Category: iPhone

How To: Recalibrate iOS Device Home Button

One of the most notable issues over time with iOS device users is that after months of use the home button becomes un-responsive, it affects all iOS devices over time and can affect some more than others, generally based upon the use of the device. One way to fix it would simply to return it to Apple and get a replacement, if your device is still in warranty and they allow you to exchange it. However as it’s a mechanical part they may not replace the device itself.

A simple way that fixes the issue for most people, is something you can do yourself and all you need is your device itself. Following these simple steps will in most cases fix the problem and makes your home button a lot more responsive.

  1. Launch one of the stock iOS applications on your device, for example the settings app.
  2. When the app is open, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button at the top of the device until the ‘Slide To Power Off’ slider appears.
  3. Press and hold the iOS home button. Keep the button pressed until the slider disappears and the application quiet back to the Springboard.
  4. The home button is now re-calibrated and should be a lot more responsive.


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Apple Now Actively Taking A Stance Against Jailbreakers

For years people have been jailbreaking their iOS devices to run things that Apple won’t allow, whether it be apps or themes. They’ve never actively done a lot against the jailbreaking community, until now.

I’m due to take my iPhone into the Apple Store due to some hardware issues, but of course I was running a jailbroken iOS 4.3.2, so I spent 3 hours trying to restore it. It got stuck in a constant restore cycle. I tried using RecBoot, TinyUmbrella and iRecovery to try and get it out of it but it just wouldn’t work.

Turns out that Apple have now updated iTunes to check the hosts file on the computer and if there is an entry under ‘gs.apple.com’ it will put your device into a constant restore cycle. This is because some of the tools used for jailbreaking will add the ‘gs.apple.com’ entry to the hosts file to stop the local machine talking back to the server. Of course it’s simple to remove the entry and restore but for whose who don’t know about this will be stuck with a very expensive paperweight. It does rise some other issues, some people may have very large host files and therefore it will simply take too long and then iTunes will assume the device is jailbroken and put it into the constant recovery cycle.

Major Flaw Found Within Remote Wipe Feature

After iTunes not wanting to restore my iPhone, I decided to use the now free, Find My iPhone service to remotely wipe my phone ready for my appointment at the Apple Store. After initiating the wipe I received an email saying it could take up to 2 hours to complete, my appointment being within the next hour didn’t help. Unfortunately I arrived late to the appointment, but my phone still hadn’t wiped. After not being seen I needed to use my phone again and it states in the email that you cannot cancel the wipe, however a hard reboot stopped the process and nothing had been deleted, within the hour that it was apparently wiping. So this displayed a massive flaw with the service to me, if a person was to steal a iOS device that was then remotely wiped, the theif could simply hard reboot the iOS device and have access to everything.

Possible Pictures of Next Gen iPhone Leaked in China

What we have here are said to be pictures of the upcoming next generation of iPhone, known to be either the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5.

These pictures have been posed by Chris Chang on the M.I.C Gadget website, the photo appears to be the next generation iPhone which will no doubt be powered by the same A5 CPU that is in the iPad 2. This may not actually be the final design for the next generation iPhone, which is rumored to hit stores in September, but could of be one of the many prototypes that will have been made. There was talk a few weeks back of a edge-to-edge display, so this seems to back up those rumors.

How To: Enable HD Video Recording on The iPhone 3GS

Mike Pan has successfully modified system files on the iPhone 3GS to record HD video at 30fps.
The video is recorded at 1080×800 at up to 20Mbps, this is a big improvement from the default 640×480 at 3Mbps. The unusual size is used to keep the video at the right aspect ratio when recording. You can also change the resolution to 960×720 if you so prefer.

It does take a little longer for the 3GS to focus and the quality won’t be as good as that on the iPhone 4 but it’s a nice improvement especially if you’re not moving the phone a lot.

First of all make sure you have a jailbroken iPhone 3GS on iOS 4.1, then ensure you install OpenSSH and you know your iPhone’s IP Address. Next download the relevant patch files, depending on your resolution prefenrence.

1080×800 Patch
960×720 Patch

Once you have downloaded the relevant patch extract it. In the extracted folder you should have the following files:

Launch your favourite SSH client and connect to your iPhone. Once you’ve connected navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app/
Now locate the file N88AP.plist, rename it and add .bak to the end of the filename, this will act as a backup file so that you can revert to the original setting.
Now drag the N88AP.plist that you downloaded and put it in the same folder as the original was in.

