iPhone 1.1.3 Update Confirmed, Breaks Apps and Unlocks

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."

Comments

Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked...

[Kagura]

My phone is activated and I use AT&T. There is no way I am upgrading until I can use my apps with it, too. And it'll suck, period, if I have to reinstall all my apps. I would consider doing so for the GPS triangulation.

Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked...

[BosstonesOwn]

Well it uses the truenorth system. http://www.trueposition.com/.

Cingular and T mobile currently have in place already to assist in e911 location awareness. It triangulates with the use of as many towers and antenna's as it can based on signal levels to each locating modulation unit to give you the location of where you are. Not very accurate in heavily developed cities where skyscrapers block a majority of the signal.

Worked with them before , I went to work at Sun , pretty cool tech.

It's a shame that they chose to use it to provide a service that the iphone really should have already had. Seams like they are trying to give people an app they get a revenue stream from instead of letting you use other available 3rd party apps where they don't profit.

Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked...

[smilindog2000]

I have no idea how you got modded off-topic... Anyway, my phone got borked on one of the prior updates. This Apple hostility towards simple 3rd party apps has me really steamed. I've joined the Android effort, and it may take a year or two, but no way is Apple going to have the better phone OS in 2010. Without the 3rd party apps, it's not even in the lead today. Morons...

Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked...

[PopeRatzo]

Morons...

Apple isn't moronic for their behavior in regard to locking down the iPhone, just hostile to their most loyal customers. Today, that's known as "good business practice".

Walled Garden

[Divebus]

I'm not a developer, but I'm really thinking this Walled Garden thing is for the birds - which makes me want one of these less and less.

Re:Walled Garden

[kannibal_klown]

Well they're *supposedly* opening up 3rd party apps next year when they release a real SDK. I guess only time will tell.

As for unlocking them, eh. The only thing I'd really want that for is for when I go to Switzerland each year. Instead of paying the higher AT&T fees I could go with a prepaid card over there.

Re:Walled Garden

[mspohr]

The Apple authorized applications are unlikely allow you to use your phone on another network, or with VOIP, or ringtones, or any thing that might compete with the profits of Apple or ATT.

With the iPhone, you don't really own it, you are just buying the right to send more money to Steve and his buddies.

Re:Walled Garden

[Mikey-San]

I'm not a developer, but I'm really thinking this Walled Garden thing is for the birds - which makes me want one of these less and less.

Okay, don't buy one. Apple's responsibility is not to you, the hacker (I love when I get the chance to use that word in the traditional sense), but to the person who buys the device and will never do anything unsupported with it. Why? Because these people either don't want to deal with incompatibilities or problems resulting from an update, or because they can't deal with them.

Normal users don't want to "update their phone" (which is a weird concept to many consumers in the first place) and have it break in some way. Because the official SDK isn't out yet, and there are no guidelines that third-party developers are following, Apple has no realistic way to support their software across updates. Attempting to do so at this point would be a massive, stupid waste of the available time of their engineers.

"Well," you're thinking, "the users who install unsupported third-party apps would be able to deal with bugs, or understand." No, most of them are going to whine and bitch on the Internet like they do now when Apple reverts their phone to a standard, known-good state during an update. But even if I'm wrong about that, it doesn't matter. The responsibility Apple's engineers have to the customer base on the whole is to guarantee that this phone that people bought "just works".

But this presents a problem, right? It makes this amazing portable device only what Apple wants. For some, this is a real issue. You can't disagree with that, really. To solve this problem, you need a supported SDK. And that's coming. Officially. That means developers like me can write software for the iPhone and it won't vanish after an update.

Releasing an SDK means you have to support it. Putting together an SDK you can support, and that is easy for developers to use, takes time. It's not just documentation, which in of itself is a large task if you want it done right--it's API design, build toolchain design, getting the supporting websites together and ready, training your developer support people in the new stuff, etc. It's huge! But Apple is doing it.

For now, third-party software developed through unsupported means is just that: unsupported. In the near future, according to Apple, we'll have a supported means of developing software for the iPhone. And it'll be better software, because we'll have the documentation we need.

