This is a summary of all the articles published on the blog this week.
LimeRa1: a new jailbreak-it-all by GeoHot How to install Android on the iPhone GeoHot: "I have so much to finish before I work on the jailbreak" 30 iPhone experts to follow on Twitter Snappy: a fast camera app for iPhone What the heck is going on here? Spirit coming tomorrow How to remove Cydia ads Spirit jailbreak delayed Prepare your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad for Spirit iPad 3G jailbreak with Spirit Save your SHSH blobs with AutoSHSH Jailbroken iPad 3G sends SMSSébastien Page
Sebastien is the Founder and Editor in Chief of iDB. Once a BlackBerry user, Sebastien instantly fell in love with the iPhone when it was first announced in 2007. Shortly after, he decided to start sharing his knowledge of the iPhone and its nascent ecosystem, which led to the creation of this blog. Sebastien currently owns 14 iPhones, 4 iPads, a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, a MacBook Air, 2 Apple Watches, 3 Apple TVs, countless HomePods and AirTags as well as a few pairs of AirPods.Jailbroken iPad 3G Sends SMS
Dev Team member MuscleNerd managed to send text messages from a jailbroken iPad 3G. According to MuscleNerd, The MobileSMS.app from the iPhone doesn't run properly on the iPad so he had to use raw command lines via Terminal.
Since the AT&T plan that comes with the iPad 3G doesn't allow to send SMS, MuscleNerd used a T-Mobile SIM card that he cut down into a MicroSIM.
This is just the beginning. I'm sure we'll see more and more of these hacks
How to Save Your SHSH Blobs with AutoSHSH
With the upcoming release of the Spirit jailbreak, there are a few things you need to do in order to be on the safe side should something go wrong in the future. One of these things is to prepare your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad by saving the SHSH blobs.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to save your SHSH blobs on a Windows machine, using AutoSHSH. This guide was written for an iPad, but the steps are identical for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Step 1: Open iTunes and plug your iDevice. Back it up. When done, close iTunes and unplug your device.
Step 2: Download AutoSHSH.
Step 3: Put your iDevice in recovery mode. To do so, turn it off, hold the home button while plugging your device to the USB cable. Keep holding the home button until you see a "connect to iTunes" logo. If iTunes launches, close it.
Step 4: Launch AutoSHSH. Make sure you are connected to the Internet and that you have Java Runtime installed. If not, download and install it. Also make sure your device is in recovery mode and connected to your computer.
Step 5: Click "grab my SHSH blobs automatically". AutoSHSH will start to work its magic.
Step 6: AutoSHSH will finally ask you where you want to save the file on your computer. Select a convenient location (ie. desktop).
Step 7: Reboot your device.
Done! Your SHSH blobs are now saved locally and on Saurik's server. In the event that something goes wrong, you are covered!
iPad 3G Spirit Jailbreak Pictures & Video
In a tweet sent yesterday, MuscleNerd teased us with a couple pictures and a video showing an iPad 3G jailbroken with the long-awaited Spirit jailbreak.
Spirit, which was said to be released this past Friday has been delayed. There is no official release date yet but it shouldn't take more than a few days.
While waiting for Spirit, you can prepare your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad by saving your SHSH blobs.
How to Prepare Your iPhone or iPad for the Spirit Jailbreak
Even though Comex delayed the release of Spirit, we know that we're just a few days away from the official release date. Spirit will sure be able to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, but the exploit used will most likely be patched in a matter of days by Apple.
To protect yourself in the event of an "accidental upgrade" to a newer firmware which would make you lose your jailbreak, you will have to save your SHSH blobs.
What is SHSH and why save them?
Taimur gave us a pretty good description of what SHSH are and why they are important:
"So first up, what exactly is SHSH blob or ECID SHSH? Well, it is basically is a unique signature which is checked against Apple servers whenever you decide to restore the firmware on any of your iDevice (iPhone, iPad and iPod touch). Once a new firmware is released, Apple stops signing the older firmware, hence making it impossible to restore back to the older firmware from iTunes.
