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Yet Another Verizon iPhone Rumor

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated October 23, 2016

Are you tired of the Verizon iPhone rumors yet? Or maybe you can't wait to dump the big bad awful AT&T for... well... the big bad awful Verizon. Personally I'm kinda tired of these but I always feel the need to pass the information rumors on because my goal is to keep you up-to-date.

The latest round of rumor claiming the iPhone will come to Verizon comes from Bloomberg, which was tipped by "two people familiar with the plans". According to the anonymous sources, the iPhone 4 will appear on Verizon network in January of 2011.

An odd date for the launch of a new product for Verizon as it comes right after the holidays madness. Even more odd is that Verizon spokesperson John Johnson said not even a month ago that there was no plan for Verizon to support the Apple mobile devices in the “immediate future”.

I still don't think Verizon will have the iPhone next year but hey, I might be wrong.

Thoughts?

RedSn0w 0.9.5b5-5 Fixes MMS/APN Issue After iOS 4 Jailbreak

Sébastien Page ∙ June 29, 2010

The Dev Team just released RedSn0w 0.9.5b5-5. This updated version of the popular jailbreak tool will fix the MMS and APN issues that many users encountered after jailbreaking their iPhone with RedSn0w.

According to the Dev Team, it's safe to re-run RedSn0w 0.9.5b5-5 on an iPhone that was previously jailbroken with RedSn0w without restoring. Simply deselect “Install Cydia” if you do that.

Instructions to jailbreak your iPhone iOS 4 with RedSn0w remain the same. However, remember this is still a beta version. To date, this version of RedSn0w is only compatible with the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G (non MC models). If you want to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS on iOS 4, you will have to use PwnageTool.

After jailbreaking your iPhone with either RedSn0w or PwnageTool, you can unlock it using the latest version of UltraSn0w.

You can download the latest version of RedSn0w from our iPhone downloads section.

iPhone 4 Parts Cost $187.51

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

Have you ever wondered how much your spanking new iPhone 4 would cost to manufacture? According to iSuppli, Apple's 16GB iPhone 4 includes components that cost as little as $187.51.

The most expensive thing in the iPhone 4 is the retina display screen, which supposedly costs Apple $28.50 per unit.

When the iPhone 3GS came out last year, its estimated cost was $179. Since then, the price of components dropped and it is now estimated to cost $134.

Like Business Week notices, the estimate doesn't include costs for items such as labor, shipping, advertising, software development, or patent licensing.

iPhone 4 Jailbreak: What, Why, and When?

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

What

The act of "jailbreaking" your iOS device simply means enabling otherwise disabled features and gives you the ability to add applications that aren't in Apple's notorious App Store. For example jailbreaking your device prior to iOS 4 was the only way to run multiple applications, like Pandora, at a time.

The jailbreaking community is the largest phone/hacking network on the net with 100s of blogs receiving millions of hits from users looking for the latest news in customizing their iPhone iPod Touch, and now iPad. Saurik, author of Cydia, the most popular alternative to Apple's App Store, reports that Cydia receives over 2 million unique hits per month.

Why

So now that you know what jailbreaking is, let me tell you why the heck you'd want to do it! I know what you're thinking. "Cody I just got the new iPhone 4, it already comes with multitasking, and I have access to 250,000 sweet apps in the App Store, why would I wanna jailbreak my iPhone?" Easy.

Those of us who are still hungry to free our iDevices have many reasons. I myself, as written before, am crazy about SBSettings. It's an application that gives you an unobtrusive, drop down widget menu that enables you to turn airplane/bluetooth/wifi on and off with 1 touch. And because it's only available in Cydia, your device must be jailbroken in order to obtain it.

Other popular applications include Winterboard, an app that enables you to completely customize the look of your iDevice, emulator to play NES games, and MyWi that turns your iPhone into a wireless hotspot.

Unlocking is also a common reason people jailbreak their devices. Unlocking means removing the carrier lock on the phone to enable it to work with a different network. For example, unlocking your iPhone and activating it on T-mobile's network due to coverage or cost reasons.

Of course an iPhone can only be unlocked to a network with the same chip technology, in the States it's GSM. Anyways if you haven't picked up on the theme of the article, your iPhone has to be jailbroken to be unlocked.

There are some cool reasons to jailbreak, but it sounds really complicated. Wrong again! What started off as a complicated, combination of software/hardware hacks, has become almost as easy as plugging your iDevice into your computer, and running a simple application.

