iPhone 3.1.3 Baseband 05.12.01 Unlock On Its Way?

by Sebastien on Feb 11, 2010

Some good news for those of you who accidentally updated their iPhone to 3.1.3 and are now stuck without being able to unlock or downgrade.

Sherif Ashim announced today on Twitter that he successfully crashed the 05.12.01 baseband, which really is step 1 in finding an exploit to unlock it. Later on, MuscleNerd confirmed that it was a totally legit find.

What does this mean? Well, this means that at the time you’re reading this, the Dev Team is probably working on turning this exploit into an iPhone 3.1.3 unlock.

iPhone OS 4.0 is still months away so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dev Team released this 3.1.3 unlock instead of saving it for 4.0.

Early updaters rejoice! An iPhone unlock for baseband 05.12.01 is on its way!

 

What is Jailbreaking?

by Cody on Feb 10, 2010

What Does Jailbreaking Mean?

Jailbreaking, or “hacking” is giving a user read/write access to otherwise locked OS files on your iPhone.

It allows you to “unlock” your iPhone and activate it on another GSM carrier that doesn’t have bad Luke Wilson commercials. It gives you access to app stores like Cydia that offer programs that you won’t see in Apple’s popular counterpart. It’ll even give you the ability to customize the background of your home screen and change the look of your icons and menu colors.

Starting in early fall after the summer 2007 release of the original iPhone, jailbreaking began as a fairly complicated multi-step process. Things have definitely evolved over the last few years and the online jailbreaking community for iPhones is estimated in the millions (if you’re reading this article on this site, that number shouldn’t surprise you) with hundreds of blogs and forums scattered throughout the web dedicated to this crazy thing called jailbreaking.

What Are the Benefits of Jailbreaking?

Up until recently, if you wanted to shoot video with your iPhone, you had to jailbreak and download an app called Cycorder from Cydia that would let you shoot and save video, because your iPhone out of box couldn’t do it. Same with cut/copy/paste, MMS, all only available if you had jailbroken your iPhone.

Your probably wondering well then what in the heck do I need to do it for now? Well I jailbreak mine so I can have the application Backgrounder from Cydia, it allows you to multitask and do things like listen to Pandora while writing emails, something you can’t do with your run-of-the-mill iPhone and iPod Touch.

I also have apps like Winterboard from Cydia that allow me to customize my home screen, change the look of my lock screen, and change the overall theme of my iPhone. I can make my iPhone look completely different than the way it does when you open the box for the first time. So much to the point where people will ask me what kind of phone I’ve got when it’s in an unmarked silicon case.

Another good reason I would say to go for it is that it is easier than ever to jailbreak. In fact, programs such as BlackRa1n by GeoHot make jailbreaking as easy as plug and click.

What Are the Risks of Jailbreaking?

Now, although jailbreaking has become increasingly easier, there are still very complicated risks that go with it. If you have a newer iPod Touch or iPhone 3GS, or if you plan on unlocking your new device, remember what I am about to tell you…

An underground group of programmers known as the Dev Team, for the most part, spearheads all this jailbreak technology more or less without Apple’s permission. Think of the Dev Team as the LA SWAT team with huge awesome guns trying to get into a barricaded building, which is the jailbroken iPhone software.

Every time they find a way in, Apple comes along and puts another barricade up with a software update that closes the entrance they had. Then they have to find another way in. They are currently working on jailbreaks for 3GS and iPod Touch software version 3.1.3, so if you upgrade to the newest version of the firmware, you will lose the ability to jailbreak at this time.

So it’s just a best practice to check the latest firmware version jailbroken (see the Dev Team blog) versus your own (go to Settings > General > Status). Aside from the above mentioned risks, there’s always the chance of your iPhone “bricking” or getting stuck in a non working state.

Several times during jailbreaks, mine would be stuck in phone purgatory for hours. Take just a few moments to browse any iPhone forum with jailbreaking topics and you’re sure to find several comments along the lines of “help! I tried to jailbreak my iPhone and now it’s been stuck on the Apple logo for hours, help!” or “Please help me, after jailbreaking my iPhone my GPS won’t work.”

So things definitely can go wrong, but generally it’s user error. Usually plugging in your iPhone to your computer, starting iTunes, and holding power for 5 seconds, power and menu button for 10 seconds, and then just menu for 20 seconds, tells iTunes your phones fried and it will do a fresh install of your most recent iPhone software. For more information on getting your iPhone out of the constant reboot cycle, read this article.

