iPhone - page 422

Last week the U.S. government surprised everyone by announcing that jailbreaking, root access, and carrier unlocking was a legal option for buyers of smartphones that want to access apps not sold by the manufacturer or to free the handset for use on the network of their choice.

After this decision it is likely that more people will be jailbreaking their iPhones, iPads, or iPod touches. There are over 100 million iOS devices in circulation and it is thought that a mere fraction of these are jailbroken.

Jailbreaking isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do, but there are many how-to’s (including our own below) that will explain to you how to do it. The problem with that is that you need to find the right one to fit your iOS device. That isn’t easy with the plethora of iOS versions and different iOS device models out there until now.

The Jailbreak Matrix solves that problem. The Matrix is a chart that will show you the details you need to jailbreak your specific iOS device and its version of iOS. It will even tell if you if a jailbreak doesn’t exist, provide download links for firmware and iTunes, and versioning information for firmware and baseband (if appropriate). The information provide is likely to help you to prevent bricking your device.

You can view the  Jailbreak Matrix and find the jailbreaking how-to suitable for your circumstances or you can check out Culf of Mac’s Jailbreak Superguide. Regardless of the option you choose you can jailbreak most iOS devices in no time at all.

Is your iOS device jailbroken or unlocked? What circumstances drove you to wanting to do that in the first place? Tell us all about it in the comments.

iOS hackers have released jailbreakme.com, a browser-based jailbreak utility for the Apple iPhone 4, 3GS, and 3G when running iOS 4 or 4.0.1. The jailbreak is reminiscent of one of the original jailbreaks for the original iPhone.

In addition to the above devices the jailbreak is compatible with an iPad running iOS 3.2 and 3.2.1 and an iPod touch 3G running iOS 4.0.

To celebrate their 3rd anniversary, Readdle have started a 48-hour sale from today which sees all of their iOS applications reduced to just $0.99. In addition to this massive sale, Readdle are also giving away an iPad to 3 lucky winners who retweet their anniversary message on Twitter.

To be in with a chance of winning, just follow these 3 simple steps:

For more information, visit the Readdle 3 years anniversary page. To get your hands on one of Readdle’s great applications, check out their App Store page.

We’d like to ask our Canadian readers for help with a story we’re working on about the iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4 just launched in Canada on Friday, and Canadian buyers are able to buy the device unlocked (if it’s bought from Apple rather than a carrier).

We’re looking for readers who are getting an unlocked iPhone 4 and can test it on Wind Mobile’s network to see if it can support 3G data speeds.

Why do we want to test the iPhone 4 on Wind Mobile’s network?

Wind Mobile is an up-and-coming carrier that uses the same GSM network technology as T-Mobile in the United States.

The iPhone is rumored to be coming to T-Mobile USA in the fall, breaking Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. However, it’s not clear whether the iPhone 4 has the right radio hardware to support T-Mobile’s 3G data network.

We’re told Wind Mobile in Canada has the same network infrastructure. If it works on Wind Mobile’s network, it should work on T-Mobile’s.

T-Mobile’s 3G data network operates on the 1700/2100 MHz bands. According to Apple’s specs, the iPhone 4 works on the 2100 UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA band, but not the 1700 band, which has led some to conclude that it is incompatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network.

However, there is some debate whether Apple simply didn’t list the 1700 band, which seems to be the convention when listing such specs. And no one has yet tested the iPhone 4 on T-Mobile’s network in the U.S. Despite the efforts of the Dev Team, there isn’t yet a publicly available unlock for the iPhone 4.

This is why we’d like help testing an unlocked iPhone 4 on Wind Mobile in Canada.

If you can help out, please email us at news (AT) cultofmac.com. In return, we’ll send you some goodies in the mail.

UPDATE: In the comments below, reader @Qorax tried a Wind Mobile SIM in a brand new, unlocked iPhone 4 he purchased over the weekend. Unfortunately, the SIM card didn’t work at all: no voice or data. We would have predicted he would have at least got voice. iPhone users here in the U.S. who unlock their phones and use T-Mobile SIM cards get voice and data — but Edge only.