Thanks to hackers like The Dev Team and GeoHot, the jailbreaking process has become extremely easy. Although you always run the risk of causing damage to your device, and possibly voiding your warranty, most people jailbreak without problems.

When

Ok, so your sold on jailbreaking your shiny new iPhone 4 like a drunk man on another drink, what do you do now? Well, nothing for the moment. If you are looking to really customize your new iPhone 4 icons and lock screen, and get access to all of the above-mentioned apps, stay tuned.

There is a jailbreak for the iPhone 4 but it hasn't been released to the public yet because it contains some of Apple's proprietary code. But we should not have to wait too long, The Dev Team is usually pretty quick to respond to Apple updates.

If that doesn't satisfy you, George Hotz aka GeoHot was heard talking about an exploitable bootrom that will enable an iPhone 4 jailbreak at a French underground hackers conference. So check back here frequently as we will obviously have full coverage including tutorials and how to guides.

Who out there has an iPhone 4 and can't wait to jailbreak that sucka?

How to Use FaceTime on 3G

Sébastien Page ∙ June 28, 2010

FaceTime was recently introduced by Apple on the new iPhone 4. This new feature is only supposed to work on wifi, which can be quite inconvenient if you feel like having a FaceTime conversation while on the road.

In order to get the following trick to work and allow you to use FaceTime over 3G, you need to have the tethering option activated. If you're in the US, the official tethering plan with AT&T costs an extra $20/month. As soon as the iPhone 4 is jailbroken, I'm sure apps such as MyWi will do the trick.

I haven't tried this myself but Justin, the iDB reader who tipped me on this, assures me it works. Justin tipped me several times before and I trust him about this. These instructions to get FaceTime to work on 3G are for Mac. I'm sure you can do the same with a PC. If you know how, feel free to comment on it.

Step 1: On your iPhone 4, go to Settings > General > Network > Internet Tethering > Connect via USB. In System Preferences on your Mac, go to your Network preferences. A new "iPhone USB" connection should appear in the left pane.

Step 2: Still on your Mac, go to the Sharing preference pane and check the Internet Sharing box to share your USB connection over AirPort.

Step 3: On your iPhone 4, connect to the network you just started sharing. Done!

This basically lets you use your own 3G connection as if it was a "normal" wifi connection.

After that, you can use FaceTime on 3G all you want. Justin says it can be a little slow but it worked pretty well overall.

Try it on and tell us what you think.

How to Downgrade Your iPhone From iOS 4 to 3.1.3

Sébastien Page ∙ June 28, 2010

Every time Apple releases a new firmware, they stop signing the older one, which means you technically can't downgrade to a previous firmware by restoring. Fortunately, if you have your ECID SHSH on file on Saurik's servers, then you might be able to downgrade your iPhone from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 or earlier.

The trick is to make iTunes believe it is requesting a signature from Apple's servers while it will actually be talking to Saurik's servers.

Downgrading from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 does require you saved your SHSH on Saurik's servers. If you haven't, then you can't downgrade.

Downgrade from iPhone iOS 4 to firmware 3.1.3

Step 1 for Windows: Make sure you are logged in with administrator privileges. Launch Notepad and navigate to C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

Now save the file back where you found it.

Step 1 for Mac: In Finder, select Go To Folder, and enter /etc. Search the hosts file and right click on it to open with TextEdit. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

Click Save As to save the edited file on your desktop. Name the file hosts, and make sure to uncheck the box that says "if no extension is provide, use .txt".

Now drag and drop this edited file to /etc.

Step 2: Download the firmware you want to downgrade to from here.

Step 3: Put your iPhone in DFU mode. Launch iTunes and plug your iPhone in. Press and hold the home and and sleep button together for 10 seconds. After exactly 10 seconds, release the sleep button while still holding the home button. Keep holding the home button until iTunes tells you it has found an iPhone in recovery mode.

Step 4: Now hold the Option key (Mac only) or Shift key (Windows only) while clicking the Restore button in iTunes. A dialog box will pop up and you’ll be able to choose the firmware you downloaded in step 2.

Step 5: At this point, some of you will be fine. The iPhone will restore without any problem. However, some of you might end up in recovery mode again. It's ok. We just need to kick the iPhone out of recovery mode. To do so, download and launch iReb for Windows or iRecovery (both Mac and Windows).