Is Jailbreaking Legal?

UPDATE: Jailbreaking is now officially legal in the US

Now you’re probably wondering if it’s legal. Um… yes and no! The fact of the matter is that Apple has verbally announced that they believed jailbreaking to be illegal and an infringement on their copyrights by way of complaint to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF last January.

But, the EFF sided with the consumer and stated that the “reverse engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software,” saying that yes, even though jailbreakers are using Apple’s copyrighted code, they are doing so in a way that allows them functionality that Apple doesn’t provide access to on their own.

On top of that, Apple’s legal team is probably too busy dealing with Nokia, Fujitsu, and Psystar to chase after people who are trying to customize their home screens.

To be honest with you I’m sure Steve Jobs and company have sat down and gone over the risk/threat of jailbreakers and have discovered how much it really fuels iPhone/iPod touch sales. Don’t believe me? Run a 24 hour poll on your blog and ask if users would still purchase iPhones if they couldn’t be jailbroken in any way.

What to Keep in Mind

But the cat and mouse game with Apple shows no sign of stopping as the Dev Team is furiously at work to break into the latest iPhone software to release to the public. Jailbreaking gives you complete control over your iPhone from customizing to 3rd party apps that didn’t for one reason or another end up on Apple’s App Store.

In fact the Cydia store is home to a lot of misfit apps that fell victim to Apple’s ever popular App screening process. Well, now that you’ve heard some background on jailbreaking, you’ve learned some of the benefits and risks, you may now make the choice, to jailbreak or not to jailbreak, that is the question.

If you decide to jailbreak, generally any app by the Dev Team such as PwnageTool or RedSnow is a safe bet, as long as the versions are compatible with your iPhone or iPod Touch firmware.

Lately BlackRa1n has been working well for me. It was literally a plug into usb port, launch program, click the button. I know Sebastien’s got some great tutorials on how to jailbreak as well as BlackRa1n and other downloads that will get you started.

Still completely lost? Drop a comment or a tweet and myself or Sebastien can lend a hand.

 

Downgrade iPhone Baseband 05.12.01 to 04.26.08

by Sebastien on Feb 10, 2010

Last week I wrote about downgrading iPhone firmware 3.1.3 to 3.1.2 using an old trick. Unfortunately, this hack worked for downgrading the firmware but it didn’t help downgrading the 05.12.01 baseband that comes with firmware 3.1.3 and makes it impossible to unlock the iPhone.

If you accidentally updated your iPhone 3G to 3.1.3 and lost your unlock, you’re in luck! There is now a way to downgrade iPhone baseband 05.12.01 to 04.26.08 in a few simple steps thanks to Fuzzyband, an application available through Cydia.

Please note that this only works with the iPhone 3G on OS 3.1.3 with baseband 05.12.01 and the older bootloader 05.08. Let me repeat this so it’s clear. This trick will only work for iPhone 3G 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01 with bootlloader  05.08. This will not work for the iPhone 3GS.

If you’re not sure about your bootloader, simply download and launch Fuzzyband and it will give you more info about your bootloader.

How to Downgrade iPhone Baseband from 05.12.01 to 04.26.08

Step 1: In order to downgrade your iPhone baseband from 05.12.01 to 04.26.08, you must first jailbreak your iPhone using RedSn0w, PwnageTool, or even Sn0wBreeze.

Step 2: After jailbreaking, launch Cydia, then search for and install Fuzzyband.

Step 3: Launch Fuzzyband then tap “Downgrade”, which will start the downgrading process.

Step 4: Reboot your iPhone.

Congrats, you successfully downgrading your iPhone baseband from 05.12.01 to 04.26.08. You should now be able to unlock using UltraSn0w. If you’re not sure how to do that, check out my tutorial on how to unlock iPhone 3.1.3.

 

Thank You to the 912,488 of You Who Recently Visited My Blog

by Sebastien on Feb 9, 2010

I really pride myself in having built a great community around the iPhone Download Blog. As a reader, you can tell the site is very “alive” by the amount of comments my ramblings articles get and also by the amount of retweets they generate on Twitter.

