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iPhone 3GS Finally Hacked
Well, the inevitable hacking of Apple's latest flavor of iPhone has happened. Named "purplera1n," the tool will only allow installation of unauthorized applications instead of a full unlock. "The purplera1n jailbreak will free your iPhone from the limitations imposed on it by AT&T and Apple. After jailbreaking, a user will be able to customize the iPhone with home-screen wallpapers and third-party ringtones. But the biggest advantage of jailbreaking is the support of unapproved apps such as iBlackList (blacklists and whitelists for contacts) and many others."
Why would anyone buy a device where someone *else* decides what apps you can run and what you cannot run? You don't own such a device - someone else owns it, and is letting you use it only under conditions they decide.
I'm sure this will get modded down by iPhone fanboys, but I don't mean it as an anti-iPhone thing, more like an anti-any-device-where-the-mfg-regains-control-after-you-buy-it thing.
How? Yes, you can set your wallpaper for the "Slide to unlock" screen, but for the screen where your apps are? No, I know of no way to change that short of jailbreaking.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They do make it much harder than necessary to make ringtones. You can't just use any old mp3/aac/etc file, and all the documentation etc makes it seem like you have to buy ringtones.
Pretty annoying.. even my old locked down verizon LG phone had the ability to use bluetooth to transfer mp3s and midis to the phone for usage as ringtones.
I love my iPhone, I wouldn't trade it. But my biggest problem is not the software the phone runs (or doesn't run), its being locked in to using iTunes. I hate it, I want to use something else, but Apple has locked me out. Don't want me to run stuff on the phone because the network (ATT) does not want to support it? I almost understand that. Don't want me to run software you haven't checked to make sure the user experience it up to par? Really? Don't want me to use software of my choice to allow two pieces of hardware I own to interact with each other (PC to iPhone)? That's pretty evil.
Why would you run an app that would organize the contacts on your phone, if you're the least bit worried about who the heck they are? Now, the iBlacklist may be just as legit as any app in the App Store, but there's a rather large chance that a version is floating around that actually sends your contacts' names, emails, and phone numbers to an Asiatic hacker or something. Or that the crack itself sends your data to said Asiatic hacker.
I'd say "there's a reason they're unapproved", but the examples of apps rejected by Apple are, to be honest, rather ridiculous sometimes - and they don't inspect the traffic that comes out of their test machines, I'd presume - so I can't say that "there's a reason they're unapproved"... although it does seem like an apt comeback (cue the apt-get comeback joke) to this sort of cracking.
Point? Don't put your data on a machine you can't lock down yourself, I suppose.
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
The 3GS unlock & jailbreak has been available since midnight last night.
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/
The usual culprits (the iPhone DevTeam) were waiting until the 3.1 release but it looks like their hand was forced by an independent hacker releasing his jailbreak on Friday.
There was a LOT of stuff you after jailbreaking (background apps, tether, etc) on the 1.x and 2.x OS releases but as Apple adds more features with each consecutive release, I'm finding the need to jailbreak a little less compelling. I still will, b/c I find a terminal + SSH alone to be compelling but once tethering is official, I may just go back to an un-jailbroken state. I still need the unlock, of course.
i have an iphone 3g. i jailbroke as soon as i got it a few months ago because of some stupid restrictions. if apple would remove these restrictions, then i'd have no reason to jailbreak.
#1 - on a standard iphone, you can't change the incoming email alert sound... it is what it is. that means, if you have 10 people in a room and they all have iphones, if anyone gets an email, then everyone will be checking their phones because none of that is customizable.
#2 - on a standard iphone, you are limited to a handful of incoming sms alert sounds.... again, same thing as with email sounds.
the only 2 jailbreak applications that i actually use are the 5 icon dock (with the dockflow theme) and cyntact (an app that allows me to see the pictures of my contacts while they are in the list as opposed to having to open the contact to see the picture).
if apple would alleviate the 2 restrictions about changing sounds, i could live without the 5 icon dock and cyntact. i would have no reason to jailbreak.... and by alleviate, i don't mean to make me buy the sounds off of itunes like they try to make you do with ringtones, which you can get around that by importing m4r files.. 8)
stephen
People buy the iPhone, or the kindle, or some other device that requires everything to be signed, then they either "jailbreak" them or whine about the restrictions.