Now navigate to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Celestial.framework/N88/
Now locate the files:
– AVCapture.plist
– CameraRollValidator.plist
– MediaValidator.plist

Rename them all and add .bak to the end of the filenames.
Now drag the AVCapture.plist, CameraRollValidator.plist, and MediaValidator.plist files that you downloaded and put it in the same folder as you just navigated to.

Now just restart your iPhone 3GS and your HD video recording will be enabled.

FaceTime for Mac beta Released

One of the smaller announcements from todays event is FaceTime now has it’s own app for Mac and although it’s in beta it works just like you’d expect. It imports your contacts and then allows you to call either their phone number or email address of the other device and will attempt to call them. I’ve tried calling my MacBook from my iPhone 4 and vice versa and it both cases it worked flawlessly. The best thing is there is nothing to set up it’s just ready to go straight away. Hopefully we will see this technology being deployed in Windows and Linux soon but for now if your on a Mac and know someone with a FaceTime capable device then install it now and give them a surprise call.

Limera1n Released A Day Prior To greenpois0n’s Release

In the last few hours a big disruption in the jailbreak scene with the release of limera1n, the untethered jailbreak from geohot. That’s right the same geohot who left the jailbreak scene after he kept getting pestered by people about jailbreak releases. Over the last 6 months, geohot has been working on the jailbreak for the last 6 months. On the website, over at limera1n.com, it says that it’s unpatchable and that it will work on the iPad, iPod Touch 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G on the firmware 4.0 and above. This jailbreak is in beta and so is very messy and so MusleNerd of the Chronic Dev-Team has said on Twitter to wait for the release of greenpois0n.

The limera1n jailbreak is only currently avaliable for Windows but geohot is working on a Mac & Linux version of the software. There have been a few reported issues with the jailbreak so far such as the 3GS new bootrom not being supported. The release comes a day before The Chronic Dev-Teams release of their untethered jailbreak greenpois0n, which uses a different exploit.

Currently it’s not known what The Chronic Dev-Team will do as they have 3 options available to them, they can either: not release greenpois0n and save the exploit, release the greenpois0n jailbreak and use a second exploit or use geohot’s exploit and then possibly break the ETA of 10:10:10 10/10/10 GMT.

It seems that geohot has done thing on purpose but has released in a sense, an incomplete solution just to spite The Chronic Dev-Team and their efforts. The Chronic Dev-Team are still talking at this point and trying to come to a decision of what to do, the best decision in most peoples opinion would be for them to implement the limera1n exploit and keep the SHAtter exploit for future releases.

If your thinking of using the limera1n release please know that the iPhone Dev-Team and The Chronic Dev-Team were not involved in it’s creation and therefore any issues caused by it shouldn’t have to be fixed by them as it’s geohot’s software which he choose to release in beta. I would recommend waiting for the greenpoison release, it may take a few more days but at least you’ll know all the issues will be fixed. I’ll keep everyone updated on the happenings in the jailbreak scene, make sure to check back frequently for any updates.

Update: The Chronic Dev-Team have chosed to release the greenpois0n jailbreak tool using geohot’s exploit and not the SHAtter exploit.

The Chronic Dev-Team Tweet

Cycorder Video Repair Service

If you’ve ever used Cycorder and got a call during a video you know how annoying it is when you go to the video and it won’t play. No matter how hard you try it won’t play back. Some people simply give up, others pay quite a lot of money to a repair company.

I’ve done quite a few videos now and my service has been fully tested and worked 100% of the time. So if you have coruppted cycorder videos you want fixed or know someone who does I will get them fixed and back to you within less than 1 hour after payment in most cases.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Upload the video to WeTransfer (Up to 2GB)
  2. Send the file to sbraidley [at] yahoo.co.uk
  3. I will then download and fix the file and email you with a quote of price and a screenshot of the video for proof if requested.
  4. Send the payment via PayPal and once payment is received I will immediately upload the file back to WeTransfer for you to download.
  5. You now have your fixed video.

At the minute I’m charging a flat fee of $25 per GB. The video can be any length and sound is also processed with the video unlike some other services. I can also promise that you file will never been seen by anyone but you, videos are checked that the process has worked but this does not require the video to be played.

If you can spread the word on this service it would be helpful as I haven’t set up a website yet for my projects.

Game Center Now Live On iOS 4.1, Sans iPhone 3G

So today when Apple released iOS 4.1 everyone thought that it’d bring the new social gaming platform, Game Center to all recent devices except the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G. Turns out that Apple is supporting the second generation iPod Touch but still not the iPhone 3G. Not quite sure as to the reasoning, except to make money but I don’t think Game Center requires recent hardware as it’s just a social gaming platform.