As a site owner, there is one piece of data that also tells a lot about a site: it’s the amount of visitors. That’s a stat every site owner, me included, religiously checks every single day.

When I looked at the stats for the blog yesterday, I was positively surprised to see that we had had our best day ever with 41,476 visits. Woop! In the last 30 days, we have had over 900,000 visits. Woop woop!

I really wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for helping me build such an amazing community. Without you, well, there would be no iPhone Download Blog.

I am very appreciative of your loyalty. From the bottom of my heart, a big thank you to all of you who are making this blog!

 

Why Cydia Sucks And How It Could Be Improved

by Sebastien on Feb 9, 2010

My friend Patrick over at JAiB finally said out loud what I’ve been thinking for quite some time now. In an article titled “why does using Cydia have to suck so much”, Patrick explains his frustration about how slow Cydia can be:

Cydia is slow to load and refresh its data, so you have a wait on your hands straight away when you launch it.

When it finishes loading I generally go straight to the Changes tab, to see what’s new.  Today the Things for LockInfo plugin immediately caught my eye and I knew I wanted to take a look at it.

The plugin’s main screen said to scroll down for screenshots.  There’s another very noticeable wait period while the page loads ads before I’m able to scroll down and see the Screenshots bar.

Once I tap the screenshots bar I get … nothing useful to me at all. Instead I just get a page with a banner for the plugin’s source – modmyi – and another general ad, and no screenshots anywhere to be found (after again waiting a fair while for that page to load). I tried refreshing the page a couple times – but no screenshots showed up.

So I gave up and ended up grabbing the plugin without seeing screencaps.  Not the end of the world, but frustrating and just dumb really.

This has happened to me so many times that I can’t even count them. I got frustrated on so many occasions that I simply closed Cydia, probably missing out on some great jailbreak apps or themes.

I sometimes feel like Cydia is like a great movie that keeps being interrupted by commercials: I can take the ads for a while, but at some point I just switch to another channel.

Saurik, the creator of Cydia is is no way responsible for all these ads. He just provides a platform for the various repos and each of them display their data as they want.

How Can We Make Cydia Better?

I believe there are a couple simple things Saurik can do to improve the user experience on Cydia.

Rewrite the Way Cydia Updates

I don’t know about you but waiting 20 seconds for Cydia to “load data”, then wait another 20 seconds while “downloading release”, then another 20 seconds while “downloading packages”, and finally wait another 20 seconds while “reloading data” is just plain painful.

I’m no programmer but I’m pretty sure there are some ways to improve the loading speed.

Set Some Standards

Again, I have no idea what’s going on behind Cydia but I can’t imagine it would be too hard for Saurik to create a format that all repos would have to follow in order to show in Cydia.

For example, a proper format would include the following information in this specific order and across all repos: app name, description, screenshots, source information, more details. Just like the App Store app, I’d like to be able to get all the information about the app on one page only.

Of course it’s easier for me to be a critic than actually do something about it. After all, who am I to complain about Cydia?

Well, I am an iPhone owner with a great respect for Cydia and the amazing work Saurik has accomplished. I think he is out there with the Dev Team as one of the pillars of the jailbreak community.

This being said, having this blog is a great opportunity for me to send a message and hopefully being heard.

I know Patrick and I are not the only one out there feeling a bit frustrated with Cydia and I am confident that Saurik will know how to take this into account and maybe work on implementing some standards in a future version of Cydia.

What about you? How do you feel about Cydia?

 

Top 25 iPhone Blogs

by Sebastien on Feb 8, 2010

I’m often asked what I think is the best iPhone blog. It’s hard to tell because most iPhone blogs have their own specific topic or their own “voice”. While I do not have one favorite blog (except mine, hehe), there are few I read on a regular basis.

The following is my selection of what I think are top iPhone blogs.

  1. Mac Rumors
  2. Gizmodo
  3. Just Another iPhone Blog
  4. Simple Reviews
  5. Apple Insider
  6. The Unofficial Apple Weblog
  7. iSmashPhone
  8. Apple iPhone School
  9. TiPB
  10. iPhone Atlas
  11. iPhone Alley
  12. Mac World
  13. iPhone in Canada
  14. iPhone Savior
  15. iPhone Hacks
  16. FSMdotCOM
  17. iPhone CTO
  18. KRAPPS
  19. The App Era
  20. Stuff I Make on My iPhone
  21. Simon blog
  22. iPhone Dev Team
  23. iClarified
  24. MacNN
  25. iPhone Download Blog

What’s your favorite iPhone blog and why?