Now to “why is it important to save SHSH blob”: The creator of Cydia has setup a new server which basically mimics Apple’s verification server and can save your older signature (SHSH blob) so that you can downgrade or restore back to the older firmware. This is important because if you don’t have your SHSH blob saved, and accidentally update to new firmware, you’ll loose your jailbreak and furthermore, you wont be able to downgrade back to older firmware to re-jailbreak your device."
The Dev Team warned us yesterday about the consequences and gave us simple directions on how to save our SHSH. There are 3 ways to do that:
If your iPhone is already jailbroken, you can save your SHSH on Saurik's server. If you're not jailbroken yet (ie. you have an iPad), you can use Firmware Umbrella to create a local copy of your SHSH blobs As an alternative to Firmware Umbrella, you can use autoSHSHNote that saving or backing up your SHSH blobs is not vital or mandatory. It's just a safety step that will allow you to restore or downgrade should something go wrong in the future.
Spirit Jailbreak Release Delayed
I don't know if it's just a bad joke but Comex, the developer behing the userland jailbreak Spirit, just said on Twitter that he was delaying the release of this new jailbreak.
This decision came after Comex read a year old article about how quick Apple was at patching a security hole in firmware 3.0.
If true, this piece of news is a a huge let down. Everyone was really waiting for Spirit to be released. I fail to understand the logic behind this decision. Whatever date the jailbreak will be released, there will always be the risk of Apple patching the firmware at some point.
Cross your fingers! Maybe Comex is just playing with our nerves... How do you feel about that?
How to Remove Cydia Ads
Sure ads in Cydia are the bread and butter of underground developers, but sometimes ads can just be a little too intrusive or overwhelming. Worse, it can alter the whole user experience by slowing down the performances of Cydia.
Our buddy over at FSM found a nice way to get rid of the ads in Cydia. If you want to increase Cydia's performance, this simple hack is for you.
SSH into your iDevice and browse to /Applications/Cydia/ and create two copies of package.js computer ( one is your backup and you will edit the other one ) . Inside that file search for var depiction = package.depiction .
Edit that line so that depiction = package.depiction will become depiction = null .
Now save the file and copy it back to /Applications/Cydia/ , overwriting the original one. That’s it. Now restart Cydia and enjoy.
Pretty simple, isn't it? If you like this hack, make sure to thank @MurdaFSM on Twitter.
Spirit Jailbreak for iPhone,iPad and iPod Touch Coming Tomorrow
A few weeks ago I was telling you about Spirit, a new userland jailbreak by Comex that would supposedly jailbreak all iPhones and iPod Touch 3.1.3, no matter what model, as well as the iPad 3.1.2.
After a month of painful wait, the official realease date finally came from Comex himself. When someone asked him on Twitter when we could expect his Spirit jailbreak to be released, Comex said "Friday".
It is pretty unclear what Spirit will look like. It was originally believed to be a browser-based jailbreak like jailbreakme.com but Chpwn confirmed a few hours ago that Spirit doesn't work out of a browser. He also made it clear that Spirit will work for the latest firmware of the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.
That is indeed good news for some of us who "accidentally" updated to 3.1.3 and got stuck without a jailbreak. It's important to note that Spirit is a jailbreak only. It will not unlock your iPhone! There is no word about a 3.1.3 iPhone unlock and if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath. I suspect we won't see a 3.1.3 unlock until iPhone OS 4 is released in a few weeks.
If you're going to be using Spirit for your iDevice, MuscleNerd recommended NOT to update iTunes to the latest 9.1.1 version. According to MuscleNerd, iTunes can detect Spirit and remove it, so make sure you stay away from this "update" button.
I just got my iPad and I was feeling really miserable without all my jailbreak apps. I'm glad I'm going to be able to take full advantage of this beautiful device as soon as I jailbreak it with Spirit.
What about you? Are you excited?
What The Heck Is Going On Here?