There's no "walled garden", just a device whose SDK is in beta somewhere inside Cupertino walls.

Re:Walled Garden

[Anonymous Coward]

...don't buy one..."just works"...this amazing portable device...etc. It's huge! But Apple is doing it... For now, third-party software developed through unsupported means is just that: unsupported. ...according to Apple...And it'll be better software, because we'll have the documentation we need...There's no "walled garden", just a device whose SDK is in beta somewhere inside Cupertino walls.

...ah. Are you sure that you aren't a little... biased? Or is it over-enthusiasm?

Personally, I remain a little skeptical. Apple has announced a semi-open development platform, yes. But they are going to work with a digital signature system, yet they have not released any details. Will this entire deal be free (as in beer), or are they going to charge a developer (which, of course, the entire Apple community will swallow this fine, as always. They will say that it's for the Greater Good because it raises the bar since there's a development fee involved).

Either way, your reply and Apple's Press Release reeks way too much of propaganda to be taken seriously.

Re:Walled Garden

[smilindog2000]

It'll be interesting to see just what programming platform is supported. Google's Android supports a Java variant, but you can easily go under the hood and port native C applications. I'd give you 10-to-1 odds that Steve Jobs isn't going to let anyone have shell access, nor program at the same level his developers do. He'll give us some virtual machine crap that makes porting existing open-source apps impossible, and keeps you from doing anything cooler than writing games. No way he's giving us access to the phone databases, or iTunes databases. Frankly, I'm so tired of Steve's crap that I've abandoned Apple, and encourage others to abandon them as well.

Re:Walled Garden

[squiggleslash]

Okay, don't buy one. Apple's responsibility is not to you, the hacke

I'm always amazed when someone makes it clear they're not going to buy something because they consider it unattractive for a variety of reasons, only to get a response "Ok, don't buy one".

The GP was pretty clear it wasn't a phone he was likely to buy. Why respond as if he was?

Re:Walled Garden

[PopeRatzo]

All I ever wanted was to be able to build applications myself, it's not at all useless nor will be the applications that come from this.

And all you had to do was pay 500 bucks for a locked-down phone and then wait a year and a half for an approved SDK (still vapor at this point) and 5 years for a choice of provider. P.T. Barnum had a name for people that do that.

By the way, how many phones do you know of that last 5 years? What are the odds that the "early adopters" who bought iPhones on 0-day will still want to use those same phones 4.5 years from now?

Re:Walled Garden

[Smorkin' Labbit]

Of course they have some kind of SDK internally, but it is a much different thing supporting something internally compared to letting other people use it: You have to start thinking about backwards compatibility much more, documentation must be better (you can get away with lousy/no documentation internally since you can always ask the ones writing the software how things work), etc.

  I used to be the main developer at a big software company, where we had a supported SDK for customization, and it was hell; even if you document how the SDK is supposed to be used, everyone immediately starts making assumptions based on how the current implementation works (such as relying on un-documented order of events). Ideally you could tell those users that its their fault when things break down with an upgrade, but customers don't really care about this: They upgraded a product they pay money for, and their stuff break. Ergo, the software company is at fault. Example: The SDK clearly specified that spaces was considered optional in all string messages. But when we removed those with an upgrade, my guess is that 90% of the customers had broken installations since their code assumed "a = b" was how things looked, when parsing the string. And customers paying a couple of hundred thousand dollars / year for a software do not appreciate that, no matter what you say.

Furthermore, *any* feature you add in an official SDK will be there forever, even if you later on realize it was a bad idea or design, since someone, somewhere, is using that feature. Look at Windows and how long it has taken them to get away from Win32.

Re:Walled Garden

[ThePiMan2003]

The question you should be asking, is how many of those people will have enjoyed using the phone and had no problem using AT&T with them. I understand that you don't want an iPhone with the current restrictions on it. But just because you feel superior for turning your nose up at it; it does not mean that people who have been enjoying one for the last year are fools. Just that they have different requirements for a phone. If you really want to be able to program for your phone, go buy a Windows phone, and a copy of Visual Studio. If you want a tightly integrated phone, with a nice UI, that ties into a complete music delivery system... buy an iPhone.

