Tutorials

Creating an iPhone-Controlled Wireless Home Audio System

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 18, 2019

I am a bit of an audio geek and I have been longingly looking at the multi-room music systems for years. They have really started to get a lot cheaper lately but the price for most systems still start at $1,000.00. It is hard to convince my spouse that the idea of having a central music server and music piped into other rooms is $1,000 cool. So when I got the Remote [iTunes link] Application for my iPhone, i started to think about what I could do for a lot less money. Remote lets you control your iTunes library using wifi anywhere in your house.

We had already encoded all our music into MP3 and placed it on a central computer in our kitchen. We installed some really great speakers there, but what happens if we want to listen in the bedroom or living room? We could run speaker wires throughout the house, but we have an older house and it is expensive and/or unsightly to run speaker wires throughout the house. Also if we did have speakers wired in, we would need a multi-room receiver and we would still have to run back to the kitchen to change the song or pick another playlist.

I had looked in the Apple Store at Airport Express recently and read about how you could use it to create "wireless" speakers and noticed in my iTunes settings dialog box, the ability to send music to these "Airtunes" speakers. After purchasing a refurbished Airport Express from Apple Store, and a few hours fiddling with them, I came up with a pretty nice and cheap solution.

I used Airport Express and a pair of old but cute PC speakers to create a remote speaker set. I bought and installed Remote on my iPhone, configured it and now I am able to control my iTunes, sitting right next to the remote speakers.

It works pretty great so I thought I could share with you what worked for me. These instructions will let you broadcast music in iTunes. You can use Airfoil to broadcast music from other music players to your Airtunes Speakers.

What you you'll need to get started:

Apple Airport Express Airport Express Stereo connection kit (or a Monster mini-to-RCA left/right audio cable or Monster mini-to-optical digital Toslink audio cable A Mac or PC with wireless connectivity (Mac with AirPort or AirPort Extreme wireless capability - PC with 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g card) Powered speakers (computer speakers work great!) or a local amplifier and non-powered speakers. iPhone or iTouch with Remote [iTunes link] application installed.

Getting started:

Plug in the airport express wherever you want to place your remote speakers. Install the Airport Utility application on your Mac or PC. You can either download it at this link or use the accompanying CD to install it. Use the Airport Utility to scan for the Airport Express Hub. When it is located, click Continue to set it up. The Utility will read the configuration information and prompt you for a name and password. Name it something that will instantly let you know which speakers you are turning on and off. For example, "Downstair speakers" or "Kitchen Speakers" works well. Click Continue. Use this guide to continue making choices as you set up the Airport Express. The easiest path is to just add it to an existing wifi network, but if you don't have one you can set up one between your pc/mac and the Airport Express. When done, the airport Express lcd light should be a solid green. Plug in your speakers and then using either the Airport Express Stereo Connection Kit or individual connectors you can purchase at Radio Shack, connect the Airport Express to your speakers. Repeat steps 1 through 6 for each airport Express you want to install (ie for each set of speakers you want). Test that you can broadcast to your remote speakers from iTunes. Go to iTunes and purchase Remote application. Follow these steps to set it up and connect it iTunes on your PC or Mac. Launch Remote on your iPhones. Using Remote Settings, turn on the speakers you want to control. Sit back on your couch and pick playlists and songs to play.

iPhone Custom Ringtones, Easy AND Free?

Cody Lee ∙ October 2, 2008

[digg-me]This is one of those little Internet gems that I wouldn't have discovered if I didn't walk in on a friend of mine browsing a site called myxer.com a few weeks ago. Now before I go any further in my story, those of you who are already aware of the site or don't care to expand your custom ringtone library, I encourage you to stop reading, and check out another great article on the blog. But to those of you who are still intrigued, prepare to become emotionally, mentally, and technologically aroused.

Ok, so I sit down to check out what he's got going on, and he is getting free ringtones of all the latest hits (and even a lot of movie and tv show audio) sent to his cell phone. Of course this is like every other free ringtone/background site, I'm thinking, so when he asks "You think this will work with your iPhone?" I blurt out "no," so fast I almost seem to interrupt him. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous of all the cool free stuff he was getting for his moto Razor.

Then later that night something magical (that's right, I said magical) happened. In browsing the myxer.com website, I came across a link that said, click here for iPhone download. Upon further investigation, I found you can actually download any ringtone on the site, in .m4r format, so you can then SSH them into your ringtone folder, or just drag and drop in iTunes and sync up.