Welcome back to 3.1.3!

[image Life Hacker]

How to Check Your iPhone Bootrom Version

Sébastien Page ∙ June 28, 2010

The latest version of PwnageTool to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS has a few requirements that depend on your bootrom version. Many people have been asking me how to know what's the bootROM of your iPhone so here are some simple instuctions for both Mac and Windows.

The old bootrom refers to those produced before September 2009, version number 359.3. The new bootrom is version 359.3.2 or later.

How to find your bootrom version on Windows

Step 1: Put your iPhone in DFU mode: Launch iTunes and plug your iPhone in. Press and hold the home and and sleep button together for 10 seconds. After exactly 10 seconds, release the sleep button while still holding the home button. Keep holding the home button until iTunes tells you it has found an iPhone in recovery mode.

Step 2: Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Device Manager.

Step 3: Double click Universal Serial Bus Controllers, then click the Apple Mobile Device USB Driver item and click the Properties button.

Step 4: Select the Details tab, then select Device Instance Path from the Property dropdown menu. Scroll all the way to the right to locate your bootrom version.

How to find your bootrom version on Mac

Step 2: In the Apple menu at the top left of your screen, select About This Mac, then click More Info on the window that appears.

Step 3: Select USB from the Hardware list on the left, then click to select Apple Mobile Device (DFU Mode) from the USB Device Tree on the main panel.

Step 4: In the detail panel right below the main panel, you should find the Serial Number. Your iBoot version is at the very end of it.

Infographics: History of the iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ June 28, 2010

This nice infographics was put up together by Mashable. It will give you a brief overview of the history of the iPhone, from its official launch in 2007 to today.

The iPhone 4 is Jailbroken

Sébastien Page ∙ June 27, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a jailbreak for iPhone 4. iPhone hackers PlanetBeing and Chpwn have managed to get root access (jailbreak) the iPhone 4, by using a variation of the Spirit jailbreak by Comex.

A few hours ago, PlanetBeing posted the following on Twitter:

Think I’m the first one I know about to get a root shell (and SSH) on iPhone 4, using poor @comex’s code (since he has no iPhone 4)

This was later confirmed by MuscleNerd who posted a tweet containing this retina display image of Cydia on an iPhone 4.

And now for the bad news... iPhone hacker p0sixninja confirmed on Twitter that this version of Spirit used to jailbreak the iPhone 4 cannot be released at the time being because it contains parts of Apple's proprietary code, which is obviously illegal.

This bad news was also confirmed by PlanetBeing which insisted on the fact that Spirit is nowhere ready for a release. What does that mean? Well, it means it might take a few more days, maybe weeks, until Spirit can officially be released to jailbreak the iPhone 4.

iPhone News You Missed This Week

Sébastien Page ∙ June 27, 2010

That was a busy week with the release of iOS 4 and the launch of the iPhone 4. In cased you missed any of the festivities, here is a quick recap of what happened this past week:

iOS 4 Confirmed to Be Unlockable Make sure your iPhone is ready for iOS 4 Jailbreakers should stay away from iOS 4 The pros and cons of iOS 4 The speaker quality of the iPhone 4 List of jailbreak apps compatible with iOS 4 iOS 4 now available for download iOS 4 unlock for all basebands available Geohot discovers exploit that will pwn them all Jailbreak iPhone 3G on iOS 4 with RedSn0w The ultimate guide to iOS 4 Poll: did you update to iOS 4? iOS 4 users report problems after updating PwnageTool jailbreak for iOS 4 now available Tutorial: how to jailbreak iPhone iOS 4 with PwnageTool PwnageTool 4.01 update How to make sure you are ready for the iPhone 4 iPhone 4 can be scratched Unboxing my iPhone 4 iPhone 4 reviews White iPhone won't be available until mid July Apple and AT&T may prevent future jailbreaks with OTA updates Three very annoying things on my iPhone 4 iMovie for iPhone 4 Proof the iPhone 4 is not unbreakable The iPhone 4 sucks The most original iPhone skin ever Infographics: the real cost of iPhone 4 ownership Try FaceTime with Apple reps App Store now features an iOS 4 category The iPhone 4: it blends iPhone 4 user guide How to opt out of Apple's targeted iAds Reasons to buy an iPhone 4 Is Apple full of sh*t about the iPhone 4 antenna issue? FaceTime for dummies

FaceTime for Dummies

Sébastien Page ∙ June 26, 2010

FaceTime is a new feature introduced by Apple on the iPhone 4 that allows video calls, face to face from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an active internet connection. While not a breakthrough technology by itself, I think FaceTime will bring video calls to the masses.

