Sébastien 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.

Is Apple Looking To Patent An iPhone-Friendly Glove?

Sébastien Page ∙ January 2, 2009

Because the iPhone uses capacitive touchscreens, it may be difficult or impossible for the electrical signals from a person's fingers to pass through glove fabric. I don't have this problem because I live in Southern California, but if you live in some cold places such as Alaska or Iceland, this might be a way for you to use your iPhone, without risking to freeze your fingers.

The US Patent and Trademark Office published what seems to be an application from Apple for gloves that would actually work with the touchscreen. The glove would most likely have layers that emulate properties of human skin, such as electrical resistance.

THe Hidden Menu Of Google iPhone App

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated August 1, 2018

It takes a little bit of effort to find the "Bells and Whistles" hidden menu in Google Mobile but it's here. When you launch the Google iPhone app and go to settings, you’ll see a few options to configure the app. While it may not look like there is anything below the “About” selection, swipe your finger upward to go below. Keep swiping for a while and you will see the secret menu.

So, what is so cool about these bells and whistles? Not much to be honnest... You can replace the default sounds with chicken or monkey noises. You can also change the color of the Google Mobile theme and see a live waveform when you talk.

There is one nice feature though: the "open links in app" option. I guess this should have been there in the first place but later is better than never as we say in French.

Unlock Your iPhone 3G With Yellow Sn0w Guide & Tutorial

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

[digg-me]Below are instructions on how to unlock your iPhone 3G using Yellow Sn0w. Unlocking your iPhone 3G will make it possible for you to use any cellphone carrier.

Before you go any further, make sure to READ EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS TUTORIAL. If you think you're too cool for school, then go directly to the instructions but please, do not complain if you mess up your iPhone during the process, which is very unlikely to happen anyways...

First things first. In order to be able for you to use Yellow Sn0w to unlock your iPhone 3G, you have to be on a jailbroken iPhone that runs the latest firmware 2.2 with the latest baseband 02.28.00. To find out what firmware you're on, go to Settings > General > About and look for "Modem Firmware". It should say 02.28.00.

If you have not jailbroken your iPhone yet, you have to now in order to unlock. To jailbreak your iPhone, follow the QuickPwn 2.2 guide that I wrote a few weeks ago.

If you have already jailbroken your iPhone using PwnageTool to preserve your baseband, sorry but you have to restore and rejailbreak again in order to have the latest 02.28.00 baseband.

If you have updated to the latest firmware 2.2 with its latest 02.28.00 baseband, then you're good to go.

So from now on, I assume that you are on a clean firmware 2.2 with firmware 02.28.00 and that your iPhone is jailbroken.

1. Go to Cydia and install this new source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ (note that snow is spelled with a zero, not an "o"). To install a new source in Cydia, go to Manage > Sources > Edit > Add, then type in the source http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ and tap "Add Source".

2. Once the source has been added, tap "Return To Cydia", then tap "Done".

3. Now tap "apt9.yellowsn0w.com from the list of sources "Entered By Users".

4. Select Yellow Sn0w, then tap install nad confirm.

5. Once the installation had been successfully completed, return to Cydia.

6. Hard reset your iPhone. To do this, hold the home and power buttons simultaneously for a few seconds until the phone shuts off by itself (ignore the "slide to power off" message)

7. Insert whatever SIM card you want! Wait a few seconds and you should be good.

8. Done!

See, that wasn't too hard at all. Users that are already familiar with Cydia and sources shouldn't have any problem at all. But first time jailbreakers might be a little lost, which is why I detailed this tutorial a lot.

Now there are a few known issues with Yellow Sn0w and I highly recommend you either read my previous post about it, or go directly to the Dev Team's blog.

Troubleshooting:

1) If you are on tmobile USA you should disable 3G in Settings or sbsettings. 2) YellowSn0w does not work with a SIM PIN. You must disable your SIM card pin lock.

At any rate, I would really appreciate it if you could digg this post, then write a comment, then go to the Dev Team's blog to thank them for their great work.

iPhone 3G Unlock Is Now Available

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Yellow Sn0w, the soft unlock created by the Dev Team is now available from Cydia or Installer. Instead of rewording what the Dev Team has to say about it, I will simply copy/paste their entire post from their blog.

I don't like copy/pasting large amounts of texts from other sites, but in this case, I find it really necessary. I really recommend you go over to the Dev Team's blog, read the post from there, and write a nice thank you comment.

For those of you that don't care about the fine prints, here are the repos for Yellow Sn0w. Cydia source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ Installer repo: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/

I will be writing a guide wrote an iPhone 3G unlock tutorial on how to unlock the iPhone 3G using YellowSn0w.