Re:Walled Garden

[mhollis]

I received an iPhone this year as a holiday gift. It's very nice.

The problem is that it's replacing something and I have expectations regarding the something replaced. I'm trying to replace my Palm TX, my cell phone (which was a really old phone) and my iPod (Photo). The only thing the iPhone completely replaces is my cell phone.

Palm has a KISS attitude about their devices and every time they have not stuck to that ethos, they have lost user base. But Palm has always had a SDK released that is based on the assumption that the Palm company cannot possibly know all of the ways someone might want to use their device. I think it's particularly arrogant for Apple to assume that only Apple knows all of the uses someone will want to put their iPhone to. They certainly don't display that kind of arrogance with the Macintosh computer. So, duly chastened, Jobs decided to release the SDK for the iPhone. After this Febuary, I'd say the iPhone (and iPod Touch) will begin to actually become useful.

For those of you who either have Smartphones or Palm devices or Windows Mobile devices, the one thing the iPhone really, really lacks is the ability to cut and paste! I've been using computers since the 1980s and I cannot recall ever not being able to copy material from one place to be used in another place. This ability to write once, use multiple is the hallmark of computing and this is involved in database, word processing, and user interactions both within applications as well as between applications. The iPhone OS must introduce this, and soon.

Until I can cut and paste, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.

Until I can buy, download and install third-party utilities, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.

I don't think my iPhone will fully replace my iPod because my iPhone simply doesn't have enough space on it for my entire music library. But the iPhone is more like an iPod Nano in the sense that one loads a subset of one's library on the iPhone, not the whole magillah.

I am hoping that the iPhone does have hidden capabilities to move beyond AT&Ts Edge network to 3G wireless data. Certainly the European units have this capability, else they won't sell well.

Until then, I shall remain a slightly dissatisfied iPhone user.

Tis the Season

[Nom du Keyboard]

Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away. Why they keep fighting their users makes no real sense. How long before, no matter how neat the gadget, the masses decide that Apple simply isn't worth the trouble?

Re:Tis the Season

[Bryan Ischo]

To answer your question: a long time, since the vast majority of users, vocal Slashdot geeks aside, don't give a rats ass about hacking any piece of consumer electronics they own. Most people buy products based on the features that the product claim to have, not on features that they *want* the product to have and believe that they can get by hacking the device.

A correlary of this statement is that Apple really isn't fighting its users, as a group. It's just fighting a small minority of users who hack their iPhones, so your statement about Apply "fighting their users makes no real sense", itself makes no real sense.

Disclaimer: I don't own an iPhone, but I might if I was richer.

The cryPhone

[Z80xxc!]

Why is apple trying so darn hard to stifle every attempt to develop for their product? I can sort-of understand the other carriers thing, as they and AT&T want their money, but the 3rd part apps blocking is just ridiculous. 3rd party apps are part of what made me initially interested in them; today I'm glad iDidn't get one. Even microsoft understands the importance of Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...

P.S: article tagged cryphone.

Re:The cryPhone

[supersat]

Would you rather them leave the vulnerabilities unpatched so that any web site could 0wn your iPhone if it wanted to? Granted, there should be a way to load third-party apps without resorting to these kinds of hacks, but we'll see what Apple does when they release the SDK.

Mouse....

[ff1324]

Mousetrap...Mouse...Mousetrap...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we'll see a fix for the fix by the end of January. So all the iPhone users can get their fix fix fix.

Valid Security Concerns

[bug_hunter]

Okay, I hate the fact that the iPhone didn't come out with an SDK at launch, and the fact that there's an existing playform for building phone apps (Java ME) that they completely ignored, and Apple's "Buy a new one if you brick it" policy (Could they at least take your bricked iPhone for $100 or something so the hardware doesn't go to waste?)
BUT
most of the security circumnavigation is a result of buffer overflows and other stuff that could be used in theory by attackers as well so they are right to patch it.

Personally I'm going to wait until after the SDK is released until I think about buying one, and anybody else who is currently trying to hack the iphone should do the same (even just to save their wallets from more brick costs).

Re:Bah

[ScrewMaster]

Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?