The entire process is extremely quick, and the library of ringtones is enormous. Having tried other custom ringtone options through Cydia apps and such, I must say this is the most streamline and easy to use.

The only thing I would suggest you look out for is iTunes won't recognize any file (even .m4r) that is over 30 seconds long. Also be advised the backgrounds I tested didn't look very good, and the games aren't compatible at all. But the fact that I can now jam out to Lil Wayne's "Man I miss my dogs," when my old high school buddies call, is enough to make me, well, write a short article on a small time web blog. Have a good evening.

But I still want to check out the new iPhone Apps!

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 27, 2017

If you are like me, i was looking in App Store at least once a day to see what new apps were out. I would go to the iTunes Store and click on App Store in the left hand column. I would then click on "All Iphone Applications" and sort by "Most Recent" so that I could look at all the latest updates and new apps. When I logged on the other day and couldn't find the All iPhone Applications option, i was a bit shocked. However I have figured out a few ways to still let me get my new app fix. Here is my advice to those with the same OCD need to see what is new.

1) Use the View Menu/Show Browser Feature in iTunes to see a list form of apps. From there, click on the App Store list item in the iTunes Store listing. Click on "Release Date" column header in the browser row area. Now click on the different Category list items to see a sorted list by date of all the applications in that category. It is a bit slower than seeing all categories at once, but maybe we can convince Apple to put in an All Category option here.

2) Subscribe to the Pinch Media's New Application RSS feed. These are really useful app store feeds. They also have a feed for free new apps and one for updated apps. Here is how they describe this great service:

We’re happy to announce today the release of a few new RSS feeds which provide a way to view activity in the Apple App Store without having to load up iTunes or the App Store on the iPhone yourself. The first two feeds are the most recent stream of new and updated applications added into the App Store updated hourly.

Check it out.

Either way, I can still get my fix.

3) Follow our New Apps & Games category :-)

Tether your iPhone with PDAnet

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 15, 2017

[digg-me]According to PhoneScoop, "tethering is connecting your phone to a laptop or similar data device using a data cable, usually for the purpose of connecting to the Internet on the laptop, via the phone's wireless connection to the cell phone network. Carriers usually charge more money for accessing the Internet via tethering, as opposed to on the phone itself. Sometimes this is enforced via technology in the phone, although often it is simply the honor system and not strictly enforced".

In our case, AT&T clearly doesn't want you to tether your iPhone. Strangely, they don't even have such a plan you could subscribe to in order to use your iPhone as a modem. So to make it clear, tethering your iPhone is against AT&T Terms Of Services.

Unlock your iPhone 2G with QuickPwn

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

After posting the QuickPwn 2.1 tutorial yesterday, I got many emails from people asking me if the method worked for unlocking iPhones. The answer is yes! It does work to unlock the iPhone. It only works with the 1st Generation iPhone though. So if you have an iPhone 3G, it's not gonna work.

In the guide I posted yesterday, I show you how to jailbreak an iPhone (no matter what iPhone you have) but many people that are not really tech savvy asked me for a tutorial on how to unlock the iPhone 2G. So here we go...

Before starting, do not hold me responsible if something goes wrong. If you follow these instructions carefully, chances are you won't have any problem. So read everything!

Now before we start the process, you need to make sure you have downloaded and installed iTunes 8 and backed up your iPhone. And there are a few files you need to download too. Create a folder on your desktop and save all these files in there:

