Sn0w storm comming, Frosty reception for Sn0wbreeze 2.02

Well last Wednesday night I must have been one of the first to download the brand new Sn0wbreeze jailbreak. It was due for 2am but I had it on my PC the moment it came out about 1.10

But I didn't have it on my phone. My phone has worked very well since my screw up last week and as a result I've not been quite so desperate to screw it up again. Also I was away for the weekend so I didn't want to risk my phone not working. As a result I did not install the new jailbreak.

By the time I got home today the jailbreak has gone through another two incarnations. That means it wasn't right at the start. I've now downloaded the latest and am just trying it. I have my doubts but, I'm off tomorrow so if the worst happens I have a day to fix it.

I have an iPhone 3g. I'm attempting to break it with sn0wbreeze version 2.02. I've 'cooked' the ipsw and am now running a restore. I've already had one error and am now getting that sinking feeling again. This doesn't look hopeful. I followed the instructions at Redmond pie but I'm getting a 1604 error. I'm using Tiny umbrella to kick my device out of recovery as it seems to be locked at the moment.

Fortunately I don't appear to have done any damage but I've not upgraded either. I'm a bit surprised. I genuinely thought this would work. I'll try again but it looks like we may have to wait for greenpois0n after all.

Try 2. This time I made sure the phone was in recovery mode before selecting restore. This is achieved by holding the home and on/off buttons simultaneously till the screen goes blank (ignore the 'switch off message) then letting go of the on/off whilst continuing to hold the home button until iTunes says that it recognises a phone i recovery mode. I then held down shift and clicked the 'restore' button in itunes and browsed to desktop and the new ipsw. I'm watching itunes just now but it ain't doing much.

Oops. This time it really doesn't look good. iTunes has just kicked the phone out and it wont switch on or anything. I unplugged then plugged back in and it said it recognised a phone in recovery mode so I browsed to the ipsw again. Fingers crossed... Nope. I've had error 1601 and now error 21 after running something called iReb. The good news is that when I come out of recovery mode using Tiny Umbrella my phone is undamaged. Just not upgraded. This is not the end of the world. To date: I can't use PWNAGE because I don't have a mac. The old version of Redsn0w (my preferred option) doesn't work and the new version is Mac only at the moment. Sn0wbreeze looks like working (it creates a new ipsw file) but wont restore to 4.1 so I'm still jailbroken on 4.02 with the 4.1 bootrom. The phone works better than ever but doesn't seem keen to upgrade to 4.1. Looks like I'm still waiting for greenpois0n.

Watch this space...
T

That Syncing feeling. Downgrade from 4.1 iPhone 3G

If you read the previous post you'll realise that I have had a disastrous bash at jailbreaking iOS4.1 for my 3G using Redsn0w. What follows are my attempts to recover.

Plan C (put the sim into my HTC) might be my best option but I want to try something first. Plan D was to downgrade to 3.2 but I don't know how to do that so here's plan E

Plan E I should be able to restore my phone to iOS 4.02 which is where I was before I started this. Read all of this before you start. Follow the instructions here Downgrade from4.1. To confirm, to go into DFU mode hold the power and home buttons for ten seconds, ignore the 'slide to power off prompt' then let go of the power button whilst continuing to hold the home button till iTunes alerts you that it has detected a phone in recovery mode. Say 'OK' to that prompt and then follow the instructions from the link. If like me you have a 3g then you should be able to skip steps 3 and 7.

The step by step doesn't really prepare you for what happens when running tiny umbrella. Ignore a couple of false starts where your phone tells you to slide to use emergency only. TOUCH NOTHING. It will eventually say 'iPhone is activated'. iTunes will prompt you to run your last restore. Do this. It's the longest sync in history but I'm hoping it works. It does after all have around 50 apps, 500 songs and 70 pics to recover plus all contacts emails etc so be patient.

You now have an iPhone on iOS 4.02. You are going to need to run Redsn0w like in step five of the previous post. Hope it works better this time. Again browse to iOS4 final version even though you're restored to 4.02 and follow the instructions to let it do its thing.

I now need to add installous via cydia to restore my jailbroken apps (like tomtom). OH OH!!!! Clicked on Cydia. It said it was reorganizing and would shut down when finished. It did this but then , when the phone started up cydia was gone and my phone, notes and SMS icons were blank.

Running redsn0w again. Holy shit it looks even worse now. Loads of white icons. Cydia is there but it is also white. I'm going to try running it. Wish me luck.


Now we're getting somewhere. Cydia asked me to upgrade. I chose update all. It restarted and I now have icons.

I'm adding cydia.hackulo.us and apt.macosmovil.com repos via cydia. (Manage Sources)

I'm adding openSSH to packages (manage packages).This allows you to add things directly to your phone. I've saved my theme from before so adding it directly to the folder structure will save me hours once I have added winterboard from Cydia.

I'm adding SBSettings, SBSettings Toggle, My3G, Navigate from maps, Remove background, iblank and auto3g. There are others but remember that we do expect a 4.1 jailbreak soon so there's no point going nuts.

Then I had to go into the phone settings to change my folder icons and to remove the background shadow from the buttons.


OK so it has taken all day to go from start to finish and, thing is, the finish looks exactly like the start. You may think it was a complete waste of time. My wife does. I don't. I wouldn't recommend it though.

It's very early to tell but I think the phone may be a bit more responsive. It is possible that I've updated the phones base band and that that has made some sort of difference.