Because Apple has worked extremely hard to put themselves in the limelight, to maintain as high a profile as possible ... the price you pay for that is that any perceived foibles are yours and yours alone.

Jesus Christ, iPhone is not life or death

[jhylkema]

If you're determined to pay too much for a calling plan and an overpriced phone, this is what's going to happen. Sure, it looks cool, but it's locked down enough to make Microsoft blush. I mean, come on.

Mod me to hell, I don't care, I have karma to burn.

Re:Why do people like the iphone?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Its a good honest question.

I just bought an iPhone. 2 days ago. I am both pleased and underwhelmed. I find that it doesn't do as much as i would have hoped. It does a lot well, and the browsing is nice, i wish it were faster. Even in wifi mode, it isnt as fast as browsing on a laptop over wifi.

Its a great start. It really is a nice way to use a phone but i do think that it will be a challenge for apple or any developer when they open their sdk, to add more complex functions to the ui workflow.

Currently there is no copy and paste for example. How do you do it with just a touch screen ui? You only have so much screen space, plus you run the risk of touching other things on screen and activating their functions.

Its a great start, and the os will get more and more apps from apple over time, atleast i hope thats their plan. I hope they upgrade it with functionality and apps, even as new hardware versions come out, i hope the os and apps continue to be available on all of the versions over the years.

Itunes for windows absolutely sucks. My pc can run crysis at 1920x1080 with evertyhing set to very high except the shaders which is set to high.... but it can barely run itunes.

Itunes is a programming peice of shit. Apple really hates PC users. It shows. It is fucking obvious, and i feel ripped off in that regard. Apple NEVER supports their hardware on the PC, with quality software. It has been that way for a while now. Apple purposely neglects the iTunes software on windows and it is a fucking rip off scam. Its a bait and switch. Buy the hardware, but its a nightmare to use on windows. Just the way Apple wants. It does not at all inspire me to even consider buying a MAC. Its Apple's way of saying "See we told you PCs are slow and bad..." when in reality its Apple playing bullshit. They should be investigated by the feds for it and i'm dead fucking serious.

Youtube and Google maps is incredible on the iphone.

Email needs some more functionality.

The iPhone needs Instant messeging through a native app running in the os (AIM, YAHOO, MSN, etc). Currently you can do it through webpages like meebo.com

I cant open a link in a new window in the browser. You can with a bookmarklet but, not natively in safari. This makes it a pain when browsing because it doesnt cache the pervious page, it seems quite slow when going "back".

There are problems, but overall, if the os is robust enough and there is enough ram and processing power, all it takes is some smart thinking in the ui department to continuously add features and improvements.

Like i said, its a great start. Apple needs to follow through and improve the software both on the iphone, and on windows!!!!!!!!!

Sorry wrote this while on a phone call so i appologize for the jumbled thoughts. :)

Apple has?

[SuperKendall]

Because Apple has worked extremely hard to put themselves in the limelight,

Because Apple has? Or the media has? Because every single phone since the dawn of time has "worked extremely hard to put themselves in the limelight". Apple just managed to actually succeed - and is being punished for that. Success is why Apple is being singled out, not because they tried any harder or any differently than other phones which get ignored.

Re:Apple has?

[AlXtreme]

Apple just managed to actually succeed - and is being punished for that. Success is why Apple is being singled out...

Seriously, what success? Apple's Jesus-phone was probably the most hyped product of 2007. Months in advance you couldn't get around all the articles promising a revolution in mobile phones.

The reality is that I've yet to see one on this side of the pond, while I have a lot of Apple-fans in my network. They couldn't care less about some overpriced locked-down gimmick. Apple has been pushing out press-release after press-release and their marketing went into overdrive before launch here; reality is that the iPhone simply isn't that great.

Dangerous

[Budenny]

People will say that if you don't like it, don't buy it. They are wrong.

The problem is not the iPhone. The problem is, trying to tell people what to do with your product after they have bought it. If we start admitting this is a legitimate approach to business, we have basically lost intellectual freedom in the digital age. It gets clearer and clearer that one trend is the open trend - which dominated media for hundreds of years. This approach was, buy it where you want, read/play it where you want. This was books, tapes, CDs, DVDs. It has also marked the PC: buy hardware, run Windows/Unix/Linux, and put whatever apps you want on it. Write whatever you want for it.