QuickPwn 2.1 for Windows BL 3.9 BL 4.6 iPhone 2G 2.1 firmware Connect your iPhone to your PC and open iTunes. Hold the Shift key and click "Restore" at the same time. You could click "Update" but that would eat up your disk space for nothing. See my previous post about that. So, when you click SHIFT + RESTORE, a window will pop up asking you to choose your firmware. Select the firmware you downloaded before Step 1. iTunes will then restore your iPhone to 2.1, which may take a while. Once iTunes has restored your iPhone to 2.1, launch QuickPwn. Make sure your iPhone is connected to your PC and click the blue arrow. Click the BROWSE button to locate your iPhone firmware you downloaded before Step 1. Select the firmware. QuickPwn will automatically check and make sure the ipsw (firmware) is correct. Click the blue arrow to go to the next step. Now select what you want to do. You HAVE TO install Cydia. Using custom logos and installing Installer is pretty useless at the time. Also make sure you check the "Unlock Phone" checkbox. Click the blue arrow to continue. You will then be asked to choose your BootLoader files you downloaded before step 1. Select them and click the blue arrow to continue. QuickPwn will ask you to confirm that your iPhone is connected to your computer. Make sure it is and click the blue arrow to continue. QuickPwn will now put your iPhone into recovery mode. Once it is in recovery mode you will be asked to: a) Hold the Home button for 5 seconds, b) Hold the Home and Power buttons for 10 seconds, c) Release the Power button and continuing holding the Home button until your iPhone is in DFU mode. QuickPwn gives you very detailed instructions to make it even easier for you! Once QuickPwn detects your iPhone in DFU mode, it will start the pwning process. Once pwned, QuickPwn will informa you that you successfully completed the pwnage process. Your iPhone will then proceed to run BootNeuter, which may take a few minutes, so be patient! Once done, your iPhone will reboot. Done!

How easy was that?

I closed the comments on this post but if you have any question about unlocking your iPhone 2G, please ask in the forum.

Upgrade a jailbroken iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Later today I posted the QuickPwn 2.1 tutorial and I was reminded by a commenter that this type of tutorial is only good if you're already on an "up-to-date iPhone", meaning that in this case, this tutorial is only good if you already have 2.1 running.

Now what happens if you are still running on an older firmware, let's say 2.0? Well, if you hit this Restore button, you will lose all your Cydia apps and cool customizations. Do you really want that? Of course not.

As highlighted by BigBoss, you never want to upgrade on a jailbroken iPhone. If you upgrade, you will lose about 500MB of space. If you do that again on the other update, you will lose another 500MB, and so on. This space will only be recovered after a restore. The data loss is because Cydia moves your files around to free up space. The moved files become inaccessible but stay on your disk which means you essentially just lose the space.

To prevent this from happening, simply restore! Do not upgrade! Follow these few steps to upgrade from 2.X to 2.1 without losing any of your apps.

If you haven't yet, upgrade your iTunes to iTunes 8. You can find the direct link from our iPhone Downloads section. Install AptBackup from Cydia and run it. It will backup all your apps and put them in a location that will be backed up by iTunes in the next step. Sync/backup your iPhone with iTunes. Do the full on backup. Yes, I know, it's probably gonna take a while but you have to. Restore. Just click "Restore" in iTunes and let iTunes put the latest firmware on your iPhone. Again, this might take some time but be patient. If you are a legit iPhone user, meaning that you have a legit AT&T contract, activate your iPhone with iTunes. If you are an "unlocker" (this is for iPhone 2G users), you will see the "slide for emergency" message. Do not do anything else. Do not restore your backup yet. Simply unplug your iPhone. Now let's jailbreak the phone. Again, do not restore your backup yet! To jailbreak your iPhone, use QuickPwn by following this QuickPwn tutorial for Windows and this QuickPwn for Mac guide. Once your iPhone is jailbroken, go to Cydia and install AptBackup again. It is the most important step so don't fuck it up! Again, go to Cydia and install AptBackup. Also install Open SSH and BossPrefs. Ok, now we can restore the backup. So plug your iPhone in and iTunes will ask you to set up as a new phone or restore from backup. Restore from your latest backup. If everything goes fine, iTunes will restore all your stuff, such as notes, photos, email accounts, etc... Now we have to restore your Cydia apps. Open AptBackup and tap "Restore". It should reinstall all your apps from Cydia. AptBackup may not be visible. To see it, just open BossPrefs, and look it up in the "hidden icons" section. Tap it to unhide it. You may also unhide any other hidden icons. Done!

I would like to thank BigBoss for showing me the way, although he doesn't know... Bigups to the B O S S, aka BigBoss.

QuickPwn 2.1 Guide & Tutorial

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 11, 2018

UPDATE: This post in kind of outdated since firmware 2.2 became available. I wrote new tutorials on how to jailbreak iPhone 2.2 with QuickPwn and how to unlock iPhone 2.2 with QuickPwn.

UPDATE 2: I closed the comments for this post. If you have any question about QuickPwn, please ask in the forum.

