I guess Apple was telling the truth.
I decided to try the 1.1.1 iPhone update on my unlocked and hacked phone. The process went along just fine until the iPhone restarted. Then I got a message on the screen that I had an incorrect SIM. I took the SIM out of the iPhone and put it in my old Treo, and it worked--I called my phone and it rang as expected.
Guess I'll be headed to an AT&T store soon to try and get a new SIM card...
[Update]
Walked (well, more like ran) over to the nearest AT&T store. I told them my iPhone stopped working and that iTunes told me I needed a new SIM card (both true). The guy said no problem, and handed me a new SIM. He told me to install it, connect to iTunes, and activate the SIM with my existing account. Just got back, popped in the SIM, and no luck--getting the same errors.
[Update x2]
I went to an Apple Store this morning and had to wait a long time for a genius, so I made an appointment for the afternoon. Went in, showed them my phone, and the guy said "it appears that someone tampered with the software on this phone" and said there's nothing he could do. I asked him to restore it, and he said he tried, but nothing changed. He then pointed to the notice in the store that says not to hack the phone, and told me the only thing I could do was buy a new one.
I asked if the store's policy was that they can't fix it and won't replace it, and he said "yes." While I was there, I fixed another woman's nano who was waiting... oh, the irony. So I bought a new phone.
Bottom line, Apple appears to be adamant that you're screwed if you've messed with your phone in any way.
The same day that Cyrus Farivar wrote a guide to unlocking your iPhone (for free) on Macworld.com, I went through the unlock process myself, my first hacking of the phone. It worked perfectly, with only a slightly disconcerting red dot on my Phone icon. Perhaps the hardest part of the process was finding someone in the office with a T-Mobile SIM card that I could borrow to test that everything worked OK.
After verifying my unlocked status, I put my stock iPhone SIM card back in, and was back up and running on my normal phone number. A few days later I pulled out my phone and saw a box requesting that I enter my voicemail password (something I haven't had to do since I set up Visual Voicemail on the phone when I activated it). I immediately thought, "oh no, did unlocking and switching SIMs mess up my voicemail?" I entered the password and waited anxiously for what seemed like minutes (several seconds, probably) before a red number "1" popped up on the Voicemail badge. I tapped to get to my voicemail and was able to play the message from my wife.
The moral of the story is, hacking and/or unlocking your iPhone isn't something Apple intended you to do, and might mess things up. I got lucky, but don't be surprised if swapping SIMs leads to some software confusion.
Apple's Greg "Joz" Joswiak met with PC Magazine writers yesterday to talk iPods and iPhone, and Sascha Segan of PC Mag's Gearlog blog has some tidbits, including some vaguely encouraging words about the state of the cold war between Apple and iPhone hackers. (Namely, that there isn't one.)
I asked him about independent, native software development for the iPhone. He said Apple doesn't oppose native application development, which was new to me. Rather, Apple takes a neutral stance - they're not going to stop anyone from writing apps, and they're not going to maliciously design software updates to break the native apps, but they're not going to care if their software updates accidentally break the native apps either.
This is actually quite refreshing to hear -- it's that Apple has taken the same attitude toward iPhone hacking at TiVo has toward the hacking of its DVRs. Namely, that while the company isn't going to worry about maintaining compatibility with the crazy things that hackers are doing on their product, they're also not going to launch an all-out war on the hackers in an attempt to stop them from doing what they're doing.
Of course, the best solution would be for Apple to roll out an official developer kit for the iPhone (and for iPod touch as well, of course). I think that day is coming, but until then the hacking community is doing a great job. (These days you can hack your iPhone with a simple, safe Mac installer program: get the details here.)
As my colleague, Dangerous Dan Moren, mentioned, the iTunes Store has turned on the ringtones feature. If you have the will and knowledge to make your own ringtones, Rogue Amoeba has entered the “do-it-yourself” ringtone fray with its free MakeiPhoneRingtone utility. It essentially puts a friendly face on the somewhat convoluted renaming AAC files technique, the one that allows you to fool iTunes into believing that unprotected AAC files are kosher ringtones that can be copied to an iPhone.
With iTunes 7.4.1, Apple showed a willingness to break third-party ringtone tools-it would like you to purchase its $.99 ringtones rather than create your own for free-so who knows how long MakeiPhoneRingtone will function as it should (my guess: about as long as it takes iTunes 7.4.2 to appear). For the time being, however, it works as advertised.
PLEASE NOTE THESE TECHNIQUES WERE POSTED IN SEPTEMBER 2007 AND ARE ONLY APPLICABLE TO 1.0 VERSION IPHONES.
In mid-August, I posted a detailed guide to hacking your iPhone here at iPhone Central. In those free-wheeling bygone days of iPhone hacking you customized and manipulated your phone using a combination of a simple "jailbreak" application and a lot of command-line work in the Mac terminal. To hack your phone then, you had to have access to a lot of different files, you had to transfer these files using arcane commands, and you had to make sure not to screw up, or miss any steps, lest you be forced to start over. If things went well, the entire process took 30-45 minutes.
All of this was possible, of course, thanks to the work of some extremely smart, talented, and resourceful hackers from around the world. Working without any official documentation or tools from Apple, they managed to create -- very quickly -- an entire iPhone development system, and then use it to create a number of applications.
Now those same hackers have opened up the iPhone even further, allowing hacking "for the rest of us." In addition to making it possible to hack your phone without ever launching the Mac terminal, or entering a command-line phrase, they've created an automatic software update and installation system that is far cooler than any iTunes-based scheme that might come along.
