Having sparsely posted on this blog over the last few years apart from moderating comments and updating release dates, due to my time being invested in studying, I feel like it’s time to pick up blogging again. However this time around, I will probably be moving away from Apple news and hopefully moving back to more useful content, something more original. I’ll be working on ideas over the Christmas period and hopefully pick up regular blogging in the new year.
Category: News
Starting up blogging again!
As with my previous attempts at keeping a full time blog, usually things get in the way. I kept up on this blog for a long time and then took a break from posting, with previous blogs I usually deleted them after some time, however rather than deleting this, or moving to a new blog. I have decided to start blogging regularly again, although less about news and more about different ideas and how to’s about tech. There is a vast array of tech news sites that end up posting the same news as everyone else and I wanted to move away from that and to something more unique, so stay tuned and expect to see a lot more content!
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.
White iPhone 4 Finally On Sale
The news has been floating around the internet for a few days now that the white iPhone 4, would finally go on sale and it’s now official. Vodafone UK among others are set to release the white iPhone 4 along with Apple themselves. The official Apple site got updated just after midnight to reflect the arrival of the white iPhone 4 model. Hopefully this also means that there will be no delay in the upcoming next generation white iPhone.
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.
Mac App Store Cracked Already
So it didn’t take long, the new Mac App Store was cracked within hours of it’s release. At current there are two weaknesses in the
anti-piracy system that has been deployed on the Mac App Store.
The first is down to developers mistakes, if they had followed Apple’s guidelines then this one wouldn’t of worked. Some applications just require you to copy the code signature and some other files from a free app, and paste those into a paid app to enable it to run. If the developers had of followed the guidelines then a check would occur where it checks the code signature ID to see if they match the app’s bundle ID.
The second exploit is the removal of the DRM, similar to what happened on the iPhone App Store. It uses an application known as ‘Kickback’, currently the application is unavailable but as soon as the Mac App Store becomes more populated I’m sure we will see the application surface.
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.
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.
greenpois0n Jailbreak ETA Announced
A few minutes ago the Chronic Dev-Team announced that the greenpois0n jailbreak has an ETA of the 10/10/2010 at 10:10:10 GMT. This is going to be a huge relief to all those who accidentally updated their firmware or got an iPhone 4 after 4.0.2 had been pushed out, like me. The jailbreak will be available at the greenpois0n website.
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