This guide will show you how to use QuickPwn 2.1 to jailbreak your iPhone. This tutorial is for PC users. If you use a Mac, you may want to refer to QuickPwn tutorial for Mac OS X or PwnageTool 2.1 Tutorial for Mac OS X.

This QuickPwn 2.1 tutorial will be short as I have already posted a QuickPwn guide before.

Before starting, make sure you have downloaded the latest version of iTunes. Also make sure you are currently running firmware 2.1 (thanks Tim for pointing that out!). Plug your iPhone and make sure iTunes has detected it. If you're iPhone is already jailbroken, you may want to remove all the apps that you have downloaded from Cydia. Certain applications such as Winterboard, Categories and more cause trouble. You will be able to reinstall them later.

Supports 2.1 firmware with the unlocking and jailbreaking of iPhone 1st generation (2G) device. Supports the jailbreaking of iPod Touch 1st generation device and iPhone 3G. Does not support the unlocking of iPhone 3G or jailbreaking of second generation (n72ap based) iPod Touch.

Note that you are pwning your iPhone at your own risk... Success is not guaranteed!

Create a folder called "QuickPwn" on your desktop. Download your appropriate iPhone firmare from here. Also download the QuickPwn 2.1 from here and place it. Place these files in the newly created QuickPwn folder on your desktop. If you want to unlock your iPhone (only works with iPhone 2G), download the Bootloader 3.9 & 4.6 Files. Extract QuickPwn zipped file. Launch QuickPwn and select your iPhone version. You will be asked to select your iPhone firmware. Select the firmware your downloaded in Step 1. If the firmware you selected is valid, QuickPwn will show a green checkmark. Click Continue. You will then have the opportunity to select Cydia, Installer and to choose a custom boot logo. You have to select Cydia. You may also choose to install Installer. Click Next. You will now have a message saying that you are ready to launch the QuickPwn process in a new Window. Click Go. You will then be asked to power off your iPhone and press Enter once it has been turned off. QuickPwn 2.1 will now help you put your iPhone into DFU Mode (aka recovery mode). Read the instructions carefully then type in Y for YES and press Enter. You will be asked to hold down the Power button for 5 seconds. Then you will have to also hold down the Home button for 10 seconds without letting go of the Power button. At the end of 10 seconds you will need to release only the Power button. After a few seconds of holding down just the Home button QuickPwn will detect the your iPhone in DFU mode and start performing some "operations". After 8 operations are performed QuickPwn will tell you to "Please wait while your iPhone is Jailbroken". Press any key to continue. Your iPhone will display a turning wheel and in a few minutes will be jailbroken!

If you have a 2G iPhone and would like to unlock it simply install and run BootNeuter from Cydia.

If this post was helpful, please DIGG it! Thanks.

Jailbreak iPhone 2.1

Sébastien Page ∙ September 14, 2008

A lot of things happened with the last 48 hours in the iPhone jailbreak community; this is due to the release of QuickPwn and PwnageTool 2.1 by the DevTeam. I have been posting quite a few tutorials since yesterday on how to jailbreak the iPhone 2.1 firmware and I understand some of you might be a little overwhelmed by the amount of information.

To make it easier for you, I am writing this post to sum up all the iPhone 2.1 jailbreak tutorials that I posted so you can find your QuickPwn guide or PwnageTool tutorial in one place.

PwnageTool 2.1 Guide QuickPwn Tutorial iPhone 2.1 Jailbreak guide

PwnageTool 2.1 Tutorial for Mac OS X

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated September 29, 2008

[digg-me]That's a lot of work for me this morning with all these news falling... I just posted about a tutorial for QuickPwn 1.1 for Mac OS X and now I'm gonna show you how to jailbreak your iPhone 3G with PwnageTool. This tutorial (or guide) will show you how to use PwnageTool 2.1 and how to update your iPhone to 2.1.

Before we start, make sure you backup your iPhone in iTunes and also download your iPhone firmware from here and save it to your desktop.