If you want these restrictions to go away stop buying the devices, and educate everyone who'll listen about why YOU won't touch them, then let them make up their own minds.
You wouldn't buy a car that required you to call the manufacturer and get authorisation every time you wanted to put petrol in it or attach those sickly fluffy dice to the rear vision mirror, would you? And if you did buy it despite such a ridiculous restriction, would you then be complaining to everyone about the restriction?
We don't need 2 slashdot stories per week about this. We're just chasing our own tails here.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I've been watching this carefully. I bought the original iPhone in the US before they made you sign up for AT&T in the store, I'm English but these didn't sell them out of the US at the time but as the dollar was so low they were extremely cheap (for us). For several months I used it a rather nice iPod until a rather complex jailbreak and unlock came out later that year. From then on my new Nokia E90 was put in a draw and I became a proud iPhone owner. For many more months it remained unavailable outside the US and it became a show piece in meetings. I didn't get the 3G, mainly because it remained un-hackable for some time but last month I was in line outside the London Apple store at 7:30am waiting to get my hands on a new 3GS. For the last few weeks I've been walking around with two iPhones, one old one with my Vodafone card in it and one new one with a pay-as-you-go (£10/month) O2 card in it. Tonight I downloaded the Purplera1n (mac version), connected my 3GS to my Mac, backed it up and clicked on the "Make it Ra1n" button. A couple or re-boots later, some 5 minutes and I was the proud owner of a jailbroken iPhone 3GS. I downloaded Ultrasn0w on Cydia, installed it, rebooted and inserted my UK Vodafone SIM and it's now all working perfectly. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you really need to, I could have switched to O2 but I think they rip people off with their data prices (as do AT&T), I can get a full 7.2 meg HSDPA and UPA where I live on Vodafone compared to O2's rather slow 3G service. Although most people I know are using a hack to tether their 3GS on O2 I've been doing this on Vodafone for some ten years now starting with my trusty Psion and an RS232 link to my old Nokia phones, sadly that was still faster than today's data service on AT&T though in most of the US. If you're adventurous or want to have a bit more flexibility over your provider then go for the jailbreak and unlock, I can verify that it works on the iPhone 3GS. -John- @jtdavies
Only in apple world, you use a software running on a desktop/laptop and meant for music files to control your mobile phone.
Kudos to you and apple.
Assuming you're using windows: Open iTunes. Edit ---> Preferences General Tab Change your Import Settings to AAC Encoder. Right click on the song that will become your future ringtone and go to Options. Make it start and end at the desired times (around 30 seconds between start and end). Now right click on the song (it will appear in iTunes) and show the file in Explorer. Rename it from .m4a to .m4r.
Drag it into iTunes. If you didn't have any ringtones before, a new Ringtones folder will be created (icon looks like a bell).
A hassle, yes, but certainly possible.
Jailbreaking is counterproductive. Apple and AT&T will never learn this way. I opted for N97 instead, sure it has some drawbacks, but I am simply not prepared to give any kind of money to companies as evil as Apple and AT&T.
That's not particularly evil - the itunes-iphone connection does more than just sync files. What is borderline insanity is:
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Someone has to protect you from yourself.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because programs vetted by Apple are likely to be accurately described, genuinely useful, and fully compatible with your phone.
accurately described - ok.
fully compatible - sure... they still can crash, but its not like the situation on palm or windows mobile.
genuinely useful - er... say what now? take a look at the app store sometime. most of the paid ones are a waste of time and money, and most of the free ones are a waste of time. Lets see we have "Virtual Girl" who dances on your screen, and iFart which makes farting noises, and some bikini-girl-a-day gallery (ranked #1 in entertainment apps)... 426 apps that all make your screen white called 'flashlight' or some variation (although in practice just pulling up the general settings app is about the same brightness, or a blank page in safari...)
ooo a dictionary... because a dictionary.com bookmark is too much effort... ah but this resides on your phone so it works even when you have no service.... seriously... do you often need to look up the spelling or meaning of words while in a dead zone? Does this really happen to people enough to make it worth it? Hell... I ony lookup works once or twice a month... and I suspect that's well above average.
etc... etc...