Again, please make sure to visit the Dev Team's blog and thanks these guys for spending New Year's Eve behind a computer screen so everyone can have an unlocked iPhone.

From the Dev Team Blog:

BASICS

The unlock works exclusively with baseband 02.28.00. This baseband is provided by the latest firmware update (2.2) from Apple. You’ll need to upgrade to this release using iTunes and then use QuickPwn to activate etc. There are plenty of tutorials about this on iclarified, bigboss, and other established tutorial sites. Because it works on 02.28.00, it is available to everyone on the planet. This means we don’t need to unnecessarily expose holes in earlier basebands, which is an important concern. The application is a small daemon that is launched on boot. It injects the payload at boot and also whenever there is a baseband reset. You won’t notice anything about it other than that your third-party sim now works. It’s a small program and unobtrusive. There is no GUI (this is by design). You can add the application using the sources outlined below (coming soon). There are Cydia and Installer sources available, so use whichever you are comfortable using. yellowsn0w is completely removable through Cydia, the command line, and iTunes.

DETAILS

There is a known issue with SIM cards that have STK (SIM Toolkit) application menus. These menus are usually items such as “top up” “get credit” “lotto numbers” etc. These menu items confuse the application sometimes. Removing and reinserting the SIM once after reboot (give it about 10 secs 60 seconds (with v0.9.1) after you see the slide to unlock widget) fixes this issue. We’re working on a better fix. For those of you using SIM cards without STK menus, the application has some optional arguments that will make the unlock much faster for you. So either experiment on your own (use “yellowsn0w -h” for usage) or wait for a customization writeup. After you install yellowsn0w via Cydia, you should return to the Cydia main menu then reboot your iPhone with the 3rd party SIM installed. Wait for the slide to unlock screen, then wait 10 or 15 secs more. If you don’t see your carrier name pop up, then remove your SIM, reinsert it, and wait 10 secs more. This is the step we’ll be working on eliminating next.

RANDOM

The application is version 0.9 0.9.1. This is considered beta software, you use it at your own risk. You know the score. The application is released on a non-commerical basis. Please do not accept pirates and scummy ripoffs of this software. We license this software for single use and in a non-commerical environment (meaning you can’t charge for it). The techniques and methods used are not to be used by third party companies. We are watching you Jody…we won’t be so forgiving this time. Direct linking to the repository URLs is prohibited, please only link to this post. We will be checking referers. Happy 2009 and enjoy!

The iPhone 3G is used all over the world with all sorts of SIM cards, and we almost certainly will see untested and unexpected situations. If the soft unlock doesn’t work for you on day 1 (literally day 1, of 2009!) then please don’t panic or be impatient. This is new territory for everyone, so enjoy the ride as much as you can :)

RELEASE INFO

Cydia source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ Installer repo: http://i.yellowsn0w.com/

UPDATES

Soon you’ll see yellowsn0w 0.9.1 in the repos. It uses a much longer delay to let your SIM card initialize. If you have problems with 0.9.0, try this one and wait a full minute after you see homescreen, then reinsert sim card. We need both success and failure reports to tune this across the world, so please be patient (but please also report result!) If you are in the U.S. and are trying this with T-Mobile, you must turn off the 3G switch in Settings. Also if you are good with the command line, you can make it much easier by adding the line <string>-q</string> right after the /usr/bin/yellowsn0w line in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.iphone-dev.yellowsn0w.plist (that’s and advanced tip, hopefully someone will make a boosprefs type of tool for it) No PIN support yet. Remember how we said this was beta? Well we’re still working out the flow for SIMs with PINs enabled. Please disable any PIN you may have on that SIM before trying yellowsn0w, for now. The unlock will silently quit on anything other than baseband 02.28.00. It detects the wrong version and just quits to avoid any damage. Please double check your Modem Firmware setting in Settings->General->About.

Mobile Crunch Interview With Dev Team Member Pytey

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Mobile Crunch published a nice interview with Pytey, one of the preeminent Dev Team members. Interviews with Dev Team members are very rare and I suggest that you have a look at it if you're remotely interested in jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhone. The interview obviously evolves a lot around the awaited Yellow Sn0w, supposed to be available today.

Here is my favorite part of the interview:

However, Apple places restrictions on what you can run on the device. They impose draconian restrictions on the type of application that you can run, they don’t allow applications to run in the background and they even restrict the applications by subject matter or if they compete with their own applications. If I buy a device I want to be able to do what I want with it, if that involves gambling or looking at an application that involves porn then so be it. The real estate agent who sold me my house doesn’t knock on my door every month to check what pictures I have hanging on the walls, so why should Apple have this right?