Download PwnageTool 2.1 from here. in iTunes, go to the summary tab and download (do not update!) the latest iPhone firmware 2.1 Launch PwnageTool 2.1 Select your device and click "Next" Select the right iPhone firmware You will then get a message that says "We will now create an .ispw file that you can use to restore your iPhone with iTunes. This file will be placed on your desktop. Do you want to continue?". Click YES The it will ask "Do you have an iPhone contract that would normally activate with iTunes?". If you are a legit AT&T customer, click YES, if not, click NO Then wait while PwnageTool 2.1 builds the custom .ispw file. It could take a few minutes. Enter your password when asked to. Then wait for the custom .ipsw to be built The it will ask if your iPhone has been Pwned before. Click YES or NO Turn off your iPhone You will then get a message saying: "Close the PwnageTool application, put your iPhone into recovery mode, start iTunes and restore with your custom firmware bundle". Close PwnageTool Put your iPhone into recovery mode (Google it or go to YouTube to see how to do this) Start iTunes. iTunes will say "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes." Click OK Do NOT just click "Restore". Hold the OPTION key + click "Restore" With Finder, select the Custom .ipsw file PwnageTool created on your desktop Select whether to set up as a new iPhone or restore your it from a backup. I recommend setting it up as a new phone. You will lose all your contacts and everything but these can be synced again later on. Restoring from a backup sometimes created problems. You're done!

How was this PwnageTool 2.1 guide? Hope that helped!

QuickPwn tutorial for Mac OS X

Sébastien Page ∙ September 13, 2008

Ok, now that a new version of QuickPwn is out for Mac OS X, you don't have any excuse for not jailbreaking your iPhone 3G. I already posted a QuickPwn guide a couple weeks ago called QuickPwn Mac OS X Tutorial. The method is exactly the same so instead of doing it all over again, I'll just put the link to the QuickPwn for Mac tutorial.

Here it is: QuickPwn Mac OS X Tutorial

And here is the PwnageTool 2.1 for Mac OS X Guide

PwnageTool and QuickPwn for 2.1 Firmware

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated November 15, 2017

It's official. It's clean. It's easy and it works without having to pull your hair out! That, my friends, is the new releases of PwnageTool 2.1 for Mac OS X and QuickPwn 1.1 for Mac OS X. The DevTeam worked all day and all night to bring you an easy way to jailbreak your iPhone 3G.

Yesterday, we were presented a way to jailbreak the iPod Touch is a couple shady QuickPwn that turned out to be "fake" tools that were not developed by the DevTeam but used their name anyway. Then, BigBoss released a tutorial on how to jailbreak the iPhone 3G but that was still kinda hard for non geekie guys to use.

I don't like copy/pasting large parts of other people's posts but I think it is very relevant to do this in the case of the latest post on the DevTeam blog:

Some of the popular press and blogs have been backing the opposition. :-)

While criticism and competition is fine it should be reported correctly, with all the facts. and certainly minus the FUD. Do you guys think we are “less and less relevant with each passing day” ? We don’t think so, and we certainly prefer our hacks to theirs. ;-) Though even if the world deems us irrelevant, the iPhone family of devices is still fun to hack!

By the way we figured out a way to combat iTunes 8 without patches…and we’re waiting to see what Apple tries next. But we think they might want to rethink their priorities. They probably won’t though, and so we get back to the “cat and mouse” game between Apple and the Dev Team and third-party communities.

Whatever this guy at Engadget says, I still think jailbreaking your iPhone is more relevant than ever. Do you really want to rely on Apple? I don't! Anyways, this is not the point of this post...

Downloads:

PwnageTool 2.1 for Mac OS X QuickPwn 1.1 for Mac OS X

These can be downloaded from the iPhone Downloads section of my blog.

SHA1 Sums:

PwnageTool_2.1.dmg = 0b2dcb51e224b12590793e8a758dd80c450e5b64 QuickPwn_1.1.dmg = 92487230c66296ec1e414260b5f107e5d351923f

Hey, this is for iPhone 3G only and as you can notice, it is for Mac only. A Windows version is coming out pretty soon. A QuickPwn tutorial can be found here and a PwnageTool Guide can be found here.

Apple posts fix for iTunes 8 Windows blue screen of death issue

Sébastien Page ∙ September 12, 2008

Apple was quick to post a fix for iTunes 8 issue that caused Windows Vista users to see the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) when plugin an iPod Touch or iPhone.

From Apple:

After installing iTunes 8 for Windows, some users may see a blue screen error message when connecting iPhone or iPod to a Windows Vista computer.

The fix involves uninstalling Apple Mobile Device Support then reinstalling the updated iTunes 8 package. One of my previous posts involved uninstalling Apple Mobile Device Support then reinstalling iTunes 7.7.