PS: @Qorax’s comment is worth reading to see how he beat the gigantic line for the iPhone 4 at his local Apple Store. Tricky!

MacWorld’s latest cover isn’t really special in that it features an iPhone 4 recursively shot by photographer Peter Belanger on another iPhone 4. Although that wouldn’t have been possible on previous iPhones due to resolution issues, lighting’s ultimately the most important aspect of professional photography, not megapixels or the lens. In ideal lighting conditions, getting a professional level shot from pretty any digicam isn’t all tha hard.

What I find more intriguing is that Belanger also did all of the post-photographic processing on the iPhone 4. Specifically, he used the $3 PhotoForge app to remove a green cast from the resulting image, and the $1 Resize-Photo to boost the DPI for publishing. That’s a little bit of a fudge, but all is forgiven: the resulting cover looks great.

iPhone and iPod owners have been jailbreaking — or unlocking the operating system to run applications not approved by Apple — since at least 2007.

Why bother?

There are a number of reasons to consider jailbreaking your iDevice, whether it’s to create Wi-Fi hotspots with MyWi, get tweaks and added functionalities, many that weren’t previously available (multi-tasking, Bluetooth access, tethering), and the freedom to use third-party apps that haven’t been approved by Apple, whose family-friendly content restrictions have occasionally bordered on absurd.

Apple doesn’t like jailbreakers because of the loss of revenue and control over the devices, but the US Copyright office recently ruled that jailbreaking your Apple device does not violate the DMCA and is legal. Keep in mind that Apple still voids your warranty if you jailbreak, but now they can’t threaten to slap you with a $2,500 fine.

Cult of Mac has put together a Jailbreak Superguide to get you busted out and moving on.

Apple’s iMovie is an app designed to run exclusively on the iPhone 4, but it will actually run on an iPhone 3GS by applying a hack. The app puts a mobile video studio in your pocket and gives you another creative way to use your iPhone by offering you some nice video editing and enhancement features. You can turn otherwise boring videos into something more exciting with it. It won’t replace iMovie or Final Cut on your Mac, but as a portable alternative to those apps it can be pretty handy.

Mothers possess skills varied and wide, and recent research shows Moms are particularly adept at using their iPhones.  The Huffington Post has developed a list of Top iPhone Apps for Moms, By Moms:

Never underestimate a mom with an iPhone.  Research from Greystripe [PDF] show that moms love iPhone apps, and are downloading apps in various categories from games to productivity.

While most mobile developers are men, a growing number of opportunistic women are venturing into app development to create apps catered to other women. And many of these women are part of a group called Moms with Apps, a collaborative group of family-friendly developers who share best practices on making and marketing mobile apps.

HuffPo’s list includes some nicely done iPhone and iPod touch apps that deal with emergency infant medical care, learning sign language, communicating with autistic children, and – helpful for Moms, Dads and chauffeurs of all kinds – roadtrip bingo.

From the consumer end, the hold-up on the white iPhone 4 has been pretty inexplicable. Exactly how hard can it be for Apple to get the white iPhone 4 right? They release multi-colored gadgets all the time, with no problem whatsoever. What’s the difference here?

Over at the Street, there’s an unconfirmed explanation being floated that actually makes a good deal of sense.

Because both the front and back of the iPhone 4 is made of glass, Apple has to be very careful about light leaking out of the seams and through the backplate of the handset, since they can’t just slap another layer of coating to fill the gaps. On the black iPhone 4, this isn’t as big of a problem, but the white iPhone 4’s back is naturally more transparent than the black’s. Hence the delay.

I’m no engineer, but that seems to grok. It certainly makes more sense to me than the other theory: that Apple had delayed the white iPhone 4 to secretly fix the antenna design.

If you’re getting around now to jailbreaking your iPhone and love social media, think about adding qTweeter to your app arsenal.