For the moment, I am now on base band 05.14.02. That's the base band for 4.1. What that means is that I can't presently unlock the phone but for me that's not an issue.

iTunes 10 freezes for about 30 seconds every time I go to sync. This may be some sort of conflict with having the 4.1 base band and the 4.02 operating system but it gets past it if you wait it out so no issue there. Syncing my phone now shows six steps rather than five as previous and I still sometimes get told that sync can't load provider data.

Guess I'll just wait for the official jailbreak now.

Update
Wouldn't you know it. Within 24 hours of my debacle someone finds a jailbreak solution although not the official one. Go to SpiritJB.ORG where you'll find that someone has made a jailbroken ipsw file for 4.1 for the 3g. So does that mean I'm now jailbroken on 4.1? No. Couldn't face the hassle so soon after Saturday plus, my phone is working really well at the moment. I can only assume it's got something to do with having the new baseband from 4.1 with the functionality of 4.02 and the redsnow jailbreak but the phone is working better than it ever has.

I'll wait a while and see what the official jailbreaks bring. Sn0wbreeze 2.0 from ih8sn0w is rumoured to come out this Wednesday and will break everything except the iphone 4. Greenpois0n is still the most talked about yet illusive of all the jailbreaks using pod2g's SHAtter exploit. Pod2g has left the chronic dev-team today but says the jailbreak will go ahead. Interestingly it was pod2g that I quoted last week as saying the jailbreak would come out on Saturday. It was also pod2g that found the jailbreak prior to the release of iOS4.1. I suspect he or she may have left after getting impatient with the delays of their colleagues who are testing the break and creating the software. To be fair though I wouldn't launch something half arsed. For all people are impatient that's nothing compared to how they'd be if a jailbreak broke their phones. That would play directly in to apples hands.

So that's you up to date.

Update 2

21/09/2010 Looks like a new version of Redsn0w has been released. Not only can it break 4.1 for the iphone 3g and ipod touch 2g but it's rumoured that it can do the beta version of 4.2. If you read my previous post you'll get decent instructions on using it though I'd check at Redmond Pie just to make sure because you now have to pint it at iOS4.1 instead of 4. The new Redsn0w is only available for Mac at the moment but I'd imagine it will be avilable for windows within the week. Sn0wbreeze is rumoured to hit tomorrow and I suspect greenpois0n will pull out all the stops to do the same before it becomes pointless. It's like a soap opera this. You could get hooked. My wee 3g is still going like lightening since Saturdays debacle. I'd almost (but not quite) recomend the pain I went through for the performance improvement.

Just incase any gurus on the iPhone ever see this page. Quick question. If I updated, jailbroke and then added all my custom apps and winterboard theme, could I then somehow save that as an ispw file? It's just that with my 3G working well right now I'm a bit shy of jailbreaking however, I know that each new release also brings new features. If I could create a custom ispw file unique to my phone then I could jailbreak with confidence knowing that I could always restore if things went wrong. Hmmmmm

More news as it comes.

T

Jailbroken 3g on IOS 4.1? To break or not to break?

What follows details exactly how I tried and failed to jailbreak and upgrade to iOS 4.1 on my 3g using Redsn0w. As you will see I had half an idea that it wouldn't work but felt that I had to try. Unlike other sites I also detail exactly how to undo everything and get back to where you started. Why didn't I just say 'Don't do it?'. I didn't listen when others said this to me so why should I expect you to?

Read everything BEFORE doing anything. Don't blame me if this doesn't work for you. I'm desperate so I'm having a go. If any of the stuff below means nothing to you or if your iPhone means everything to you stop reading now.

Ok here goes. Let's break my phone.....

You might say 'Why break a perfectly good phone?'. I would then say 'it's not a perfectly good phone'. The marraige of iPhone 3g and jailbreaking has been legendary and allowed this aging piece of kit to almost rival it's big brothers the 3GS and 4. When iOS4 came out though small cracks began to appear. A jailbroken 3g got all the bows and bells of iOS4 (Multitasking etc) but, jailbroken or not, started to have massive performance issues. If a phone call came through whilst safari was open the whole thing crashed and needed re-booted. Face Book only managed to open about 1/3 of the time and even SMS wasn't exactly solid. Location services could freeze everything up. It seems to me that the phone just didn't manage it's memory well enough. It would sacrifice everything into one task and then just close down.

These problems came to a head on a journey down south and I found myself in the position of depending on the phone and knowing that it was going to let me down. My old HTC wasn't as fancy as the iphone but it was 100% reliable. I love gadgets but, unlike a lot of geeks, I like my gadgets to solve a problem. If they don't do that then they are useless.

Apple became aware of the issue with reliability on the iPhone 3g. Had it just been jailbreakers they would have ignored it but the fact was that ordinary users were complaining that their phones were completely useless. As a result iOS 4.1 was introduced. There were a couple of new things with 4.1 (see previous posts) but the biggy for me was that it would resolve performance issues for the 3G. My only issue was that my phone is heavily customised and uses many jailbroken apps. I guess I want it all. A jailbroken iPhone that works my way as well as the performance that Apple designed it to produce. So I want to update to 4.1 and jailbreak it. 4.1 has been out for over a week now and, despite claiming to have jailbroken it prior to release, no official working jailbreak has been forthcoming.