Dear iPhone Download Blog reader,
Over the past few months, I've been receiving a few emails, tweets, and comments from some of you complaining about the site. Your main concerns seem to be that what I write about is not new to you (ie. you've seen it on other blogs before) and that the topics covered are somewhat boring.
In this post today, I would like to acknowledge your concerns and explain myself to you.
I take it as my responsibility to update the blog at least once a day. No matter what happens, there is always something new on the blog every single day. You make me the honor to visit my site and I want to give you something fresh every time you come. That's my goal, and for the last 12 months, I haven't failed once to deliver one article a day.
My fiancee and I have been traveling through South East Asia for the last 6 months. We went to countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, and believe me, it's not always easy to find Internet in some of these countries. Besides there is a time difference of about 10-14 hours, which means that when you go to sleep, I usually get up, and vice versa.
The point I'm trying to make is that it's been incredibly challenging for me to keep up with the news and find the time to blog about it. Traveling is exhausting, and it's rarely convenient for me to pull out my laptop and write about stuff, especially when I'm sick like I've been for over a month now.
I understand that this is not your problem. You come here to get the latest news, hacks, and info and again, it is my responsibility to give you what you come here for. I just want you to know that I haven't given up on the blog, that I am very well aware that it hasn't been as good as it was, and that I do take your concerns very seriously.
Today, I would like to ask you to bear with me for another few weeks. I'm currently in France and it seems it should be a little easier for me here but the blog will not be back to 100% until I go back to the States in a month and a half.
I'm sorry if I haven't delivered to your expectations. Instead of keeping this on the down low, I thought it'd be better for me to explain what's going on and be completely honest with you.
I value you as a reader/commenter/online friend and the last thing I want is to disappoint you. I am sorry if I have and I can promise you that things will be back to normal soon. As a matter of fact, things will be even better than it ever was soon!
Thank you for reading, and thank you for caring enough to let me know when I underdeliver. Your opinion is important to me and I will always respect your views.
Yours truly,
Sebastien
Snappy: the Fastest Camera App for iPhone
Have you ever missed a great picture because your iPhone camera app was to slow to launch? If so, then read on because Snappy might be the answer to your frustration.
Snappy is a jailbreak app available from Cydia that allows you to quicky launch the camera app simply by tapping and holding the status bar.
Look at this demo to see how Snappy works.
Snappy is the kind of app that makes me wonder why Apple hasn't implemented this yet. I mean, it's pretty basic, yet very useful.
Have you tried Snappy yet? What's your take on it?
30 iPhone Experts to Follow on Twitter
I am often asked on Twitter who people should follow for good iPhone information. I thought it would be useful to create a list of my favorite iPhone people on Twitter. You may follow all these people in one click by following my iPhone List on Twitter.
I included myself on this list but you're already following me on Twitter, right?
30 iPhone People to Follow on Twitter MacRumors Gizmodo Just Another iPhone Blog Simple Reviews iSmashPhone Apple Insider The Unofficial Apple Weblog Apple iPhone School TiPB iPhone Alley Mac World iPhone in Canada iPhone Savior iPhone Hacks FSMdotCOM iPhone CTO KRAPPS The App Era Simon Blog 9 to 5 Mac iClarified iPhone Dev Team MuscleNerd ziPhoneApps iEvoluti0n Mod My i AppAdvice Appy Sebastien Page iPhone in CanadaIf you have people you'd like to see on this list, please add their Twitter username in the comments.
GeoHot: I Have So Much To Finish Before I Work On The Jailbreak
Yesterday I was telling you about LimeRa1n, a new potential jailbreak by GeoHot for all iPhones and iPod Touch. It seems that many people have gotten in touch with GeoHot by phone or even by showing up at his house (this info can be found in the whois records of his websites), asking for the jailbreak.
Apparently, and for obvious reasons, GeoHot wasn't particularly pleased, and I guess he's growing tired of people bugging him about a new jailbreak.
He made this clear today by saying on Twitter that we shouldn't be expecting a jailbreak from him anytime soon.
What do you guys think of all this? Do you think he's trying to mislead us to surprise us better soon? Or is he just not working on a jailbreak after all?