However, there is another distinct model, which Apple and now Amazon are struggling to generalize. That is, buy it and then connect to or play on it or install on it what we give you and permit you.

Of course, the iPhone and its third party apps does not matter. Neither in itself does Kindle. Neither does the locking of MacOS to own brand machines, as long as Apple has tiny market share. Neither does the inability to play iTunes on any other players, its just music...

Take them all together, and they do matter. Take them all together, and we can see a real and growing threat to intellectual freedom. Apple has always been a leader in this attack, and its now joined by Amazon. What you can expect to see is ever increasing attempts to hack away and diminish the 'buy anywhere, play anywhere' business model. Each one will be small and unimportant in itself. Take them all together, and you are looking at a very expensive future where, on multiple incompatible products you have access to restricted media which is limited to what a few large companies want you to have access to.

It is a war, and its important to make an example of both Amazon and Apple. Because if their model works in the market, in 10 years time, we will look back with amazement at the freedoms we used to have, and wonder how we ever had them.

Boycott Apple now. And boycott Amazon too. Do not accept that when you buy software, you in fact license it. Assert your right to play bought media on whatever you feel like, and to buy it through open interfaces not closed proprietary software. And agitate and publicize.

This one is really, really important, and its importance goes far beyond the particular detailed examples we are confronted with daily.

Re:How dare they!

[The Master Control P]

If you sell it to me, it's my hardware, and I'll run whatever code and programs I damn well feel like, thank you very much.

Just a thought...

[defi]

I personally love my iPhone. It does everything I need and then some. For instance I NEVER used youtube, but now I find myself using it in the oddest situations (like when an guy at work was talking about conway twitty I searched and found some concert clips and showed him). I also dont mind the wait for third party apps, I would rather have a well thought out SDK than something hacked together. Heres something I dont understand regarding third party apps; why does everyone feel that Apple has to support them and be careful when updating. I find this analogous to a contractor building a house and having to redesign it every morning when someone cuts holes for windows or runs wires where they want to. If the "hacker" community involved wants to create a cell phone then do it. Don't complain that someone spent a long time to refine the hardware and software for a device and then claims ownership and is protective of it. If their so happy with their unlocked phones then don't update, if its so perfect leave it alone. Better yet why not treat it in the true spirit of open source and give Apple the respect for what they did and fork it. Make your own project, create the firmware, make a loader, refine its synching abilities, and so forth. I love the open source community and use a lot of their software daily, linux especially is a one of the best things ever to happen to computing. What I don't like is the direction its moving, and the attitude towards the iPhone makes this apparent. I attribute this to the RMS opensourcers' and their socialist, anti-capitalists ideologies (Honestly what is wrong with making a profit off of your creation, this isn't the 70's and these are not command line e-mail apps were talking about).

I dont mind the way Apple does buisness and believe they listen to their consumers. I cant tell you how many posts I read complaining of a lack of gapless playback on the iPod, only to find out that these posts were dated and that the feature had been included. The thing with Apple is that they don't just "do" things to shut people up. I admire that. They have a direction their moving in and they keep the course. I cant stand these companys that try to make a swiss army knife style device that is just crap. Have some focus and get the core features working. I had a gps-enabled blackberry on nextel and I dont think I ever got it to find my location. Thats crap, if a feature is there it should work, with the least amount of flaws. My iPhone always works and the only two apps I ever have problems with (Mail when I check my IMAP account from to many locations simoultaneously i.e. on my laptop while connected on my phone, and safari has the occasional page crash) are corrected very quickly. If an app hangs hold the home button down and it will restart. I never have to reboot my iPhone and can honestly say that its been on for about 4-5 months straight. Thats stability.

In time I agree that most of these arguments will be mute and have been a waste of time. The SDK will come, it probobly will be limited in the beginning but will eventually be full featured. It will become unlocked, I mean, Isn't it illegal to keep a phone locked after the contract is up anyway. If this isn't allowed then someone will take them to court and force them to obey the laws.