Since the current version of Redsn0w reportedly has issues (breaks phone app, Cydia doesn’t work) jailbreaking iPhone 3G on iOS 4.1 (final version) I am going to first try something call the Pwnage tool. This will be plan A. My only issues with trying to break the phone this way are, I've never tried it before and I think it maybe only works for Mac. Whatever, I'll give it a try and then, if it doesn't work, I'll try Redsn0w (Plan B) as I felt that the instructions for installing were wrong on some of the other sites that I read and that may be why they've had issues. Finally plan C involves putting the sim in my HTC and waiting for the SHAtter exploit to come out on greenpois0n. I have to do something. If iOS 4.1 doesn't deliver the performance improvement required then I give up on the iPhone. If it does deliver the improvement then I may not upgrade to 4.2 in November or beyond as I would be quite happy with what I presently have provided it works properly. I have even considered reverting to 3.2 as it seemed to be optomised for the 3g. Maybe that's plan D. The instructions for upgrading using Pwnage were found here: jailbreak-iphone-3g-ios-4.1-pwnagetool-guide. I have used Redmond Pie several times in the past and they have proved very reliable.

Plan A Download iOS 4.1 PwnageTool Bundle for iPhone 3G
Ok so plan A is a complete non starter for those of us working on windows. There is a way to emulate a mac on windows but life is too short.

Plan B This is the plan that I thought might work from the start but I put off trying till I waited for confirmation. When the confirmation came it came with all sorts of user issues related to the the phone app not working, the wifi not working and Cydia not working. So you could end up with an iPhone that basically doesn't work at any level. I'm hoping that if the worst happens then at least the phone can just be restored to iOS 4.1 with no jailbreak but I can't swear to this being possible. Now I've already mentioned on here that I've seen instructions on doing this that I don't like. I've wondered if this may be why people have had problems.

First: I'm downloading something called Tinyumbrella. Tiny Umbrella. This saves something called shsh blobs. I'm sure you could google this and get an explanation of what they are. I however have no idea. What I do know is that if you completely screw up then, provided you have run this software and allowed it to save some files, you can downgrade back to an older working version of iOS. Trust me. Do this.

Second: Here in the UK several mobile phone providers supply iPhones so we're not as hung up on unlocking (changing carrier). This is not the story in most countries however. If you want to jailbreak 4.1 and unlock the phone once it's done then follow these instructions BEFORE you do anything: Upgrade to iOS4.1 without upgrading baseband


Third: I'm opening Cydia on my phone, checking that it has updated and shows the stored shsh blobs on there as well. You also need to have a final version of iOS 4 saved on your PC(THIS IS NOT A TYPO. I DID SAY iOS4 and not 4.1 which is probably what you expected). You can get a copy here:iOS 4 Download

Forth: Take a deep breath and be brave....Connect your phone and allow it to sync (I'm a bit worried about this because I've been getting the following error since I upgraded to iTunes 10). Stay connected to iTunes and upgrade to iOS4.1. I'm just checking one last time that greenpois0n hasn't suddenly become available.

Cross everything that this works because this is a sort of point of no return. At least my 3G should respond better but it could be the end of my jailbreak days. Keep reading....Fifth: The instructions that I am going to follow are the ones published here:jailbreak-iphone-4.1-ios-iphone-3g-ipod-touch-guide.
I am going to follow this guide from STEP 3 as it was written before iOS4.1 was officially released. Keep everything crossed still. When this is over you'll know for certain wheteher it worked or whether I just made my phone useless.

Exciting......

If you screw up the bit about holding the power button for three seconds, then the power and home for about twenty and then the home button for about thirty don't panic just start again. You haven't done any harm. (At least not yet)

DO NOT TOUCH YOU'R PHONE WHILE IT'S DOING ITS THING. You'll know when it's ready. It will reboot to the apple logo. The boot time will be longer than usual. DO NOT TOUCH.

Might as well set your expectations at this point. When you'r phone restarts it may: lack a phone icon, fail to get wifi (make sure that you don't just need to pair with your modem again)and cydia may be a blank icon.

Here goes. Switching on.

The worst appears to have happened. No phone icon. No wifi and cydia is blanK. I do seem to have SMS although I haven't tried sending anything and I have 3g. I'm not panicing yet (well ok I am a bit but trying to remain level headed).

I have icons. Even for the jaibroken apps although, at the moment they don't work. I clicked the cydia blank icon and it told me that I needed to join a wifi network. I entered my wifi code and put my router into pairing mode. The wifi icon appeared but cydia just closed. I tried to open it again. It closed. I tried again and it opened but with a new apple logo. It told me that I had essential upgrades which I accepted. Seemed to freeze but I'm not going to touch it till I'm sure. I can't screenprint what's happening as I need a jailbreak app to do that I'm afraid. It's taken ages so I'm re-booting the phone. I'm clicking on 'Complete Upgrade' again. Again I'm having to crash it out.

I'm going to try syncing with iTunes to see if that makes a blind bit of difference. I notice that whilst iTunes is syncing my phone screen is blank. This is unusual you would normally have a screen to say it was syncing. This does not seem good. It's taking an abnormally long time although it does seem to be trying to install some jailbreak apps (tomtom etc). At the end of the sync I got all sorts of errors but my jailbroken apps now seem to work.

Although I'm showing a wifi connection I just tried safari and it aint opening any web pages. Looks like this seriously doesn't work. I did dial my phone and it did recognise an incoming call. Call me old fashioned but I'd also like to make calls. Sorry folks but at least I tried.


Looks like I'm going to have to find a way to restore. Look at my next post to see what happens....

Don't try this at home....

T

In 200 yards make a decision. Now turn around when possible

The last time I was here was February and I still smoked (see days 4-6). Thank god I quit when I did because after the journey I had yesterday nobody would blame me if I had smoked one hundred cigs back to back. The comedy of errors that occurred within a simple journey from Glasgow to a place just outside Liverpool was quite simply unbelievable.

