Gadget blogs on New Year's Day were aflutter with word that an application called Yellowsn0w was available for those who want to unlock the iPhone 3G.
The iPhone - who wants in?
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)CrunchGear, for one, posted a graphically enhanced, QuickPwn-focused spin on jailbreaking the iPhone and making use of the Yellowsn0w instructions from the Dev-Team Blog. Way at the bottom, though, it points out that "this is all in beta and there is no guarantee of success." It follows with this note:
UPDATE - I haven't been able to get it to work on two iPhone 3Gs, both with fresh 2.2 firmware and baseband. I've heard plenty of people HAVE had luck, however, so it seems to be an either/or thing. I suspect some cells aren't accepting the iPhones as valid equipment.
Gizmodo, meanwhile, reports that while Yellowsn0w is "very easy to install," alas "it doesn't work right," and takes the Dev-Team folks to task:
Even while this is labeled as a beta, it saddens me that the iPhone Dev Team has embraced the damn beta culture just to make the release on a cute date. It looks like the old days of solid versions are long gone by.
The Gizmodo account also cites a poll of 67 people who'd tried out Yellowsn0w, with "it doesn't work" outdoing "it worked" by a ratio of about 2 to 1.
Over at The Boy Genius Report, things seem to have worked out more favorably. Says Boy Genius, "It's not without a few hiccups but it definitely works and it works well."
The iPhone unlockers appear to have won another round, promising a simple iPhone 3G unlock in weeks.
(Credit: CNET)The iPhone Dev Team is promising a software unlock for the iPhone 3G by the end of 2008.
Back in October the iPhone Dev Team signaled they were getting close to their goal, and Tuesday they announced that a software download would be available on New Year's Eve. The iPhone 3G has presented problems for those looking for a simple way to use their phone on the mobile network of their choice after Apple fixed a loophole that left the original iPhone wide open to unlockers.
There are ways to manipulate the SIM card that comes with the iPhone 3G to use it on the network of your choice, but that's not something the average person should try at home. If you want to unlock your iPhone, you'll need to have jailbroken it first, and you'll have to have heeded the iPhone Dev Team's advice to avoid the iPhone 2.2 software update without applying a special patch first.
That's because Apple might be fighting back against the unlockers using the other platform it controls: the Mac. Several reports indicate that Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.6 update prevents popular jailbreaking tools like PwnageTool and QuickPwn from recognizing iPhones connected to Macs running the latest software.
The iPhone Dev Team thinks it's just a bug, but Ars Technica seems to think Apple knew exactly what it was doing. Unlocking and jailbreaking have lost a bit of their luster with the release of the iPhone around the world and the huge response to the App Store, but there will always be some group of users who doesn't want Apple or their local carrier to dictate how they use their phones.
An unlocked iPhone 3G appears to be closer to reality.
Just two days after Apple released its iPhone 2.2 update, the iPhone Dev Team has released a so-called jailbreak of the firmware.
An easy way of unlocking your iPhone 3G could hit the Internet relatively soon.
(Credit: CNET)The team of hackers on Saturday posted to its blog QuickPwn for 2.2 and PwnageTool for 2.2 for Windows and Macintosh machines, along with instructions on how enable iPhone 3Gs with the 2.2 firmware to accept third-party applications.
The blog also includes a word of caution about baseband, the chip that controls the connection between the phone and the mobile-phone network:
Think of it like a cable modem or other peripheral that is attached to your home PC that needs occasional updates. When a software update is released and presented to you within iTunes, the baseband is sometimes updated (to fix bugs or add new features). The 2.2 update for the iPhone 3G contains such an update, so running the vanilla updater straight away with iTunes will reprogram and update the baseband. This could be bad for certain people, depending on your ultimate aim.
The iPhone Dev Team is still working to unlock the iPhone 3G, but it has proven a tough nut to crack, mostly because of the baseband technology. You can unlock your iPhone 3G to use it on another carrier by modifying the SIM card, but what the iPhone Dev Team is trying to accomplish is a software-based unlock that you would just download and install.
An unlocked iPhone 3G is a little closer to becoming reality, according to the iPhone Dev Team.
An easy way of unlocking your iPhone 3G could hit the Internet relatively soon.
(Credit: CNET)Gizmodo picked up on a video produced by the iPhone Dev Team demonstrating that it has gained access to the baseband processor used by Apple in the iPhone 3G. The baseband chip is what controls the connection between the phone and the mobile phone network, meaning that a software download that could let you use your iPhone 3G on a carrier network other than the ones officially designated by Apple could be released soon.
I'm sure you remember the fuss about the original iPhone and those who sought to unlock it from the four carriers that were Apple's launch partners for the first iPhone. The iPhone 3G has proven a tougher nut to crack, because Apple apparently changed the baseband to make it more difficult to exploit than the baseband used on the original iPhone. You can unlock your iPhone 3G to use it on another carrier by modifying the SIM card, but what the iPhone Dev Team is trying to accomplish is a software-based unlock that you would just download and install.
