iPhone 3G S Jailbreak possible
The iPhone Dev Team just released word that it will be possible for them to jailbreak the iPhone 3G S.
It’ll take some time to work these into our tools, but the fundamental weaknesses are there: The bootrom is exploitable via 24Kpwn, and the baseband is exploitable via ultrasn0w.
They’ll be able to jailbreak it, but it may take some time. So basically: I love these guys…
The monty hall problem
You’re on a game show.
There are three doors. Behind one of the doors is a brand new car. Behind the other two doors are goats. Don’t ask me why they’re goats. They’re just always goats.
You’re asked to choose a door. Let’s say you choose door number 1.
The host of the show opens a different door – a door that he knows contains a goat. Let’s say it’s door number 3.
The host then asks if you would like to change your answer. You now only have two doors to choose from: Door number 1, and door number 2. Would you change your answer?
This problem is called the Monty Hall problem.
The reason I’m posting this is because Jeff Atwood just brought it up on his blog, Coding Horror. Funny though, that I had seen the movie 21, and already knew the answer and the reason why. Check out his article because he sheds a little light on some of the history surrounding this problem.
The best way to answer would be to change your door. If you change your answer your probability of winning doubles.
Interested in a good explanation of the reason why? Check the video…
iPhone 3G S faster than iPhone 3G example video
The iPhone 3G S does feel faster doing just about everything (even just flipping through pages on the springboard). This video is a great comparison of the speed difference.
Apple appologizes for activation delays with gift certificates
Looks like Apple is giving $30 iTunes gift certificates to the people that bought the iPhone 3G S and weren’t able to activate their phones for a couple days due to activation server delays. They’ll be sending you an email if they found that you were affected by the server delays. Take a look.
Ridiculously awesome gymkhana video
This is me…
…in my dreams.
The driver in the video is Ken Block – a co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of DC Shoes.
The car he’s driving is a 2008 Subaru STi that was custom built by Crawford Performance and the Skunkworks team. It’s got 565 WHP, 590 ft/lb torque, and some custom valved Tein Super Racing coilovers. Check out the full specs and get more info on Ken Block and this Gymkhana Two video at the Gymkhana Two website (yes, this video has an entire website…).
Microsoft Bing a new contender?
I’m not sure what others have been saying about Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, but I just noticed that it was starting to make an appearance on my Google Analytics stats. It’s referring the third most visits out of the 11 search engines that have made an impression on my blog in the past 30 days. At the top of the list sits Google… then Yahoo… then Bing. What’s interesting to me is that it’s almost as effective as Yahoo and it’s brand new.
Here are the stats:
- Google is bring in just over 95% all my search engine traffic.
- Yahoo brings in 2.3%
- Bing brings in 1.3%
- All the others (aol, ask, live, search, msn, altavista, cnn, etc…) bring in about 1.6%
Jailbreak tutorial for iPhone 3G: 3.0 OS
I just jailbroke my phone last night, but the experience was far from smooth. I jailbroke my phone 3 times, and the first 2 times my phone couldn’t get any service form AT&T. I’m posting this tutorial thread to help others overcome any of the same issues that I had.
Step 1
Download PwnageTool from the iPhone Dev Team. Read that post in its entirety before following my tutorial. They have some special rules/reasons not to use PwnageTool. Continue at your own risk!
Step 2
Download the latest version of the iPhone 3.0 software through iTunes. If you upgraded your phone through iTunes you shouldn’ t have to download it again. You just need to make sure that you’re using the same computer when you run PwnageTool (PwnageTool will automatically find the file for you).
NOTE: If you’re a developer and you’re having issues jailbreaking using the GM seed you should try using the later release 3.0 OS. If you’ve never actually downloaded the 3.0 firmware through iTunes then plug you phone into iTunes and click Restore. This should make iTunes start downloading the latest version. When the application starts downloading just unplug your phone that it doesn’t actually restore it.
Step 3
Run PwnageTool. You can leave it in beginner mode – it should recognize your 3.0 ipsw file you downloaded from iTunes that way. When PwnageTool asks you if you’ve ever jailbroken your phone before, just say no so that it takes you through the DFU steps.
Step 4
Open iTunes. iTunes should recognize your phone as a phone in recovery mode. Alt/option + click the restore button. This should prompt you with an open file dialog. Select the ipsw file that you saved from PwnageTool.
Step 5
Wait for everything to finish – you should be golden.
IF YOU’RE NOT GOLDEN/IF SOMETHING DOESN’T WORK:
Did you get an error 1600 or 1604 (or any other error) when you tried to install the custom .ipsw file? Your phone probably had an issue going into DFU mode.
- Press and hold the power and home buttons for 10 seconds. Release the buttons. This turns your phone completely off.
- Wait 5 seconds. Just to make sure your phone is ready to be turned on again.