The task was straight forward. Pick up a hire car at my work in Glasgow and travel 200 or so miles to an office in a place called the Wirral near Liverpool and work from there in the afternoon. Driven legally the journey should take around 4 hours and I planned it to take a wee bit less but not much as I was travelling in work time. 80% of the journey involved pretty much one motorway (freeway to our US and Canadian readers)then, as the destination approached there were two changes of junction before finally a wee bit of town driving. This is not one of life's more difficult journeys and is one that I've done before although only once.

My exact instructions for the return journey are: take the third exit at the first two roundabouts, go straight following signs for m53, take the m53 south (that's the only confusing bit because you would think you want north), go to junction 11 and take the junction to the m56 go to junction 9 and take the m6. that is the whole journey including town driving. So how did things go so wrong on the way down? Let me describe my day....

Arrived at work in Glasgow at 7.55. Car was not booked till 9 and hadn't been delivered so went to the office. When the car still wasn't there at 9 I called the rental company who had delivered it to the wrong location. Eventually got the car around 10am and it was about 10.30 by the time it was checked over and good to go.

First mistake.
I haven't even looked at a map nor do I intend to. If you showed me a picture of the UK I genuinely couldn't put a circle anywhere near my destination because I haven't even bothered to think about where it is. I have a post code (zip code) and my wonderful iPhone has, not only satnav software, but a jailbreak app that allows you to find a point on google maps and navigate to it. Thing is I have no cradle to mount the phone to.

Because I train people for a living I do have blutack (sticky gum like stuff). The dashboard however is made of the only shiny plastic known to man that blutack wont bond to. There is just no way to balance the phone in the car. I stopped at a supermarket and got some double sided tape but still it did not stick. Eventually I managed to make a sort of blutack plinth in front of the gearstick using the phone case as a prop and got a sort of workable solution. If your thinking that you would have taken more time and found a better solution, I respect your caution but remember that this is a simple journey with only four or five instructions. The blutak solution should be fine...although the GPS reception is ropey even at the start.

Motoring
There are high winds and driving rain as I leave Glasgow and it looks set to be a wild journey. Within about 50 miles however we've gone from full beam headlights and fast wipers to no lights or wipers. It's a fine start.

There's a football game between a Glasgow team and an English team from Manchester which means a lot of people are travelling the same route as me. I'm expecting a lot of police on the road but, for the moment at least it seams clear and I'm cruising just below 90mph. Everything is good. I'm thinking how good it is now that I don't smoke. Unless I need the toilet I wont even need to stop. Now that the phone has locked the satnav signal it seems good. All is good.

So we've started late. We started at roughly 11am instead of 9 as intended. We should still be at our destination between 2.30 and 3 depending on road conditions and police. This is OK.

Less than 10% charge, Switch Off/Ignore?

What!!!!!!!!! We're 1.5 hours in to the journey and the phone says it's going to kick it. The phone is attached to the cigarette lighter so this should NOT be an issue. I'm assuming that between blutak and using the case to prop the phone up I've somehow bumped the lighter connection out. Messing with this stuff whilst driving is dangerous and it's about break time so I start watching for signs for a service station.

Soon enough I pull off. I confidently tighten all connections only to discover that there's nothing wrong with the setup. The cigarette lighter in the hire car doesn't work. Now that is an issue. My phone has been sitting running down to critical on a part of the journey that I know like the back of my hand. The only part that I really need instruction for is still to come. This should be the end of the world but it's not. why?

Regular followers of this site will have realised that I am a geek. I'm a resourceful geek that loves technology. I'm a resourceful geek that loves tech and that has a phone that can be charged via a PCs USB port. How is that useful? Well in my car I actually have two PCs. I have my netbook with about an hour to an hour and a half of charge and I also had a company laptop with two to three hours worth. Having no cigarette lighter may be an emergency to you amateurs but a pro geek like me? ... get over it, problem solved.

Before you even ask, yes I have a USB connector in my pocket (and you thought I was just pleased to see you...). Connected up, running, back on the road, problem solved. For precisely five minutes until... the net book went to hibernate mode and the iPhone was back to critical. Doh!!!! Idiot! I stop again five miles or so further on and disable the hibernate mode. Drive on, screen saver turns out to disable charging. Stop again. Disable every power saving attribute and start again. Now the iPhone is at 2% battery. This is where that clever little phone becomes a liability.

For about 10-15 miles it struggled along trying to charge itself and find a GPS signal. Then my wife sent a text to see if I was there yet. Well I wasn't there yet because the car was late and I had stopped three times for the satnav plus once at the supermarket. What's more text was the final straw for the phone which simply switched off and refused to switch on again. Charging, finding a GPS location and trying to handle a text was obviously just too much for a phone that only had 2% charge. i later discovered that it had also downloaded email and face book messages. It should be possible when the phone is already low to stop all this but it isn't. Even if it was would you know you had to? The journey now starts to become a farce.

So the satnav is dead. What's more, even though the netbook isn't doing anything I've disabled the power saving options so it's beginning to get a low battery. Panic sets in. I'm stopping yet again and this time it's to buy a map. Holy shit. I'm going to have to work out where I am and then write out instructions step-by-step to where I'm going. I haven't done this in years. I'm a geek and had satnav on my phone way before such things were common. In all honesty it's years since I used a map. I buy some huge special offer price map of the entire country and retreat to the car to study it. It doesn't help that my two thirty deadline wont be happening now. Three doesn't seem all that certain. If I can make 3.30 then there is still some point but it's not what I set out to do.