Earlier this month, I published a translation of another interview with Pytey.

Breaking News: iPhone 3G Unlock Will Work For All Basebands

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Earlier today, the Dev Team published a post on the blog with some strange binary codes that won't mean anything to anyone that doesn't speak geek fluently (I don't!). I completely disregarded this post as I thought it was a pre-message for tonight's release of yellow sn0w, the new unlocking tool that will be available sometimes today through Cydia.

However, a tweet from twitter user Yellow Sn0w got me all excited when it said that it will be safe to use yellow sn0w on any firmware. Tweeting back and forth with him, I was directed to a blog post of his that actually explains the full meaning of the binary codes posted by the Dev Team.

Here is his explanation:

In binary that message translates to vtaber 61060174. vtaber translates to "ignore" and the 61060174 means post# 61060174 on the iPhone DevTeam blog. http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/61060174/the-man-from-delmonte-he-say-yes

Hoping that this is true...

iPhone External Keyboard

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated August 7, 2017

This is an interesting concept developed by Ralf Ackermann...

An external iphone / ipod touch keyboard - using a more "mainstream approach". The keyboard (it's a standard Freedom Universal Keyboard) uses the Bluetooth SPP (Serial Port) profile to talk with a Robotech Bluetooth module ( www.tigal.com/product.asp?pid=1124 ). This module is placed in a modified iphone battery sleeve and connected to the iphone serial port. The jailbroken iphone runs veency (a VNC server) and a tiny libvncclient based VNC client for keyboard event injection to whatever application you use.

All schematics and source code to appear on www.ubiqkom.org soon.

More photos here.

Apple Tablet Coming In 2009

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 29, 2016

According to TechCrunch sources, Apple is expected to release a large screen iPod Touch device in the Fall of 2009. This larger iPod Touch will most likely have a 7 or 9 inch screen!

Apple has been experimenting internally with large form tablet devices for years, one source says, but there was concern that users wouldn’t like the device. The difference now is the iTunes app store, which has thousands of games and other applications that are perfect for a touch screen device with an accelerometer. Apple says more than 300 million applications have been downloaded since the App Store launched in July 2008. Combine the App Store, iTunes and a browser and you have one heck of a device.

There is no information about pricing so far but I personally don't expect this new Apple tablet to be under $599.

Steve Jobs’ Health Is Declining Rapidly

Sébastien Page ∙ December 30, 2008

Gizmodo reported today that according to one of their insider sources, Steve Jobs' health is getting worse and worse, which is the reason behind Macworld and Jobs keynote cancellations.

According to Gizmodo's source:

Steves health is rapidly declining. Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs letting the hype destroy apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.

This strategic loss will be less of a bang with investors. This is why Macworld is a no-go anymore. No more Steve means no more hype. Saying they are no longer needing [Macworld] is the cover designed by the worldwide "loyalty" department.

Apparently, this source has always been 100% right in the past, which leads us to think that it might be right again.

Gizmodo argues that Jobs' health is nobody's business but I completely disagree with that. Jobs' health is pretty much everybody's business, especially Apple's investors. However, I do agree with Jesus Diaz when he says that "we believe that there's a line between saying "no-comment" and plainly misleading—once again—the public.", talking about how Apple is lying to the public about Jobs' health.

iPhone Nano Rumored To Be Announced At MacWorld

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

So there are been lots of rumors lately about the launch of an iPhone Nano and these rumors appear to be more and more likely to be true...

According to iPhone Alley:

We just received word from a reliable source within Apple that they are in fact working on an iPhone Nano, and that it will be announced at Macworld. The source says that the iPhone Nano will most likely be similar in form-factor to the iPod touch, and will probably not include 3G.

What's your take on it?

Wooden iPhone 3G

Sébastien Page ∙ December 29, 2008

Gizmodo posted today a really cool picture of an iPhone 3G wooden case. Clearly not your typical iPhone accessory but I find this wooden case very interesting. There is no info about pricing and where you can probably find out more from iCustom, assuming you speak Russian... who doesn't?

Hacking The iPhone 3G… The Dev Team Way

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Dev Team members PlanetBeing, MuscleNerd, and Pytey were speaking last week at the 25c3 conference in Germany to present how they hacked the iPhone. It's a very "geeky" video but it's worth your time if that's your cup of tea.

Some interesting facts is that at least 180 people with Apple corporate IPs update their phones using the Dev Team’s software on a regular basis. No doubt these guys at Apple are working on countering the jailbreak and unlock tools.