- Press the power button again. This should turn your phone back on in the normal mode.
- Open PwnageTool again and click the “DFU” selection at the top of the app to put your phone into DFU mode again.
- Try installing the ipsw again.
If that still doesn’t work and iTunes gives you an error:
- Rebulid the ipsw file by running PwnageTool again.
- Try installing the ipsw file again.
If your installation of the jailbreak works fine, but then your phone has no reception:
- I’m not sure why this happens, but it happened to me twice. To fix this I did two things, and I’m not sure which one of them solved my problem: I downloaded the public 3.0 release of the iPhone firmware, and I switched from my unibody MacBook to my old 17″ MacBook. Things worked fine after this.
If you’re having any problems in general:
- Are you using a unibody MacBook? These have been said to have issues with DFU mode on the iPhone. I would try using iTunes on a previous generation MacBook or a different Mac.
- Don’t use the GM seed to jailbreak.
If you have any questions at all please let me know in the comments below!
A cool iPhone 3G S design
This is a well done design idea for the iPhone 3G that was released well before the announcement that the externals of the iPhone were not going to have any design refresh. I really Apple would have done something different to make the iPhone 3G S stand out, but maybe they’re holding off an external design refresh for a larger upgrade…
The only thing that I really don’t like about this design is the home button. I can easily imagine the home button getting hit on accident since its right up against the edge of the body. I really just like the larger screen, thinner body, and texture on the back side of the phone. Over all – it was a well done image. [Image provided by www.MacBlogz.com]
iPhone 3.0 software jailbroken | iPhone Dev Team
The iPhone Dev Team has (of course) already jailbroken the 3.0 software FOR IPHONE 3G USERS ONLY – NOT 3GS USERS. They were able to hack the latest software so quickly because the beta version of the software was released many months ago, and they’ve had a chance to poke around. Read their full post to get the latest PwnageTool. Happy Jailbreaking!
MMS | Tethering on iPhone 3.0
There are some great instructions over at The Fix! for getting MMS and tethering to work on your iPhone. The gist of it is:
- If you’re not interested in MMS, skip to step 3.
- If you’re interested in MMS you’re going to have to give AT&T a call to enable WAP Push on your device. This typically isn’t enabled on an iPhone plan, and I’ve had trouble in the past getting them to enable it, but that was quite a while back. Maybe things have changed now.
- Install an IPCC file on your phone. This is an iPhone carrier settings file that updates your phone with the correct instructions for connecting to AT&T’s network. You probably don’t want to use this file if you’re using a jailbroken phone and you’re on T-Mobile. (NOTE: You install an IPCC file the same way you install an IPSW file manually: by option-clicking the restore button in iTunes. However, you’ll need the non-beta version of iTunes 8.2.0.10 (windows only). Other versions of iTunes will not let you install IPCC files on your phone. Let me know if you have the installer for the Mac version of 8.2.0.10 and I’ll post it up.)
- Enable MMS and Tethering on your iPhone by going into the settings menu on your phone.
Voila! MMS and Tethering.
TweetDeck for the iPhone
The iPhone version of the popular Twitter client TweetDeck has got Twitter users abuzz due to it’s cool interface. I used it today and it was very responsive and fun to use. I hope to see more apps like this one that go outside the box when it comes to the user interface.
Project Natal gets the couch off your butt
Project Natal is a “controller free gaming and entertainment experience” by Microsoft. Natal is being created for the Xbox 360 game platform and is based on an add-on for the console that will enable you to interact via gestures, spoken commands, or other physical objects. In case that doesn’t sound extremely exciting, take a look at this video, presented at the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3):
Got your attention?
The sensor device that is used has an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and can detect full body 3D motion capture, facial recognition, and voice recognition. I’m surprised how well the sensors interpret the physical movement – it seems pretty accurate!
I would love to see the sensor device reach beyond gaming and make it’s way into productivity applications. It would sure beat capturing gestures with a webcam like we’ve seen others doing.
For more complete coverage of the demonstrations of Natal at E3, check out my buddy’s new blog, Atom6. He’s got some more videos posted there as well.
What the world would be like without user interface design
Here’s a perfect example of how not to design a user interface. I guarantee that I would get somebody killed driving this thing.
Check out “How to: Drive a Ford Model T – Feature” on CarAndDriver.com to see more pictures like this one:
Stencil your way to the App Store Top 100
Incapable free-handers have no fear! There is hope for you! Design Commission is selling an iPhone stencil so that you can make sure your sketches are nearly perfect. It’s pretty cheap too… $16.95.
43 inch curved screen released today
Got $8000 dollars lying around? Check out this curved screen. It actually looks like it’s the same as this alienware curved monitor. It’s got the same specs and, honestly, how many curved screens have you seen on the market.
The biggest downfall to me is the resolution. at 2880×900, it’s hardly a very high resolution.