I sit and look at the map. In a stress free environment it was actually not too difficult to I identfy what needed to be done. This was not a stress free environment. After 5 minutes or so however I did figure out the basics. I worked out that I had three main pieces of info. Junction 20A on the M6 was key. Can't remember what the next junction was but I wrote it down and then junction 2 I think on the M53. If I dd that I would be awfully close (within ten miles) and I'd give my contact a call for local directions.

Completely Rational
It's worth saying that at this point I'm angry, I'm late but I'm behaving like a reasonable adult. Remember this because I'm about to lose it. I could murder a cigarette despite the fact that I haven't smoked in over six months. That said even a cigarette wouldn't help at this stage because the cigarette lighter is broke. I have directions. This is like a plan B and I'm capable of making them work. They are not difficult. So what goes wrong next is the result of a rational adult behaving like a complete imbecile. I'm not looking for forgiveness or understanding for the upcoming stupidity.

As I get perilously close to junction 20A the iPhone comes back to life. Attached to the netbook it has managed to increase charge from 2% to 6%. Hallelujah. This is how I had intended to navigate and now it is possible. At least it will be if I can log into the phone with my pass code. Reason has now left me. A reasonable person would got to junction 20A then take the first service station and stop and reprogramme the phone. No sir not me. Do not ever do what I'm about to describe please. The netbook is on the passenger seat. The phone is attached by an irritatingly short USB cable. I'm stressed and doing 90mph. What you don't want to hear is that I'm now using my left hand to try and punch a pin code into a phone. Then I'm selecting satnav, recent destination, address, navigate. As I risk life and limb (and other road users) the phone proceeds to carry out the required tasks. As I watch this process I completely fail to notice the car pass junction 20A. SHIT. I have no choice now but to go to junction 19 (some way on).

Turn around when possible
I come off at 19. Thank Christ the satnav works because now I have no clue where I am or where I'm going. A stern English woman's voice keeps telling me to 'turn around when possible'. Well it's not fucking possible'. This is a busy 60mph road and it may not be possible to turn for some time. At last a roundabout and an opportunity to turn which I take. 'Low battery iPhone switching off'. We're not even back on track and we've lost the Satnav again. In a moment of clarity I get back to the motorway, don't ask me how but I get on the M56 and even recognise a familiar stretch of road. The phone is off and I'm looking for junction whatever from my Bit of paper. I'm frazzled but I'm going the right way. 3pm and even 3.30 are now out of the question but, at a stretch I could maybe make 4. I'm at my wits end but I'm on route so I will get there.

If you always do what you always did, You'll always get what you always got. We're approaching junction 9 (or whatever I had written down). The iPhone wakes up. I once again try to log in whilst driving too fast. It logs in. I connect. It tells me that the junction I'm looking for is not the best. I pass the junction I have written down. The satnav switches itself off for low battery. Once again I'm on my own.

I simply cannot describe how this feels at this point. Even a 4pm arrival is beginning to look unlikely. I know I'm not far but I'm struggling to identify where I am. The iPhone is dead so its not just no satnav I also have no phone. The twentieth century was not designed to cope with this scenario. You couldn't make it up. The netbook has also now died as has my brain.

Necessity is the mother of invention
I find a pub car park. Out comes the company laptop. After 15 mins connected to the laptop the iPhone has sufficient charge to switch on. I try to phone my contact on site for help. My wife tries to call me. The iPhone dies. 15 minutes I have to wait again till sufficient charge returns to make the call. I could have went to the bar to make a public call but I've no idea how that works in this day and age.

With friends like this who needs enemies?
I'm at my wits end. I'm actually beginning to believe that the iPhone and the roads are out to get me. What I need now is a calming influence that will: Direct me back to the motorway and give me the simplest possible directions to where I'm going. What I need now isn't necessarily the quickest route but the easiest. What I don't need is directions that include 'at the third roundabout where you're at the side of the motorway take a right at the lights where the ford garage used to be and follow that to the next roundabout. If you see a hospital on your right you've gone too far in which case.....'.

With less than 20 miles to go I seriously was considering turning around and going Back to Scotland. There comes a point where it is actually nobler to concede than to continue. Unfortunately, or in this case fortunately, I've never found that point. As I followed the instructions over the many roundabouts the satnav kicked in with its last gasp of life. Between what was written and what the satnav gave me before it again died I finally reached the hotel at about 4.55.

My colleague had come over to meet me so I didn't even get checked in to my room but it's amazing the effect that stopping driving and getting a pint of Guinness had.

I actually feel slightly stressed just describing that journey. The thing is that I made the journey because, the following day, I had to pilot a training course that we hadn't finished designing for the first time. Believe it or not inventing a course in front of a slightly hostile audience was less stressful than the journey to get there. I'm pleased to say all went well.

Non Smoking Rooms
Last time I stayed at this hotel smoking was a problem. I either had to walk a fair distance to find a door to stand outside or risk hanging out my window over the car park to smoke. The window also carried the additional risk of a £75 charge if caught. Ironic then that the room I have now as a non smoker has french doors on to a private patio....

Go figure.

More to follow

TQ

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

OK so it doesn't look like the iPhone blogs going to get the update I'm waiting for any time soon. For some reason I thought it would be Saturday but, no such luck.

Back in the real world however life goes on.

