So the once unbreakable iPhone 3GS has now been hacked by the infamous George Hotz allowing not only the fastest and easiest jailbreak but also the ability to use any GSM sim card in your iPhone.
Having only released the software this afternoon, blacksn0w is already trending on twitter with many successful unlocks already.
This is a vunerable time for the incumbent carriers, especially in the UK where the iPhone is about to become available on multiple networks. I myself will be using this opportunity to trial other networks to see which one will give me the best performance my iPhone deserves and I suspect many others will be doing the same.
I’ve already popped a sim card from 3 into the iPhone and get full 3G reception where O2 would only get 2 bars at most.
I see no detriment to the performance of the handset so I would recommend you give blacksn0w a try.
To unlock your iPhone you need to download software from http://blackra1n.com/. Once you’ve downloaded blackra1n, connect your iPhone, don’t open iTunes, run the App, disconnect your iPhone and you should see an App on your handset called blackra1n. Open this app and open ‘snow’ and click install. If you have problems with wifi, reset network settings on the iPhone and this will fix that issue!
As a long time jail breaker of my iPhone it came to my attention that I’ve never made use of OpenSSH. Those jail breakers who are so called power users swear by the SSH option. So what is SSH and why should you use it? SSH allows data to be exchanged using a secure channel between two networked devices. OpenSSH is an open source alternative to the proprietary SSH. OpenSSH basically allows you (your computer) to talk to your iphone in a secure manner. OpenSSH allows you to access the iPhones file structure and therefore make changes that apple would not not normallly allow; changes such as custom SMS tones. Do you need to be a geek to do this? It helps, but no you don’t!
A quick google shows up hundreds of sites offering guides and YouTube is full of selfhelp clips. I’ll provide the steps necessary for you to create your own custom SMS tone on a mac.
You need to have a jailbroken iPhone for this. A guide on how to do this can be found here.
1. Firstly you need OpenSSH. Open cydia and go to all packages and search for it. Once found, install it. 2. You need to know your iPhones IP address. You find this in settings, wifi. Press the blue arrow and in the next screen you will see your IP address. 3. If you don’t already have cyberduck on your mac, download and install it. 4. Open cyberduck, open new connection. 5. Make sure that you have SSH FTP selected and enter your iPhones IP address. 6. Now enter your username and password. These are the same for everyones iPhones. Username is root and the password is alpine. 7. In may take a while for your mac to connect to your iPhone. 8. Once connected you will be able to browse your iPhones file structure.
To change your message tone follow these steps:
1.Trim MP3 files using Audacity (usually SMS notification should be shorter, roughly 3-4 seconds should be good)
2. Import the MP3 file to iTunes 3. Change the iTunes import to AIFF 4. Find the AIFF file and copy to desktop 5. Change the extension to “.caf” 6. SFTP to the iPhone using Cyberduck (Mac) 7. Navigate to the following directory: “/System/Library/Audio/UISounds” 8. Change one of the “sms-received.caf” file to “sms-received_.caf” where is an integer from 1 to 6 that is least preferrable 9. For example: Rename “sms-received6.caf” to “sms-received_6.caf” to replace the Electronic with custom sound File name mapping to notification name:
Upload the file on the desktop using the old name of that was changed For example: if “sms-received_6.caf” is changed to “sms-received_6.caf”, upload the file using the name “sms-received6.caf” Choose on your iPhone, the replaced tone. For example: if you replaced sms-received6.caf, then you should choose Electronic.
Quite simply, when you jailbreak your iPhone you enable it to accept 3rd party apps that are not available via the app store.
Why would I want to do this?
Well, apps like NemusSync (sync your google calendar), iRealSMS (forward sms and text in landscape) are available as are choices such as installing themes and changing your sms tone.
It’s pretty easy to do and does add value, so why not?
Check out the iClarified site for more information and the step by step guide I use.