I've tested FaceTime several times and I am completely in love with this new iPhone feature. Yesterday I had a 30 minute FaceTime conversation with my cousin in France. The image and sound were crystal clear.

FaceTime is a very simple feature to use but it seems many people have questions about it so let me quickly walk you through it.

You have to activate FaceTime

To do so, go to Settings > FaceTime > On. Depending on your country, it might take a few minutes to actually activate the feature. I suggest you reboot your iPhone after turning FaceTime on.

iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 only

FaceTime is only iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 for the time being. That means that your FaceTime buddy must have an iPhone 4 with FaceTime activated. FaceTime is opened to developers so it is very likely that some applications like Skype will use FaceTime in their apps, thus allowing you to FaceTime from an iPhone 4 to a desktop computer.

Wifi only

While I can only imagine that the jailbreak community will allow FaceTime to work over 3G, FaceTime can only work on wifi for the time being.

FaceTime is free

Because it works on wifi only, there is no cost associated with using FaceTime. No matter what, when, how, and where you use FaceTime it is completely free.

Making a FaceTime call

There are 2 ways you can initiate a FaceTime call.

Call your friend like you normally do. When both of you are on the line, simply hit the FaceTime icon on your iPhone. Your friend will receive an invitation and if he accepts it, it will drop the call and start connecting you both on FaceTime. This is the best way to start a FaceTime conversation as it allows you to check that your buddy is on wifi, thus available for FaceTime. Note that although FaceTime is free, you will have to pay for the call time. Once you hit the FaceTime icon and the call ends, you will stop being charged. If you know for sure your friend is on wifi, go to your contacts, tap your friend's name and tap the FaceTime button. It will ring on the other end of the line and if your friend accepts the FaceTime invitation, it will start connecting you both.

Switch between the front and back camera

The front-facing camera is the one used by default when making a FaceTime call, but you can also use the back camera. Tap the camera icon at the lower right of the screen and you'll activate the camera on the back of your iPhone. You'll then be able to share what's around you. To switch back to the front-facing camera, tap the button at the lower right again.

Use another app without leaving FaceTime

While on a FaceTime call, you may have to go do something in your iPhone. For example, you may need to look up a contact, or check emails, etc... Simply hit the home button during your FaceTime call and you will be taken to your home screen. From there, you can do whatever you want. The FaceTime image will be frozen on the other end of the line but the sound will still works. That means your friend won't see you but you'll still be able to talk to him. When you're done and you want to go back to your FaceTime video chat, simply hit the green bar at the top of your screen.

Mute FaceTime

You can mute yourself during a FaceTime call. Simply tap the "mute" button and your friend won't be able to hear what you're saying although he'll still be able to see you. You will still be able to see and hear what he says. Tap the button again to unmute yourself.

FaceTime in landscape mode

FaceTime doesn't only work in portrait mode. You can turn your iPhone to a 90 degree angle and have your conversation in landscape mode.

Move yourself around

When on a FaceTime call, there is a little window on your screen showing you what your friend sees (usually it's your face!). You can move this little window around by tapping it and moving it to another corner.

Try FaceTime

If you haven't had the occasion to try FaceTime on, you can chat with an Apple rep who will go over the features of FaceTime. Click here for more info about that.

Any other tip you have about FaceTime? If so, please take the time to share it with us.

Is Apple Full of Sh*t About the iPhone 4 Antenna Issue?

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Are you familiar with the iPhone 4 antenna death grip? Basically, when held with the left hand, connecting the two antennas, the signal drops significantly, often cutting off cell signal. It's a big deal as many people reported experiencing this issue, me included.

Someone has been emailing Steve Jobs about this issue, who sent the most moronic email reply of all times:

If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

Ok, so you're telling me to hold my iPhone a different way, or, to buy one of your cases? Seriously, is that your official statement? Anyways.

Now there are rumors that Apple might come up with a software upgrade to fix this issue. So why did Steve Jobs sent this moronic reply if it can be fixed with a software update?

As Mongstradamus pointed out to me, someone needs to call out Apple on this. Steve's email clearly makes it seem like it's a hardware issue and a software update wouldn't change a thing.

Is it just me being too skeptical? What do you think?