Since moving out a year ago our neighbour has resolutely failed to sell their half of the house. This has been absolutely lovely for us because it's left us feeling like we owned the whole house and all the land which of course we don't. In our defence it's also left us with all the maintenance of the garden as well which is not insubstantial. We could just have let stuff go at that side but the grounds are shared and it would have made our house look like crap. So we've put flower pots right down the drive on his side, some small trees up to screen it from the road, pots all along the front of the whole house and either side of the door whilst I've been keeping the weeds down and fixing the pot holes in the tarmac after last years snow. Whilst picking up his van (which he still parked in our drive) the neighbour actually offered us money for keeping the garden so lovely. If it didn't sell it certainly wasn't because of the state of the grounds he said.

Well it hasn't sold so he's been forced to let and last week a new wagon pulled up at the ranch. When I say ranch I do of course mean house. When I say wagon...Unfortunately I do mean wagon or long wheelbase, high roof Mercedes van to be precise. Now the drive is a decent size. The house is basically like an island with drive all the way round and a tiny patch of grass but there is a limit. The owner on the other side has a van and double length trailer and we have two cars. The problem with what is basically a single lane road around the house is that you block it when you stop. This means that you actually have to organise how you park or everyone gets stuck. I park tight to the back garden fence which leaves enough room in front to get a vehicle past. My wife parks flat against the basement door which again keeps the path free and the owner of next door blocks one side of the drive with his van and trailer but it's not a problem because the other side is free.

The new neighbour however was parked in front of the house. This was not only unsightly but, given the size of the van completely blocked our view of the garden. Rather than annoy the new neighbours and get off to a bad start I phoned the owner. I asked the owner to take his van away so that the new neighbours could have his space and the status quo would return.

It was a tense moment. The problem with shared land is...it's shared. As long as he owns his property then he can park whatever he wants in the drive (as can we) and it would be an expensive legal battle to do anything about it. Fortunately he was quite OK about. I think it had already occurred to him and he'd decided to play fair. Unfortunately rather than tell the neighbours that he was moving out so they can have his space. He told them that we had complained about them so hew was moving out so they could take his space. Can't have it all I suppose. We have no plans of being bad neighbours so it would soon pass.

So that was the parking sorted. Nope. The owner upheld his end of the bargain but the big double van of the new neighbours was still at the front. I was out tidying in the garden and the husband came out for something. Whilst chatting I mentioned that his landlord had now taken his van away to allow them to park. Yep he replied and said that he'd park his van away from the front tomorrow night. He gestured to say he'd put it where I park my car but I corrected him to put it where the landlord kept his van. Persistence is key. You don't have to fall out over this stuff.

Sorted? Nope. Again the van gets parked at the front. I'm furious this time. However I am wondering if maybe the tightness of the bend where I've asked him to park is what's putting him off. I find it tight in my estate car but I put that down to me being a poor driver. These van guys can usually put their lorries in very tight spaces. But if that is the reason why didn't he just say so? I contact the landlord again. This time I want him to make it clear that parking at the front is unacceptable and I don't care if he says it's me that's complaining. In case the bend is the problem I've offered to trade my space for his.

He hasn't had the van for the past couple of days and has, in separate conversations with both myself and my wife, mentioned that he will park down at my space. He gets the van back tomorrow I believe. There will be trouble if it's parked at the front.

Next, the guy wants to tell me that an extension on my house is falling down. He works for a company of concrete specialists (as a driver and labourer) and has decided that a crack above the lintel on my extension is actually the extension coming down. It isn't. We know this. It was surveyed two years ago crack and all and was fine and has all the necessary building warrants. There is no other sign of movement inside or outside beyond a crack that frames the lintel (proves that there is a lintel I suppose). It just wasn't finished very well and the render has cracked at some point in the past. He pointed this out to me like some sort of icebreaker in our very first conversation. What's wrong with talking about the weather or asking for a bowl of sugar? But he doesn't just want to point it out, he wants to get a team from his work to come round, knock it out, and sort it. This is either massive and completely unwarranted kindness or, as I suspect, an indication that the guy isn't really the full shilling and has only half an idea what he's talking about. It may have seemed a bit ungracious but this was one of those occasions when I had to say no in a way that left absolutely no doubt. I didn't want it to be like the van where, 'could you park round the side' somehow came across as 'the front will be fine'.

My extension remained untouched I'm pleased to say. But the story doesn't end there. I come home on Friday (they've been there exactly a week) and there's a couple of weird and worrying signs in the garden. There's a decent (fist sized) lump of concrete lying in the drive that's been chipped of one of the kerbing stones. There's another similar bit on the grass where I park the car. A loose bit of wall from a stair at the outside of the house has been removed from it's seat and... There's a piece of slate jammed in to the crack at the back of the extension. The neighbour, who was off that day and at home all day never saw any of it happen and has no idea how it could have happened.

So on Saturday I get some cement and fill in the crack on the extension. It needed done anyway. By doing so there's no way for foreign objects to get jammed in it. I've put the bit of wall back and am accepting that the lumps of concrete were just somehow loose (no evidence of that in the past two years).

This time when I'm filling in the crack the guy comes out and says to 'leave it till Monday and he'll get some stuff from work to re-render the whole thing'. Again I've had to be pretty blunt and to the point in saying 'No'. I'm worried that I'm going to come home and find that this freak has taken my house down. Maybe I'm just reading too much in to it because he angered me with the van. Maybe he genuinely is trying to be helpful. I'm not convinced so I'll be watching like a hawk.

