Do you have an old first or second gen iPod touch or iPhone? If so, you’re probably pretty red-faced with jealousy about all of those cool new iOS 5 features you’re missing out on: multi-tasking, reminders, iCloud, homescreen folders and so on.
There’s no reason your face has to be so flushed, though. Thanks to Whited00r, you can get iOS 5’s best features on your old iPod touch or iPhone 3G, no jailbreak required.
How does it work? The Whited00r dev team have basically built a custom version of Apple’s official iOS 5, specially catered towards the ARM6 family of Apple devices: the iPhone 2G & 3G, and the iPod Touch 1G and 2G. You just download the IPSW firmware and install it through iTunes, just like a regular software update. Here’s the installation guide: it’s dead simple.
Once your device has been restored using WhiteD00r 5.1, you’ll have most of iOS 5’s best features, including multitasking, reminders, a rough approximation of iCloud that uses Dropbox as a core, folders, Newsstand, and even custom wallpapers.
Sadly, though, there is a caveat. Notification Center doesn’t come along with the package, and you also lose out on the App Store (although you can still buy, download and install apps through iTunes).
We haven’t tried Whited00r personally — I simply don’t have any iOS devices lying around that are that old — but this looks legit, and the forums are filled with happy users. If you’ve got an ancient iPod touch or iPhone and want to extend its life just a little bit longer, give Whited00r a try.
You can download Whited00r here.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
12 responses to “Install iOS 5 On Your iPhone 2G/3G Or Old iPod Touch Using WhiteD00r, No Jailbreak Required”
iOS 5 dogs on my 4th Gen iPod touch. I can’t imagine how terrible it must run on those devices.
There is a “Features” page when you click your source. One of the features is as follows:
Jailbreak
All Whited00r firmwares comes with a built-in jailbreak. You don’t need to know how to use jailbreak tools.Latest Cydia release from Saurik is included and fully working. We also have a private repository with tweaks for power users.
how about iTunes Match?
iMessage?
Eu VOU !!!!!!!
It’s based on ios 3.1.3 so it runs much better on my old 3g than ios 4.2.1 did. It’s probably the only reason why I haven’t bought a new phone yet – it’s really quite good. I even have a cool notification center called Lock Info that activates just like the one in ios 5. Bought it in cydia but it was rather cheap.
Nope….
No Siri? Shame.
As a whited00r user, let me clarify some stuff.
1. It’s based on ios3
2. Its still in decvelolment.
3. There is a huge debate about the AppStore over at the forum.
4. It’s not perfect; no iMessage, no Notification Center, the Remiders remake isn’t perfect, and the newsstand isn’t the real newsstand; it’s an app.
No MC model support :(
Huh! I just sold my 1st generation 2G iPhone 4gb for $150!
just got it installed an hour ago on first gen ipod touch. it works
perfect, it is based on ios 3.1.3 (latest version that support first gen
ipod touch).
this is what i reckon about the ios 5 functionality:
– wallpaper in home screen
– multitasking (unlike the real ip4/4s which has plenty of ram, this
ipod touch got only small amount of ram making most app closes anyway
when pressing the home button)
– battery percentage!!!
– icloud wanna be based on dropbox
– modified appstore (use whited00r website instead of apple, still can access the official apple appstore from safari)
– ‘fake’ newsstand that is completely useless, specifically made by whited00r devs, but there is no content on it
– reminders app
– jailbroken out-of-the-box after installing
– and that’s all i can think of
missing feature from the real ios 5:
– no notification center
– still registered as ios 3.1.3, making installation of apps designed for higher version of ios impossible
– no imessage
– and again that’s all i can think of
slightly decreased performance compared to clean ios 3.1.3
is it worth the upgrade from the ‘original’ ipsw + ordinary jailbreak? nah… most of the ios 5 features are wannabes