Want to test out iOS 5 but don’t have a developer account? No worries: a new vulnerability makes it pretty trivial to upgrade to iOS 5 on any iPhone.
Be careful, though… rolling back to iOS 4 if things go south isn’t officially supported. This is for pros only, and there’s a lot that can go wrong.
Here’s how you can upgrade any iOS device to iOS 5 without a developer account, courtesy of Gizmodo. We haven’t tried it ourselves (yet) so we can’t vouch for the method, but they’ve gotten it to work… just be extra careful before you do this.
1) Find the proper iOS 5 IPSW for your iPhone n the web. We can’t link you, sorry.
2) Plug your iPhone in, then click on the “Check For Update” button with either Option (Mac) or Shift (PC) key pressed in.
3) Manually select the iOS 5 IPSW file you downloaded and update your iPhone from that.
4) Once your iPhone device is updated, you want to triple click the home button to activate Voice Over.
5) Now triple click the home button again to trigger Emergency Call.
6) Click on Emergency Call. While it’s switching, swipe with your three fingers down.
7) You’re now in Notification Center. Click on the Weather app, then click on the home button to exit to the iPhone’s spring board.
8) Congrats! Your iOS device should be fully operational.
We don’t endorse this method of playing around with the iOS 5 beta: there’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and given the amount of bugs and issues in iOS 5 beta, and the fact that it is not trivial to downgrade back to iOS 4.3.3 if something goes wrong, we recommend only the brave try this method.
If you do manage to get it to work for you, though, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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.
185 responses to “Here’s How You Can Run iOS 5 Beta On Your iPhone Without A Dev Account [How-To]”
Your headline says “On Any Device”… is that true? Will this work on a 3G?!?!! I’ve been waiting to upgrade to the 5 once it’s released, but this would make they wait a helluva lot better! :)
My guess is this won’t work on an iPad because there’s no ‘Emergency Call’ functionality?
Gosh, I dropped $99 last night on it!
lol who’s gonna bite the bullet first?
is this gunna allow us to send calls and texts??
I can’t even get past error 3002, it checks with Apple and stops the update process.
What a crock. This doesn’t work on iPad. Talk about a misleading article.
try using tiny umbrella?
Correct. I fucked up the original version of the post. Editied!
I fucked up the first version of this post: it’s iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 only. Sorry!
and what if i want to sacrifice my iPod and not my iPhone?
if it doesent work, turn it off and hold home as you plug it into itunes. it will fix it and downgrade. :D
1. you cant use the “check for update method” because you will get error 3002 every time.
2. tried on my iPt4 instead of my iPad but it doesnt work because there is no emergency call feature.
3. you are able to restore back down to 4.3.3 if you tried it
Jumped in head first….. now I see that the article has been updated. iPad 2 was fail, that’s ok, that’s what DFU mode is for.
BUMMER!!! LOL!! Ah well… meh, only a few more months!! Great article, anyhow!
WTF :)
Cant get past the error 3002 error message? Hmmmm is this apples doin?
Turns out you don’t need an iPhone. iPod touch works as well- see? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
So if i put this on my 3GS, how easy will it be downgrade back? Will i have to install all my apps again when i do? How buggy is iOS 5, is it even usable for end users?
Ok…. thinking about sacrificing my iPhone anyway… has anyone tried it out and it worked well for him?(on a GSM iPhone 4)
And now for the iPad iOS 5 hack, oui?
Ok, I have tried it on my iPad, and it works half. You can get the notification window! Without widgets! So you dan’t get in the weather app or stocks.
Now restoring.
No way to get it on the Ipad 2 I tried three times!!
hahahahahahah… this works :D but you cant use it for good, cause there is no signal to your mobile carrier :/
Tried it on my iphone 4 (o2 uk) – it does work – however, it only by-passes activation on the phone, but not on itunes – so you can’t restore from a backup or anything – rendering it pretty much pointless … you can check out the new features then get in to DFU mode and go back to normal though
Rollback works. Just FYI.
Yeah you’re not able to sync via iTunes after updating because the phone checks for iTunes 10.5 and the beta iTunes out now is 10.3. I was able to get my mail, contacts, etc to sync because I’m using MobileMe still. Not sure how to get music back on the phone though, if there is a way. Apps and iTunes purchased music can be restored using the App Store and iTunes app on the phone.
You have to hold alt [if you’re on a mac] and click ‘Restore’ and then restore the iOS5 ispw file. But I seem to have NO signal. So you shouldn’t install it.
I finally got it to work, I had to hold option and click restore to install the beta, clicking the update button kept giving me an 3002 error. But it works!
This is not good, so I updated my phone and my itunes, now no carrier, apple knows I’m not a delvoleper , so I’m now stuck with a phone with now service… how on earth do I restore everything back?
typo
“for your iPhone n the web”
How do we go back to normal?
It tells me my device is not eligible for the update.
same thing… i dfu restored to 4.3.3… somehow it restored carrier
Works great except for messages!
ipod touch 3g btw
How can I update without holding the option button while clicking check for updates because every time I get the error 3002 message.
@Mattreed91 you can restart. dont do it if youre having and iphone… phone service doesnt work at all
restart your windows/mac
That’s because it isn’t.
Try holding Shift when clicking the restore button. If you’re on a mac, holding ALT and clicking Restore will let you search for and install iOS5. If you’re installing it onto an iPhone it wont function as a phone anymore.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I haven’t heard of anyone else who’s had this problem, it’s starting to really frustrate me. Tried iTunes 10.3 as well as 10.5 beta. Nothing.