This week I've also got to go down south to pilot a new training course. The place I'm going to is somewhere I haven't been since February. Yep the last time I was there was day 4 of Champix and I hadn't even stopped smoking at that stage. Read days 4-6. To think what I was going through at that stage and then think that, just over a week later, I had completely stopped smoking and am still stopped more than six months on is nothing short of incredible. On day 6 back in February I actually purchased what turned out to be my last pack of tobacco ever. It's still sitting in a drawer in my office. Back around that time I went through two 50g packs per week. I do sometimes miss smoking if I'm honest but I never miss coughing or having to find money for tobacco or being prepared to walk to the ends of the earth if that's what it took to get a pack when I'd ran out. I occasionally miss the companionship but I don't miss standing out in the cold.

Finally on Friday next week I take the car in to have the wheels photographed prior to getting them changed. For the moment that brings us closer to the end of the car saga. Although I could do without the expense of changing the wheel at the moment but it's silly to lose the chance of half price.

So I've no idea what the blog will be about next week. Hopefully there will be a jailbreak for the iPhone. God knows what my neighbour might do to the house and who knows what will happen down south.

Watch this space....

T

iOS 4.1 Jailbreak for iPhone UPDATE

Wed 08/09/10

Until I have a packaged jailbreak I'm going to just update this single post with news of progress. When the jailbreak arrives I'll do a proper new post.

I checked this morning before leaving for work and iTunes said that iOS 4.02 was the latest software. The same tonight about 5pm when I got home. At 7ish however it was available for download. iOS 4.1 has landed.

Before downloading 4.1 I copied 4.02 to a folder on my PC. When you download a new version iTunes auto deletes the old version. In the case of 4.01 and 4.02 you have needed to have a copy of the older version 4.0 in order to jailbreak (for those of us that could) or downgrade (for those that tried but couldn't). So I'll now keep copies of each version of iOS 4 until iOS 5 comes out.

Around 9 I read on Redmond Pie that a jailbreak has been tested and works. There's no date of release yet but I'd imagine it will be within the week. To be honest I think that Redsn0w would probably still work for my 3G and some of the older 3GS's but I don't want to try it.

The good news on the new jailbreak is that it's what's known as a hardware exploit. Not quite as easy to install as Spirit or Jailbreak me were but, because they've found a way round the hardware it should continue to work on all devices already produced or in production regardless of new launches like 4.2 coming in November. The result is that if you already own an iphone you should be able to continue jail breaking it until the hardware becomes so dated that it cant handle new software. That's why 3G owners were able to Jailbreak iOS 4.02 when no-one else could.

The bad news is that Apple will act quickly to alter the hardware and close this loop hole. When they do the owners of new phones and iPads will have to wait a while for the jail breakers to find another solution. For those that can afford the latest kit that's an issue because Apple upgrade and re-spec their kit regularly and most of it is pretty desirable.

One last bit of advice for tonight. It's entirely possible that by the time I wake up tomorrow the jailbreak will be out there. You can probably tell that I'm eager to upgrade. If like me your watching websites awaiting news then... try not to be the first. When the headline says Released, Tested and Working take a breath. Read the comments. Is it working? Are folk having problems or reporting crashes and conflicts? When I upgraded to 4.02 it worked OK but even basics like Installous weren't working and most of the Repos were missing so it was two days later before my phone was back to normal.

09/09/2010

It's widely reported that the new jailbreak has been tested and seems to work on iPhones, Ipads and iPod touches but still no news of a release date or even any decent speculation.

There's also been nothing to say that Redsn0w would work to allow 3g users to get ahead of the game. To be fair though I haven't really found anything from any 3g users to say whether it has speeded up their phones so maybe we're not missing too much.

I'll be posting my normal weekly blog over the weekend but will continue to update this post until some news comes up.

10/09/2010

Still no news although there is an unofficial jailbreak that is working for the 3GS (old Bootrom). Try the Redmond Pie link on this page for full instructions. Anyway in my search I found this clip. Who says there's an app for everything?

11/09/2010

Rumours are surfacing that, as suspected, the original Redsn0w 9.5b5 is working to jailbreak iphone 3g and, i believe iPod touch 2g. I'm reluctant to try it yet as users are reporting issues with the phone icon disappearing (quite essential to have a phone icon on a phone I would think) and also some wifi problems. Having said that, both the sites that I came across offering instructions on how to go about this jailbreak got it wrong and subsequently this may be the reason why it didn't work properly.

I've posted new instructions on both sites via the comments section and asked someone to post if they work. My idea is that one of the guys who has already lost their jaibreak would have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying my method and, if it works, then I could try. The sites involved are: coveringweb.com and spiritjb.org

I also emailed admin at Redmond Pie to make them aware of this potential jailbreak because, in my experience, they will test it on their own phones before putting it out.

Update

Looks like covering web have taken their post down without any apology or explanation to those that they misled. Poor show I say.

16/09/2010

An answer to the continual question of 'when will there be an official Jailbreak for 4.1?' was posted by @pod2g today saying that the SHAtter exploit which uses a Jailbreak called greenpois0n (http://www.greenpois0n.com/) will go live tomorrow. It could be someone masquerading as a member of the Chronic dev-team or it could finally be time. We'll know tomorrow.