 

How to Unlock iPhone 3.1.3

by Sebastien on Feb 7, 2010

This guide and tutorial will show you how to unlock iPhone 3.1.3 using UltraSn0w or BlackSn0w, depending on your iPhone baseband.

The first step is to jailbreak your iPhone 3.1.3, either with RedSn0w or with PwnageTool. Note that PwnageTool is the preferred method as it helps preserve the baseband.

You can use UltraSn0w to unlock these basebands:

  • 04.26.08
  • 05.11.07
  • 05.12.01
  • 05.13.04

To find out what your baseband is, go to Settings > General > About > Modem Firmware.

How to unlock iPhone 3.1.3 with UltraSn0w

  • Launch Cydia.
  • Add the following source to Cydia repo666.ultrasn0w.com (note there is a “0″ in sn0w, not an “o”).
  • After installing this source in Cydia, search for “ultraSn0w”.
  • Install UltraSn0w and reboot your iPhone.

How to unlock iPhone 3.1.3 with BlackSn0w

  • Launch Cydia.
  • Add the following source: http://blackra1n.com.
  • After installing this source in Cydia, search for “BlackSn0w”.
  • Install BlackSn0w and reboot your iPhone.

Your iPhone should now be unlocked. If you have questions or comments on how to unlock iPhone firmware 3.1.3, please leave a comment.

UPDATE: This post is outdated. Check out our unlock section for the latest information about iPhone unlocking.

 

Jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3 with PwnageTool

by Sebastien on Feb 7, 2010

The Dev Team released PwnageTool 3.1.5 just a few hours ago. In this guide and tutorial, I will show you how to use PwnageTool to jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3.

Before we get into the details, please make sure you read this article by the Dev Team. It will explain to you what you can and cannot do. It is a very important piece of information that you should not overlook.

If at any point in time you updated your iPhone to firmware 3.1.3, then you also updated your baseband to 05.12.01. If that’s the case, you will be able to jailbreak by downgrading to 3.1.2 first, but you will not be able to unlock.

PwnageTool will jailbreak the following 3.1.3 devices:

  • iPhone 2G
  • iPhone 3G
  • iPhone 3GS (old bootrom)
  • iPod Touch 1G
  • iPod Touch 2G (old bootrom)

If you don’t care about unlocking, RedSn0w is still an easier and quicker way to jailbreak.

Note that this tutorial to jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3 with PwnageTool is for Mac and Mac only. There is no Windows version of PwnageTool and they will most likely never be. If you don’t have a Mac, ask around and see if a friend of yours can help you out and create a custom firmware for.

Again, please make sure you read the information given by the Dev Team. It will answer most questions you may have.

How to Jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3 with PwnageTool

Step 1: Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed on your computer. If not, download and install it, then reboot your computer. Now make sure you backup your iPhone by syncing with iTunes, just in case something goes wrong.

Step 2: Download PwnageTool 3.1.5 and your iPhone firmware from our downloads page. Save these 2 files to your desktop.

Step 3: Launch PwnageTool. It should give you a warning message. Click OK.

Step 4: Select “Expert Mode”.

Step 5: Select your device then click the blue arrow to continue.

Step 6: If PwnageTool doesn’t automatically find the correct IPSW file, click “Browse for IPSW” and locate it (it should be on your desktop).

Step 7: You will now have several options. Choose “General” and click the blue arrow to continue.

Step 8: Under “General Settings”, you have the option to activate the phone or not. This is a very important step so please read carefully.

If you have a contract with an official carrier (such as AT&T in the US, or Orange in France, etc…), do not activate.

If you do not have a contract with an official carrier (ie. you want to unlock for another carrier), you have to activate. Then you will have to install UltraSn0w or BlackSn0w from Cydia in order to fully unlock the phone.

You will know you didn’t choose the right option if you don’t have signal after jailbreaking.

You don’t have to, but I suggest increasing the root partition size to somewhere around 700MB, just to be on the safe side. When you’re done, click the blue arrow to continue.

Step 9: You are now taken to the “Bootneuter settings”. All of them should be greyed out. Click the blue arrow to continue.