There are plenty of awesome Twitter and Facebook iPhone apps, but Cult of Mac finds qTweeter a must-have because you can broadcast social media updates just by pulling the app down from the status bar, and, say, vent about your co-worker while reading a particularly annoying email (not that we would, of course), rave about a new band you’re listening to the track or ask the peanut gallery what you should have for dinner by sending them a link to a take-out menu from a web page.

This $4.99 app has been one of our favorites since it launched in 2009.  Here’s Cult of Mac’s quick guide to getting you started with it.

We’ve received multiple reports from readers that their free iPhone 4 Bumper cases are already in the mail, despite initial delivery dates in August or September.

I just got an email from Apple saying my own free Bumper case is winging its way to San Francisco. It is due to be delivered August 3, according to the tracking data. Apple initially said the free case would be delivered in September.

Good work Apple: Underpromise and overdeliver.

If you type a lot on your iPhone and haven’t upgraded to iOS4,  BTstack available on Cydia is worth checking out.

The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard and auto-correction are great, but if you write long missives or are used to hammering out complex messages on a keyboard, you’ve probably wanted to use an external keyboard to get your point across at one time or another.

This is where BTstack keyboard comes in: it’s a simple paid application that lets you hook up most external Bluetooth HID keyboards to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Keep in mind that it doesn’t support more sophisticated commands for your mobile opus (selection, copy/paste, etc.) but it works like a charm for straight typing. Here’s Cult of Mac’s quick guide to get you started.

Apple has just released iOS 4.1 Beta 2 to developers. We’re currently downloading it and will report what’s new ASAP.

The firmware is build 8B5091b. There’s also a new SDK, build 10M2305a. Both are available from the iPhone Developer Center.

Although seventeen more countries will be getting the iPhone 4 at the end of this week, South Korea’s not one of them… and it’s getting a lot of airplay in Seoul, with Steve Jobs being explicitly called a liar by the South Korean press.

The issue isn’t really the delay, so much, but a comment by Steve Jobs saying: “It’s going to take us a little longer to get government approval [for the iPhone 4 in South Korea].”

In actuality, government approval doesn’t seem to be the issue. In fact, the Korean government says that the iPhone 4 has yet to be submitted for approval to the proper channels, either by Apple or their local carrier partner, KT Corp.

The government statement has sparked some confrontational headlines. “Jobs lied, didn’t he?” one local newspaper wrote.

Are you one of the millions of AT&T customers afflicted by terrible 3G upload speeds brought about by buggy Alcatel-Lucent HSUPA hardware? AT&T has announced that they have begun working on a fix.

Good news, but of course, this is AT&T, and after taking several weeks to examine the problem, they will be proceeding with the fix at their usual glacial pace: it will take an additional two to three weeks to fully resolve.

Your life is on your iPhone, so if you want to share it with friends, family and co-workers, what’s better than capturing what’s on your iPhone screen? ScreenRecorder for iPhone is a Cydia application that captures your iPhone screen — be it a tutorial, demo or demonstration — with the tap of a finger. Here’s Cult of Mac’s step-by-step guide of how this paid app works.

Although the iPhone does allow you to setup a lockscreen passcode, it doesn’t give much flexibility in choosing one, allowing you to set only a four-digit passcode. If that doesn’t pass your security test, here’s how to set passcode your ex won’t be able to guess.  NB: If you haven’t upgraded to iOS4, this tutorial on setting up a lockscreen passcode is for you.

The Backgrounder app makes running multiple apps on your iPhone easier than juggling your daily schedule. Do keep in mind that running too many apps will slow down your device and suck the life out of its battery a lot quicker.

Still, Backgrounder is a great gratis app we’re glad to have handy. Here’s Cult of Mac’s guide to how it works.

Unless you jailbreak your iPhone, the file system will remain off limits as Apple intended. Even so, many people who jailbreak their phones stop with Cydia. There are, however, a few reasons you might want access to the file system on your device. SSH allows you to do just that using a Wi-Fi connection and a suitable Mac or PC client.