There hasn't been as much demand for unlocked iPhone 3Gs, given the much greater distribution of that phone around the world. However, there are still some countries, like China, that don't carry the iPhone, and there are still some users who want to use their iPhones on a different carrier than the one designated for the iPhone in their country.
It hasn't even been released yet, but iPhone hackers claim to have already figured out a way to jailbreak Apple's iPhone 2.0 software.
The iPhone Dev Team said yesterday (thanks, Gizmodo) it has figured out a way to hack into the iPhone's bootloader by taking advantage of the way the iPhone authorizes code that can be written to memory. After some modifications, this apparently allows any code to be written to the iPhone, such as applications that haven't been authorized by Apple, and it should work with any new software version Apple releases, according to the team.
It seems the iPhone hacking community has already found a way to get unofficial applications on the iPhone 2.0 software.
(Credit: iPhone Dev Team)The team released a screenshot of what is supposedly an iPhone running external applications on the beta 2.0 software, which can be obtained by downloading the iPhone SDK. It's hard to tell exactly which version is shown in the screenshot, although the inclusion of the App Store is a pretty big hint. Still, Adobe sells a lot of copies of Photoshop for a reason.
Unlike previous hacks, this one isn't specific to the latest firmware version, it exploits the way that Apple designed the iPhone's main bootloader. According to the iPhone Dev Team, the iPhone verifies whether or not firmware code has been signed with an RSA certificate before allowing it to be written to memory. The team has apparently figured out a way to disable that check and allow unsigned code to be written to memory. A detailed explanation of the exploit can be found here.
The hacking community believes this jailbreaking method (which will also let you unlock your iPhone) can't be fixed by Apple in a production version of the 2.0 software. Even though Apple has released the SDK, it seems pretty likely that hacking will continue as long as the company maintains its one-carrier, one-country policy and if Apple chooses to exclude lots of third-party applications that conflict with its goals.
Two weeks to the day after Apple's iPhone software update wiped third-party applications from the device and disabled unlocked phones, the hackers have struck back.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog posted details of the iPhone Dev Team's latest effort, which once again opens the iPhone up to third-party applications and the ability to use it on any other GSM network than AT&T's. This appears to be a more substantial effort than the one posted earlier in the evening that exploits a vulnerability in a TIFF image file; you can bet that one will be patched fairly quickly.
The latest hack allows iPhone users who have already installed the OS X 1.1.1 update to revert their iPhones to the previous 1.0.2 update, "jailbreak" it for third-party applications, and then somehow update back to the 1.1.1 version without the cell door slamming shut. TUAW and iPhone Atlas have tested the latest hack and have declared that it works, assuming you have a certain amount of knowledge of the iPhone's command line interface.
We're not posting links to the actual files you'll need to make this happen, but if you're an enterprising fellow with access to the Internet, I doubt you'll have too much trouble. I downloaded the files, and in a readme file accompanying the patches and guide you'd need to jailbreak your iPhone, the iPhone Dev Team (or NerveGas, Pumpkin, Edgan, drudge, dinopio and asap18) actually posted a disclaimer: "The iPhone Dev Team disclaims any liability of damage to your iPhone as a result of following these instructions. While the instructions listed here are believed to be safe and accurate, there is always a possibility that your iPhone could be permanently damaged." Can you really sue somebody for providing you with a hack that damages your iPhone, even though you're violating your service agreement to install that hack?
Anyway, if you unlocked your iPhone and then installed the 1.1.1 update only to be left with a pretty paperweight, the iPhone Dev Team says their update won't fix your problem. However, the iPhoneSIMFree folks announced Thursday morning that as a result of the iPhone Dev Team's work, they're now able to not only unlock 1.1.1 iPhones but they are also able to unbrick those unlocked iPhones that fell silent after installing the update.
Where's Harold Lederman when you need him? Now that the iPhone hackers have figured out how to get past the latest update, which many thought was much more difficult to crack than the original software, the third round goes to them. I'll score it 10-9, but Apple's still in the lead going into the fourth round, by virtue of the 10-8 second round in which they knocked iPhone hackers to the canvas by disabling the unlocked iPhones. The first round, of course, went to the hackers.
So what has Apple got up its sleeve? With Leopard's release around the corner, many are starting to wonder if Apple might start to tire of this fight and figure out a way to let third-party application development onto the iPhone. It's pretty clear that Apple will be unable to completely fend off an army of determined hackers forever, but I think it is trying to find a way to allow third-party application development without letting people unlock their iPhones just yet.
In the meantime, if you really, really want third-party applications on your iPhone, understand that you might be forfeiting your right to future technical support. Those who previously hacked the iPhone were able to restore the factory settings before bringing it in for service, but it's not clear whether that's still an option with this latest update.
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