My 3g is just not reliable enough running 4.02. When it works it's good but there is just no rhyme or reason to whether it is going to work or not. If the Jailbreak comes out tomorrow I'll try it tomorrow. If not then I'll take a chance and run redsn0w on Saturday. If it works great but, if not, the sim is going to go back into my HTC touch diamond. It may be two years older and possibly lacks some of the bows and bells that iPhone has but, all of the functionality that it did have worked. Can't say that for the iphone. This bad boy could find itself in a drawer soon. Jobs insists that he's creating the perfect device and that is why he doesn't want it hacked. The problem is that most of us have older versions. Each time a new version of the iPhone comes out he forgets all about the millions stuck with the older kit. It's well documented that my issues aren't the result of my jailbreak. The 3g just doesn't work on os4.

17/09/2010

I thought we'd have a jailbreak today but it appears not. Chronic dev-team created this update which was accessed from their comments page but was a new blog item. (Love the work these guys do but they really are a bit guilty of high drama. What's wrong with a regular update on the regular blog page every Friday or whatever? Anyhow)

'Many people in the comments are asking for a progress update. Any kind of update that we could actually give would be too technical for anyone to understand anyway, not to mention potentially reveal the exploit. Just know that things are going swimmingly and we are working as hard as we can. Any demos, screenshots, or *cough* download links will be posted to this blog before anywhere else, so keep an eye out!' The blog can be found here Chronic-Dev.org
Keep watching

Prepare to Jailbreak iOS 4.1 for iPhone 3G Part 1

It's the jailbreak blogs turn tonight folks so if iPhones mean nothing to you or your iPhone means more than life itself you may want to skip this one.

At some point tomorrow Apple will release iOS 4.1 for all variants of iPhone and some ipod touches. The new software offers a few new features, Ping (a kind of face book of music that I don't really see the point of but that will no doubt become something you can't live without), Game Center which offers online gaming and high def video for the iPhone 4. All good stuff but given the hassle of re-jail breaking and then restoring all my apps and all my settings probably I could bear to live without these changes. However.....

There will also be a camera improvement called HSD. It's not available for the 3g but I've already read that, a bit like multitasking, jail broken 3gs will have an app that allows them to use it. Given how shit my phones camera is any software that improves the resolution and quality of a shot is a must. In addition to this Mr Jobs has said that it will allow the operating system to run faster on a 3g. Thank you thank you thank you.

iOS 4.0 did bring some functionality and gimmicks that made it worth upgrading but god has it slowed the 3g down. I know that that's probably not helped by jail breaking the phone to over perform but it was seriously faster and less buggy, jail broken or not, before 4 came along. There are You Tube videos showing how slow the three has become (jail broken or not).

So I want to upgrade to 4.1 as quickly as possible but, as always, there's a problem. Someone has to jailbreak it before I upgrade or I'd lose loads of functionality. My phone is themed to within an inch of its life. It doesn't look anything like an iphone. I'd lose that. My 3g reception goes to sleep with my phone saving battery life. I'd lose that. If I find something in google maps I've got a button that allows me to navigate there using tomtom. I'd lose the button and the tomtom. I've got an app that makes my Internet think that 3g is wifi and so allows live streaming. I'd lose that. Multi tasking. Yep that too. Forget one or two stolen apps it's the functionality I'd miss.

I suspect that the dev-team are pretty much good to go with some jailbreaks for this one. They may even be ready already and I'm hoping that some version of Redsn0w is pretty much ready to launch with a version of jailbreak me following within the first fortnight. But even with this it can still be a hassle so I've taken some steps to prepare in advance. Watch this space and I'll let you know how they go.

I use a winterboard theme called iEllegance. However I wasn't 100% on the out of the packet theme so I replaced the clock with a natty HTC flip clock, I've created Icons for my specific app set and I've changed the wallpaper and lock screen. In addition I've fixed some glitches so I've removed the themes dock and restored the original and I've taken the shadows off buttons because they were offset. As a newbie that has taken bloody ages. When you re-jailbreak you start again. In other words download the default theme, download the clock,, find icons and make others etc... To avoid this I have copied the theme folder completely from my phone using a free software called WinSCP. (think it's this they are talking about when they mention SSHing something to your phone. It shows you the contents of the phone as a windows style file system and you just copy and paste files once you figure out your way around) Hopefully after jail breaking all I need to do is get winterboard running and then paste my theme back into the library where it's supposed to go.

On that note, I've also copied the winterboard application along with a few others. What's the chances that I can paste them straight back in without having to download again?

Until I try I've no idea if any or all of this will work. Without a jailbreak it's a waste of effort. Provided I can view and change the file structure of my phone then I stand a chance of making this work. So even if all the jailbreakers could achieve was to get OpenSSH running on the phone then we'd be good to go.

If all this did work then, who knows, I could be one step closer to understanding what all those dudes at the dev team are up to to jailbreak the phone in the first place.

It goes without saying that you should back your phone up on iTunes before upgrading to 4.1 or even considering jailbreaking. but even here there may be a slight problem:

I think Apple might be up to something a bit sneaky but I could just be being paranoid. When I turned iTunes on today it ceashed for the very first time with an error. Synchost had stopped responding tell microsoft about this prob. I thought nothing of it, as most people probably wouldn't, shut iTunes down and restarted. Now when I sync I get 'ITunes was unable to load provider data from sync services. Reconnect or ty again later'. The paranoid side of me thinks that this is some sort of software change aimed at either preventing jailbreaking or, more likely, unlocking. Of course it could just be that my software is nuts but there was no event leading up to this. After some experiments I did find that if I shut down MY3G, enabled 3g reception through SBSettings and then let the phone lock itself before connecting to iTunes then everything seemed to work but I've no idea why.

As soon as I've got any news on a jailbreak I'll be doing another iBlog. Hope that means that we will speak soon.

Interesting times.

TQ