I’ve been trying to do the EXACT same thing… I keep getting error 3002 as well! I’ve tried everything! You say it won’t function as a phone anymore? Is that true?
Guys, in my home I have my own computer running Windows 7 and my brother’s running OS X, trying this on Windows 7 flat out didn’t work for me, but OS X seems to be showing some success…
I had this error and its because you have an older version of iOS. Befor updating to iOS 5 you will need to update to iOS 4.3.3. After you have that then get iOS 5. And it doesn’t seem to be able to call…
I’ve heard that you will not be able to use your phone if you activate this way because it won’t connect to the cell network results in no reception…. can anyone confirm?
Dude 3G isnt supported by the ios5. Look on the apple site, oldest iphone supported is 3GS.
Yep, I finally got around the 3002 error (using iTunes 10.5 beta and option-clicking Restore), then went through the VoiceOver/Emergency Call steps to ‘activate’ the phone, only to find that it no longer works as a phone. You have to have a developer account to *fully* activate as iPhone running iOS5 beta. (Took me forever to downgrade and restore it too. Long story.) Don’t do this if you want to use your phone as a PHONE.
Why even bother? this is Pre-release software, with a plenty of bugs and issues, iCloud services won’t work and to top if off you’re not able to make or receive calls!
Bottom line if you don’t have a developer account you’re better off just sticking to 4.3
Don’t Update iphone. There is No Service after upgrading to iOS5 :(
I confirm. Did that and No Service.
I FIGURED IT OUT!! Ok, for those of you who cant get it to restore because apple is rejecting it, open up tinyumbrella and click start TSS server. Open iTunes and opt click restore again and it will work!
how do you get past activating on IPAD im stuck! plzzz help!
email me [email protected]…. I’ll set you up.
email me [email protected]…. I’ll set you up.
email me [email protected]…. I’ll set you up.
email me [email protected]…. I’ll set you up.
email me [email protected]…. I’ll set you up.
Just coz you’re replying in the comments, doesn’t mean that the journo of this post should drop the f-bomb. ;)
yeh this guy should check his posts. i’ve spotted several previously.
How much? ;-)
ipsw file downloading aand ill give you an update alright
Can I also hire your mom for tonight ? How much ?
Does this affects your calling & data service abbility
click the restore instead of update
What is it with you and swearing in the comments? It isn’t becoming and neither is it big or clever….. :)
If you want your phone to actually be activated and work I can add your UDID to a developer account in a few minutes.
http://appledrunk.com/udid-act…
This is garbage and nothing works, plus it is hell to downgrade, I bit the bullet and signed up for a dev account, have some spots that I can register UDID’s email me if interested, [email protected], then you can just do the official beta route. $8 bucks an ID
tried with second .ipsw, still says wrong build. what am I doing wrong?!
ummm yeah they do…
email me, ill help you. [email protected]
i just did my ipad 2 and it works perfectly. email me and ill help you out. [email protected]
Can we do something like that with a ipad 1 too
removed
you probably need to stop telling your hosts file to look at sauriks server and instead let it point to apples server.
Works pretty well! Don’t have service on my phone though. Had to downgrade back to 4.3.3. If anyone knows how to activate the phone service on the iPhone 3Gs 5.0b1 please reply back to me here.
can someone pls help me im not getting any signal bar on my iphone 4 running on ios 5
Did you guys solved it?
Those widgets aren’t on the iPad. They work fine on iPhone.
Check out http://www.applegirlfriend.com They set me up in about an hour after I gave them my UDID. Only cost 7.99
Activate you UDID here to get iOS 5. We accept fast and secure PayPal payment. http://www.activationsudid.com or http://www.applegirlfriend.com
Activate you UDID here to get iOS 5. We accept fast and secure PayPal payment.http://http://www.activationsudid.com or http://www.applegirlfriend.comEdit
Reply
Activate you UDID here to get iOS 5. We accept fast and secure PayPal payment.http://http://www.activationsudid.com or http://www.applegirlfriend.comEdit
Reply
Activate your UDID here to get iOS 5. We accept fast and secure PayPal payment.http://http://www.activationsudid.com or http://www.applegirlfriend.comEdit
Reply
If you want your phone to actually be activated and work I can add your UDID to a developer account in a few minutes.
http://www.applegirlfriend.com
If you want your phone to actually be activated and work I can add your UDID to a developer account in a few minutes.http://http://www.iphoneudidactivations.com
If you want your phone to actually be activated and work I can add your UDID to a developer account in a few minutes.
http://www.ios5udidactivations…
ok just jailbreak it and donwload ifile or search it on google
We can activate your UDID for you for 7.99USD Go to http://www.applehardcore.com
i need some help i try to do the three finger swipe but it just dos’t work then i tryed the voice over thing and that do’s not work ether what shold i try and i cant restor my iphone can some one tell me how to get passed this stuff please?
well i just did it so ok i am trying to downgrade do you no how? please tell me
how did u downgrade helpppppppppppp plzzzzzzzzzzzz
is there a fix for this yet. my 3gs is having service problems tried downgrading and im getting the same result….
Ok so i’m kinda worried. I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 Beta 6 and i know it’s still in beta but i can’t get any service. It just says, “no service.” Does anyone know if when the Final release comes out, will i regain AT&T service Please help.
i don’t have service either
when i swipe my fingers down nothing happens and i have no service):
no service error uhg!
what’s up with this No service thing , I am stuck with the same error. I can’t even downgrade to older firmware ?