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.

Tethering coming to the iPhone?

Gizmodo was tipped by what they call a "pretty legitimate-looking email thread from one of our readers" that Apple and AT&T might be discussing the possibility of offering bringing tethering to the iPhone.

Apparently, their tipster emailed Steve Jobs himself (we know Steve sometimes personally answers emails from random people like you and me). Here is the email he supposedly sent to Steve:

AT&T offers data plans for BlackBerry that include tethering for an additional $30 per month (a total of $60 per month for the BlackBerry+tethering plan).

It seems ludicrous that the same thing is not offered with the iPhone. I understand the desire to prevent tethering with the current data plan, but I am willing to pay more money to allow tethering! With such an advanced device, why can I not do so?

Now here is the reply he supposedly got from Steve:

We agree, and are discussing it with ATT.

Steve

Sent from my iPhone

Not sure how I should take that but that is a pretty interesting rumor...

QuickPwn vs. Ziphone

PlanetBeing, a member of the DevTeam, wrote a very interesting post about the similarities and differences between QuickPwn and Ziphone. If you're not an iPhone geek, don't even bother reading this...

Here is what PlanetBeing took into account (as you can see, there are more differences than similarities):

Similarities:

jailbreak payload medium

Differences:

Technique

ZiPhone uses, as the root filesystem device, a pseudo-device that provides a window to an arbitrary section of memory. This memory is not allocated or otherwise reserved by the operating system and hence will be used by other random processes in other random ways and will become more and more corrupted with every CPU clock cycle. The only safe way to use this is to mlock all memory used by the jailbreak binary as soon as possible, and then use data previously uploaded to flash. Anything else will cause either the jailbreak binary to crash at random moments or cause random data to be written to flash. I am not sure why Zibri elected not to implement ZiPhone in a safer fashion.

QuickPwn uses the same mechanism that Apple uses to send its update ramdisk. This memory is both allocated and reserved. It will not crash at random moments, or give you repeating BSD root errors. This is the way the XNU kernel is designed to use ramdisks.

Longevity

ZiPhone hinges on a BUG in iBoot that was quickly fixed by Apple.

QuickPwn uses an iBoot FEATURE that Apple cannot remove without rewriting their own software and undergoing lengthy QA. Even if Apple did change the architecture, it would be straight-forward to simply mimic what they do and adapt to it. The reason QuickPwn can do this is because it relies on a hardware exploit to bootstrap into this phase. Apple cannot fix this problem without changing the manufactured hardware.

Elegance

ZiPhone modifies an existing Apple ramdisk and ships it as a complete set.

QuickPwn contains all-original code and features a very tiny bootstrapper that allows it to use libraries and code that's already on the iPhone.

Not only does ZiPhone's distribution of Apple's binaries violate copyright laws, it also takes up a large portion of room on the ramdisk that could be used for the payload. Keeping its existing algorithm, ZiPhone would never have been able to install Cydia, for example. The maximum feasible ramdisk size is 32 MB; Cydia takes 13 and Apple's library take up a significant amount. With some work, Zibri could possibly make it just under the 32 MB limit, but with the large number of files in Cydia, and the large size of the corruptible area of memory, corruption would be inevitable.

Click here to read the full post.

WinPwn 2.5 preparing for beta release

cmw just posted on his site that he was preparing WinPwn 2.5 for a beta release. Yeahh! I'll let you know when the beta is out and available.

WinPwn 2.5 ( Update 08/28/08 )

Yay! Squpix fixed the 2.0.2 bug and we are now preparing for beta release! Get your iPhone/iTouch's ready it's winpwning time. Thanks again for the support.

In the meanwhile, here is a screenshot of WinPwn 2.5 in action. You may see more here.

iPhone apps crashing on launch fix

Since the recent update to 2.0.2, many users reported that their applications crash really often when trying to open them. A few fix were offered, including decreasing the amount of iPhone applications on your device or, downgrading to an earlier version of iTunes.

These 2 fixes delivered different results but it seems the folks at iPhone Atlas finally discovered a real fix to this problem.

On the iPhone, select Settings > General > Erase all Content and Settings.

On a Mac, delete the following support files from the computer:

/Library/Receipts/AppleMobileDeviceSupport.pkg /Library/Receipts/iTunesAccess.pkg /Library/Receipts/iTunesX.pkg ~/Library/iTunes/Device Support (the entire folder) /System/Library/Extensions/AppleMobileDevice.kext /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DeviceLink.framework /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates (all contents)

On a Windows XP PC, delete the files in settings/[yourusername]/Application Data/Apple Computer/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

On a Windows Vista PC, delete the files in C:/users/[yourusername]/AppData/Roaming/Apple Computer/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

Delete the iTunes application

Restart the computer

Install iTunes 7.7

This method is obviously not for the average noobie as it requires some basics skills but that's the only solution so far to fix this issue with your iPhone.... at leat until Apple releases a new firmware update.

Thanks iPhone Atlas

T-Zones hack for iPhone

T-Mobile just changed their IP address for T-Zones, causing all hacked iPhones using T-Zones to stop working. BigBoss was on it right away by releasing an update to TZones Hack in a matter of hours.

The upgrade is available in Cydia and only works with iPhone firmware 2.0+. This means if you're still on 1.1.4, well, it's time to upgrade or:

you can fix proxy.pac yourself but editing the file /var/preferences/proxy.pac and changing “10.0.0.0″ to “25.0.0.0″. (The 2.0 version is a bit more flexible allowing addresses from both 10.* and 25.* to both be covered.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, T-Mobile has a $6 data plan called T-Zones. You can use this plan if you're on a jailbroken iPhone, instead of paying the usual $20 from AT&T. This is obviously again T-Mobile's TOS so you may do this at your own risks...