Step 10: You are now taken to the “Cydia settings”. From here, you may download packages so you don’t have to manually do it later. For example, you may download WinterBoard, which would be installed during the pwnage process. Let’s keep things simple and skip this step which is not necessary. Click the blue arrow to continue.

Step 10: You are now taken to the “Custom packages settings”. Make sure “Cydia” is selected.

Step 11: You are now taken to the”Custom logos settings”. You can choose to add the default logos (see below) or you can add your own logos. If you choose to add your own, make sure the images are not larger than 320 x 480.

Step 12: We’re almost done! You now have to build the custom IPSW. Click “Build” and click the blue arrow to continue.

Step 13: Save your custom IPSW to your desktop.

Step 14: PwnageTool will now start building your custom IPSW. Be patient… It can take up to 15 minutes.

Step 15: PwnageTool will ask you if your iPhone has been pwned before. If you’re not sure, just click NO.

Step 16: If your iPhone was previously jailbroken, you can skip to step 19. If your iPhone wasn’t already jailbroken, follow the following directions. If your iPhone isn’t plugged to your computer yet, plug it. Don’t open iTunes. If iTunes launches automatically, close it. PwnageTool will now deliver the payload.

Step 17: After successfully delivering the payload, PwnageTool will put your iPhone in recovery mode. Click OK.

Step 18: iTunes should pop up saying it has detected an iPhone in recovery mode and that you must restore. Click OK.

Step 19: We are going to restore your iPhone using the custom IPSW you built. In iTunes, hold the “Alt/Option” key and click “Restore” at the same time. DO NOT click “Restore” without holding the “Alt/Option” key! A dialog box will pop up and you’ll be able to choose the custom IPSW file you created that was saved to your desktop.

Step 20: Navigate to the “jailbreak” folder and select the custom IPSW we created.

Step 21: iTunes will now restore your iPhone using the custom firmware which could take a while, so relax. When done, your iPhone will reboot and you will now have a jailbroken iPhone.

That’s it! Your iPhone 3.1.3 should be fully jailbroken, thanks to the good work of the Dev Team and PwnageTool.

In the future, make sure you do not update your iPhone firmware when there is a new one coming out. It will avoid many issues. Besides, these updates are very minor and useless. For what it’s worth, I’m still on iPhone OS 3.0, and happy to be.

If you have any question or comment, please leave a comment.

 

iPhone News You Missed This Week

by Sebastien on Feb 7, 2010

In case you missed any of this week’s articles, here is a summary of what was posted on the blog within the last few days. As usual, if you like any of these articles, please share them, tweet them, email them or whatever’s clever.

 

How to Downgrade iPhone 3.1.3 to 3.1.2

by Sebastien on Feb 7, 2010

As always when a new firmware is being realeased, there is always a few unlucky people who “accidentally” update or restore to the latest firmware, thus losing their jailbreak and unlock.

In this case, you’d usually want to downgrade your iPhone from 3.1.3 to 3.1.2 simply by downloading 3.1.2 and SHIFT + Restore in iTunes so that you can choose your own firmware to restore to.

The problem is that Apple recently stopped signing all previous firmware versions making it impossible for you to downgrade.

Fortunately, Saurik has been smart enough to create a system to bypass Apple’s signature and making it possible for you to downgrade from 3.1.3 to 3.1.2. To do so, you will need to have your SHSH on file. To see if it’s on file, launch Cydia and look at the top. Mine says “This device has SHSHs on file for iPhone OS: 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.2″.

If you don’t have this, make sure you look for a link that says “Make my life easier” on Cydia. This will allow you to save your SHSHs.

This being said, downgrading an iPhone 3GS from 3.1.3 to 3.1.2 is easier said than done. It’s actually a pretty painful process that I detailed in a tutorial a few month ago. I originally wrote this tutorial to downgrade from iPhone 3.1 to 3.0 but the steps are exactly identical (MuscleNerd confirmed this).

If you’re one of those who need to downgrade your iPhone firmware, then check out my tutorial, or simply wait for the Dev Team to come up with a reliable jailbreak for 3.1.3. Something tells me PwnageTool is not too far ahead of us ;)

UPDATE: If you have an iPhone 3G, you can now downgrade from baseband 05.12.01 to o4.26.08.

UPDATE 2: This post is slightly outdated. Check out this page for the latest information about downgrading your iPhone.

 
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