Now for a request. Could everyone stop complaining and get innovating. Take all this negativity and focus it into the iPhone killer. I would love this and probably be one of the first buyers . Ohh yeah I own Apple stock (sort of a disclamer), but I would ditch it and my iPhone in a second if there was truly a better product. I'm only loyal to my family, my money goes to the winner.

Re:How dare they!

[sincewhen]

Well then, simply don't apply the update!
It's not like Apple employ a SWAT team to force their way into your home and hold you at gunpoint until you upgrade.
And neither do they have the phone surreptitiously phone Cupertino and upgrade itself without your knowledge.
It's still your hardware! Just don't expect support and compatibility with future software releases if you hack it.

Multiple levels of ADC membership

[tepples]

Apple already has a developer program. The entry level is free. You can get details at http://developer.apple.com/products/. Then let me rephrase my question: Can you cite a source stating that the iPhone SDK will be included in the "ADC Online Membership" (free) level of this developer program, or will it require an "ADC Select Membership" or higher?

Re:Compare to Symbian Signed

[Admiral Ag]

I love speculating as much as the next person, but let's just wait and see what the SDK is like. Remember that the SDK is for both the iPhone (which I don't own) and the iPod Touch (which I own). I'm waiting to see what happens at Macworld in a couple of weeks before I jailbreak my Touch, but I've played around with a couple of jailbroken units and they are incredible. If you've seen one, you'll know what I mean: the iPod Touch isn't really an iPod in the traditional sense, but the next great ultra portable computer and probably gaming device (there's a roll ball game available that demonstrates the potential of the platform). My experiences with jailbroken iPods have convinced me that Apple is sitting on a goldmine. So are developers if Apple does the right thing.

But as someone else said, Apple will need to protect the non techie users who will go mental if a software upgrade breaks their unit. Moreover, if apps on these things are to become popular with the masses, then there will have to be integration with iTunes, since that is what most people use to manage their iPods. That means that iPod software installation will have to work like podcasts do: you can get them through iTunes with no hassle, and they won't harm your iPod or break with updates. There is really no alternative if it is to become mainstream. If it does, everyone is in for a treat. I'm hoping that excellent Mac shareware companies like Panic will write software for it (if you don't know who Panic are, then shame on you!).

There's no reason why Apple couldn't make the iPod Touch into the new Newton. I'm hoping they will, and the massive black space on the iPod's home screen makes me confident that they will. It already does almost everything you'd want a digital media player to do, so the space can only be taken up with radically extending the use of the device. It's crying out to become a PDA for regular people.

Re:Unlocking is not the same as running applicatio

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as apple cares: you bought a car and you complain that the f*cker can't fly, oh my! Um, nothing like that at all.

It's more like: You bought a car, you can clearly modify it so it can fly, but every time you take to the mechanic to get the radio fixed they deliberately take off all the stuff you added to make it fly because "they don't support flying". Even though you're fully aware they don't support flying, you just want it to because it's your damn car!

Re:3rd party

[nine-times]

And has anyone considered that maybe Apple has been rewriting portions of the iPhone's software in conjunction with developing the SDK, and that might be part of the reason why Apple's updates break 3rd party apps?

Not to be too defensive of Apple or anything, but many have guessed that part of Apple's aversion to 3rd party application up to this point has been because the OS is still in flux, and software developed for 1.1.2 won't work with 1.1.3. Each of the iPhone updates have forced the 3rd party developers to rewrite their apps, lending some credence to this idea.

I think we should just wait until the SDK is out and see what the situation is. If the SDK is terrible, then by all means complain.

Re:Unlocking is not the same as running applicatio

[rudlavibizon]

So many bad analogies in one post. The thing is, people see iPhone for what it really is, a computer, and they know what what a computer can do. In other words they know it can fly. Right now Apple don't give any right to 'hack' it but that it is only because they want to sell you a new one with more 'features' next year. People have come to realize this and Apple is balancing its act in order to satisfy its commercial interest, one of which is keeping their 'good' company hype. They do, however, consider un-lockers as users otherwise they wouldn't announce the release of the SDK.