So, while hacking your iPhone the old fashioned way is still a fun way to get to see the guts of the phone's OS, and possibly learn a little Unix along the way, it's now much easier to use some of the new tools that are available.
In this tutorial, we'll walk through exactly what those tools are, where to find them, what they do, and how you might want to augment them with a little extra work, depending on the level of hackery that you want to employ.
Onward to the instructions, after the jump.
Continue reading "iPhone Hacking Kit, the next generation"
So the iPhone has been out for a couple months now, and I’ve pretty much left mine alone—no hacking of any sort, beyond trying out Ambrosia’s new iToner. Then today, fellow Macworld staffer Chris Breen pointed me to Nullriver’s Installer.app beta. Using this program, “hacking” your iPhone to support third-party apps and tools is amazingly simple. Run the Installer.app on your Mac, then switch to your iPhone and use the new Installer icon on the home screen. From there, choose which packages you’d like to install, and you’re off and running.
So what’s available? Quite a lot, actually. First, there’s a screenshot app, which I used for the image you see here (click on it for a larger version). In the shot of the main screen, you’ll notice there’s a new row of icons on the phone; those were all added with the Installer.app program. Everything from hard-core Unix apps to games to productivity apps are available, and all can be installed (or removed) with a couple taps.
If something goes horribly wrong, you might have to use iTunes’ to restore your iPhone to its factory-new state, but at that point, it should work fine. I did this a couple times today (unnecessarily, as it turned out) and had no troubles. However, you are responsible for your own actions! In other words, if you brick your iPhone, it’s not my fault!
We’ll have a lot more to say about this topic in the near future, explaining everything involved in the process in great detail. But in a nutshell, modifying your iPhone is now about as easy as I think it can possibly be. Pretty impressive, given that it was a bunch of (very bright) volunteer hackers, and they’ve only had about 60 days to get to this point!
At least according to Amber Schroader, CEO of forensic-software developer Paraben, interviewed for a Wired article about the iPhone and forensic evidence. You see, it appears that the e-CSI community can't extract forensic evidence from the iPhone in a way that guarantees the data hasn't been altered -- a requirement for the information to be useful in court. Says Schroader, "The iPhone is evil...It's Mac OS X, and it's a completely closed system."
Hyperbole aside, Wired notes that the actual issue seems to be that "currently, the iPhone is not compatible with existing forensic software and data-extraction systems." In other words, a brand new device using a new (to mobile phones) operating system is, well, new. It's going to take a bit of work to master the device. Evil, indeed.
On the other hand, Derrick Donnelly of Blackbag Technologies -- a company that specializes in forensic solutions for Macs -- notes in the same article that, because much of an iPhone's data is synced to a computer, you may not need access to the iPhone itself to gather some information.
Still, given all the iPhone hacking going on, I'd be surprised if the smart people in the forensic-software industry don't have iPhone-compatible solutions before too long. (And perhaps Paraben will hire a few people clue-ful about the Mac, as well.)
Installing custom applications on your iPhone has just gotten a heck of a lot easier. While it'll still require a dive into the deep dark recesses of Terminal.app, the trip to the command line has just been reduced into a couple of quick commands.
Nullriver created an Installer application for the iPhone a week or two ago, but the problem was that the seemingly recursive task of installing the installer still meant fooling around with a host of confusing commands. Now, however, it requires only a few simple steps:
The installation worked mostly without kinks for me, though the first time around, I didn't hold down the home and sleep buttons for quite as long as necessary, prompting a pleasant reminder from the script: " You're going to have to learn to hold it longer than that, buddy!" The second time, however, proved to be the charm, and the Installer application showed up on my iPhone's home screen.
The Installer app itself is slicker than that neighborhood kid's Slip 'n Slide. It'll present you with a list of packages that you can install, update, or uninstall, all via the Net, with no hacking required. At first glance, you'll just see a few options, but if you install the Community Sources package, you'll get a whole lot more. One interesting note: if you install more applications than fit on the iPhone's home screen (five, including the installer), your apps will scroll off the screen and you won't be able to access them. Fortunately, you can always remove third-party packages via Installer, or use something like iFuntastic to hide the default Apple apps that you don't use.
Speaking of which: if the Nullriver guys would team up with the iFuntastic folks, they could probably create a GUI installer in pretty short order. The only question then would be how soon a software update from Apple will crash the party.
On the one hand, it's nice to see iPhone hacking get a little mainstream attention in the form of an article in the Washington Post. Mike Musgrove's piece touches upon the Nintendo emulator designed by Stephen White, White's subsequent attempt to bring classic shooter Doom to the platform, and the existence of "jailbreak" programs.
Musgrove also speculates that the future of hacking on the iPhone may follow in the footsteps of Sony's PlayStation Portable, which has long been a popular platform for so-called "homebrew" enthusiasts. Sony has tried to lock out hackers with software updates, but they've yet to find a method that hasn't been circumventable in one way or another.
However, one paragraph struck me as odd:
Hardware manufacturers are usually not happy about such user-created innovations because they can lead to piracy. Why buy a game or a software application if you can download one free?Yes, it can lead to piracy, but at least in the case of the iPhone, it's not really casual hacking: the methodology is still a little complicated for your average user. Besides, there's nothing to pirate for the iPhone as of yet: all the software is available to anybody with an iPhone, and it's not as if those programs can run on any other platform.
At present, Apple's probably more worried about the security of its platform: gaining access to the file structure and other information that Apple's kept fenced off will be of interest to security researchers looking for vulnerabilities in the codebase.
At the end of the day, however, I think Musgrove reaches the right conclusions: Apple should be excited to see people so passionate about their platform that they're willing to do whatever it takes just to make cool things for it.