How to use T-Zones on your unlocked iPhone?

Subscribe to T-Zones Install TZones Hack available in Cydia Restart your phone If does not work, verify your EDGE settings in Settings > General > Network, EDGE to be APN: wap.voicestream.com. Username and Password should be blank

Thanks Boss

Take your iPhone apart with a suction cup!

Interesting finding over at hackint0sh... One smart user found a way to take his iPhone 3G apart, using a suction cup.

Here is how it works:

Remove the two screws on either side of the charging port Apply a suction cup, to the glass screen. Try to mount it right below the home button. Pull the suction cup toward you and the screen should come out (bottom first) You will see 3 cables running from the top right corner of the screen to the main board of the phone. 3 cables are numbered 1, 2, and 3. Remove the cables in that order. Once the three cables are detached, the entire LCD unit is now separate from the main board.

This can be a handy trick, should you want to fix light leak for example, as this user did. No need to say that your iPhone warranty will be voided in a heartbeat...

iPhone 2.0.2 security flaw puts private data at risk

You thought that password-protecting your iPhone would keep you safe? Think again! A pretty big security breach was found in iPhone firmware 2.0.2, putting some of your data at risk. Fortunately for the most paranoid of us, there is a way to avoid it.

What's this security flaw about?

Password protect your iPhone Slide and unlock and tap "Emergency call" Double tap the home button You're in! You're in the favorites more precisely

Now anyone using your phone can make a call to your favorites. On top of that, they can edit your contacts, view and listen to your voicemails, SMS, have access to email and Safari...

Apple will most likely fix this issue in the next firmware update but if you can't wait a couple weeks, here is how to fix it:

Go to Settings Tap General Tap Home Button Select either Home or iPod

This way, when someone uses the method described above, they will either be taken to the home screen or to the iPod screen.

Bugs found in PwnageTool for Mac and Windows Beta of QuickPwn

The DevTeam posted on its blog a few hours ago that bugs have been found in the recent releases of the PwnageTool for Mac and the Windows Beta of QuickPwn.

We’ve had some issues with iPod touch devices and the latest version of PwnageTool for the Mac, in certain conditions incorrect permissions will be used and the keychain doesn’t save passwords. So hold on and wait for the next release, we’ll push out the updated version via Sparkle as soon as it is tested (it is being tested right now). We have also encountered some issues with the Windows Beta of QuickPwn, and we have an update that should fix the issues seen with 64-bit Windows versions and should be able to be used with all versions of Windows, but as with all beta software other bugs may be present.

A new Windows QuickPwn Release Candidate (RC3) was made available.

150 beta update to the Windows QuickPwn application is out

After announcing the release of the new PwnageTool 2.0.3 for Mac OS X, the DevTeam spoiled us today with a new beta update to the Windows QuickPwn application.

DevTeam says:

This contains a revised GUI from Poorlad that has tighter integration into the the main updated QuickPwn executable which has fixes for YouTube and  provides BootNeuter support for the unlock of 2G iPhones, remember this is still beta software, use at your own risk.

A "Nota Bene" from the DevTeam:

NB: QuickPwn Windows doesn’t work well with virtualization as there are some problems with the way USB resets are handled, so we wouldn’t advise trying it, we have had reports of some success with VMWare Fusion 2.0 Beta 2, but this shouldn’t be relied on, use PwnageTool instead, or wait for QuickPwn Mac.

Additionally, the DevTeam says that QuickPwn for Mac is currently being tested and we might see a beta release sometimes within the next few days. I'll keep you updated about that.

Also worth noting is that they are still working on a 3G baseband unlock solution but they are not there quite yet.

PwnageTool 2.0.3

Well, I just posted and "predicted" that following a short post on the the DevTeam's blog they would make available an updated version of their PwnageTool. I was right on as they just announced that PwnageTool 2.0.3 for Mac OS X is now available as a Sparkle update, or a direct download here.

So what's new on PwnageTool 2.0.3?

Support for iPhone/iPod touch firmware 2.0.2 5C1 Updated version of Installer.app beta 6 New .de localization for German speaking users

DevTeam warns us that:

The application SHOULD ONLY be downloaded as a .tbz file from our servers and should NOT be decompressed using the application called “the unarchiver” (this breaks permissions within PwnageTool) just use the standard OS X built in ‘Archive Utility’ to decompress. The SHA1 sum of PwnageTool_2.0.3.tbz is 91e670e0c623cd43f5e8cfbfaae6c23d98d8f31b.

The DevTeam is cooking something up

The DevTeam just posted a short message that could easily have been twittered...

We are just flicking some switches and connecting some cables, we’ll have some stuff for you soon. (no it isn’t any type of 3G unlock). I am pretty sure they are going to release a one-click version of their PwnageTool for Mac. We'll see what they come up with.

Backing up iPhone applications data

I just read a long but interesting post over at Just Another iPhone Blog. Brandon talks about backing up the data that is contained in your applications. He takes the example of the Fuel Gauge app but it applies to any other application, especially games (I just reached level 36 at Enigmo and I'd be pissed to lose this in case I had to restore the phone).

Brandon highlights a great application that is available from Cydia: AppBackup.

How does AppBackup works?

Install from Cydia Open AppBackup Select the application you want to backup Select "Backup"

Backups are stored in /var/mobile/Library/AppBackup/tarballs as files called bundleid.tar.gz, where bundleid is a given app's bundle identifier (e.g. com.ooi.supermonkeyball). Backup times are stored in an XML property list at /var/mobile/Library/AppBackup/backuptimes.plist as Unix timestamps. If you want to "backup the backups," you should back up the entire /var/mobile/Library/AppBackup directory tree.

How to restore?

Open AppBackup Select the app you want to restore Hit "Restore"