It can come in handy should you need to install something that’s not directly available on Cydia, think beta apps, etc.

Here’s Cult of Mac’s how-to guide to get you started.

If you haven’t upgraded to iOS4, this app will allow you to access multiple Microsoft Exchange accounts on your iPhone, keeping your work and personal email and calendar info etc. always at hand. Here’s Cult of Mac’s how-to guide to getting started using the AddExchange application which allows you to add multiple Exchange accounts available from Cydia.

The iPhone, as Steve Jobs pointed out in his 4.0 keynote, currently has the best implementation of Copy/Paste feature of all smartphone platforms. However, it still does lack some feature like a history of the clips you’ve copied,  web search for selected text, etc. If you add a Cydia app called Action Menu Plus Pack, which retails for $2.99, you can easily add those as well. Here’s Cult of Mac’s how-to guide for installing and using the app.

From the earliest iPhone and iPod Touch models, Apple opted to disable OBEX — aka Bluetooth file transfers on its devices for security reasons.  Now, thanks to iBlueNova, a Cydia app well worth the $5.99 price tag, you can transfer files — music, pics, etc., — to and from your iDevices. Here’s Cult of Mac’s how-to guide to get you started.

Thanks to iOS4, Apple now offers its own solution for switching between applications. If you’re using an older operating system, try this method for getting some multi-tasking on your Apple device using the handy ‘ProSwitcher’ app, which gets the job done using minimal memory to keep your device speedy as you pause that epic game to check out the weather.

UPDATE: I was initially a little surprised by the vociferous reaction to this post about installing Installous, an unofficial App Store for pirated apps. The instructions are a quick Google search away and we’re hardly the first to publish an Installous how-to.

I guess we raised a few red flags — like putting “How To Pirate Apps” in the headline and including a half-hearted disclaimer. The intent was for it to be part of a comprehensive Jailbreaking Superguide that deals with all the things people want to do when they jailbreak their devices, including playing around with Installous.

The intent for the Superguide is to be straightforward and frank — a one-stop shop for everything people want to know about jailbreaking. We don’t condone piracy, but it’s a fact that a lot of people jailbreak their devices to experiment with things like Installous. I find it dishonest and hypocritical when publications skirt around issues like this; like publishing BitTorrent guides and pretending that no one’s going to download a pirated movie.

However, it’s obviously disingenuous to say we condemn piracy in a post that shows readers how to pirate software. Personally, I’ve always believed publishing information is one thing and acting on that information is another. I’ve always liked publications that informed me about things we’re not supposed to do. I can then make my own moral decision whether to act on that information or not.

But while pirating is something people indisputably do when jailbreaking, it was a misstep for us to actually include a comprehensive DIY. Whatever our intentions, it teeters on advocacy, and was thoughtlessly disrespectful to the many app developers out there who make their livings off of programs we admire and think people should pay for.

As our readers have pointed out in comments and on Twitter, we crossed a line here. CultofMac.com isn’t some modern-day Anarchist Cookbook. We support developers and enjoy their many wonderful creations. Saying there are ways out there to install cracked apps is one thing, showing people how to do it is another.

So my apologies to readers for misjudging this, and to developers for being insensitive and opportunistic.

Also, please don’t attack the author, Sayam. This was my idea, not his. He’s a freelance writer and I commissioned him to write it, so please don’t be mean to him.

— Leander.

PS: The BitTorrent link to “pirate” copies of my Cult of Mac book posted in the comments is actually a publisher-sanctioned seed. No Starch Press turned it into an e-book and seeded it. So please help yourself, it’s free and legal.

See TorrentFreak: Publisher Posts Mac Books on The Pirate Bay

Although the Cydia app offers an extensive soup-to-nuts package, every once in awhile you might find it useful to add a source to the ones already available. Here’s Cult of Mac’s guide on how to add a source to Cydia.