iphone:

Var > Stash > Themes

2. Now activate just one of these new SMS Tone Themes in Winterboard.

3. Exit Winterboard (Wait for respring) and now choose the SMS tone you want on your iphone from:

Settings > Sounds > New Text Message

The tone names will still be the same (but with different sounds) – and the files will still be called:

sms-received1.caf - Tri-tone
sms-received2.caf - Chime
sms-received3.caf - Glass
sms-received4.caf - Horn
sms-received5.caf - Bell
sms-received6.caf - Electronic

Create your own SMS Tones:

If you want to create your own .caf SMS tones to add into the Themes folder:

Using iTunes:

1. Edit > Preferences > Import Settings Button >

2. Change from AAC Encoder to AIFF Encoder

Now go to explorer and simply rename the .AIFF extension of the song to .CAF and you can now rename it to fit into the UISounds folder as above (remember you must use the factory file names for the SMS tones to be read by the iphone).

Just completed jailbreaking my iPhone with firmware update 3.0.1 using redsn0w 0.8. I have created a pdf document with steps that I used:

How to Jailbreak iPhone Firmware 3.0.1

As well as Cydia, you can install Icy. What is icy?

On the first gen iPhone, the source for 3rd party apps was through Installer (also known as AppTapp). Now, with the iPhone 3G, Installer has taken a backseat to Cydia, which is the best place to download apps for jailbroken phone.

Introducing ICY:

The people that created the original Installer have recently brought out Icy, which essentially is Cydia but a lot easier to use. Icy is RipDev’s take on Cydia, with no more long wait times, and hopefully this is the future of installing/removing 3rd party apps.