Prax here, checking in again to give you some iPhone tidbits.  Since my last post several things have happened in the iPhone community that might be of interest to some of you.

1) Jailbreaking, the new old way- Recently iPhone devs have released a new way of jailbreaking your iPhone in windows.  Called QuickPwn, this basically does the same jailbreaking as the old way but without having to go through all the peskiness of creating new roms and restoring them.  Though this is a “new” way its somewhat more dangerous, because you are editing your rom while it’s still active on the phone.  But it does work alot quicker if you need to jailbreak in a hurry.

2) iPhone 2.0.2 and maybe a break?-  Apple released 2.02 for the iPhone since my last post, this update has had mixed reviews to say the best.  The update aimed to “fix” 3G issues that many users were reporting, Apple also seemed to refine some other portions of the rom as well.   From what I have heard from various sources, iPhone dev team has started to take a look at jailbreaking this new version of the OS, but someone apparently didn’t want to wait.  Appearing on several forums earlier today a few iPhone users were able to use the QuickPwn software above to jailbreak the latest OS.  Seeing this done I wanted to try it myself, I can report that the jailbreak went smoothly and I am running 2.02 on my device now with the Cydia installer app loaded.  But this install isn’t without its quirks, for one some of the customizing apps do not skin the OS correctly, and a few of the applications available in Cydia don’t work as they should, but over all I am happy enough to use the phone right now.  Once iPhone dev releases their latest jailbreaking tool I will reflash and use that.

3) To fix your crashing phone downgrade iTunes?- Earlier today in a unusually long e-mail from Steve Jobs to a news site reporting on iPhone apps crashing, the CEO reported that Apple is well aware of the issues users are having with crashing iPhone apps, and they are working to get a fix into the customers hands by next month.  The news site who employs an ex-Apple engineer suggested a temporary fix to its readers in the form of uninstalling the 7.7.1 version of iTunes and reinstalling version 7.7 .  While I cannot report on the success of this, it might be something to look at if you having issues with Apps crashing on your iPhone.

4) Copy cat- One of the most requested features that iPhone users want from Apple is a copy and paste function at the OS level.  While there are some hints and rumors from Apple about this mainly being some loose calls in the most recent development build of the iPhone OS.  There hasn’t been any official word from Apple if this feature will ever be implemented.  So while we wait with baited thumbs, a 3rd party developer has taken up the torch to add the much lusted after feature to a few apps.  By publishing a framework or set of programming tools to other app developers this developer is hoping to integrate his copy and paste function across multiple applications.   While this is far from a perfect solution, I wish the developer luck in his or her endeavor.

5) The iPhone 3G becoming a real class act-  Earlier today, news broke that a Alabama woman, brought about a class action lawsuit in which she names Apple computer for creating a “defective phone”.  She sites lots calls, and spotty reception for 3G network, she also goes on to say that phone is overall slower then she expected.  Not much info is known about what will happen with this class action, but I foresee that this isn’t the last apple has heard about this.

With that I close the first I hope of many chapters of iPhone notes; I will keep my eyes open, for more news to bring the readers of this blog.

Hey all Prax here, this is my initial posting on Wetwierd, and for the initial posting I am going to run though how to jailbreak an iPhone 3g in the windows world.  As Pylorns wrote about how to hack an iPhone on Apple Mac(Leopard) I decided I would help out the rest of the world who aren’t using those Mac things.  This guide is going to assume you know nothing about jailbreaking or cell phones.

First off lets run down a list of what we need to do this, first of course we will need an iPhone (of course) and a windows machine, personally I used my gaming box, that’s running Vista Ultimate edition 64 bit, but any vanilla windows box should work pretty much the same way.  Below is the first of many screenshots you will find in this guide, but it lists all the files you will need.

Going though this list I will explain each of the files and why ya need them.

1) winpwn- this is the application that will actually do all the work for us

2) iPhone roms- There are two of the listed here, you need to grab one from Apple the other one is one you will create.

3) winscp416.exe- this is not a required file but it is great for ftp’ing stuff back and forth to your newly jailbroken iPhone.

4) putty.exe- yet another app that isn’t required, but is of great use once you jail break you iPhone.

So now we got everything you need, or at least know what to look for lets move on to the first step, installing winpwn.  Its pretty easy just double click and keep hitting next until your done, once your done launch the application from the desktop icon it just created.  Once started you will be presented with the following screen.

Once you do the above, it will request an open dialog that you need to select the Apple rom that you downloaded earlier.

Once you select it, it will go though a verification of the rom.  Then the following screen will come up.

Once you have done that and winpwn has going though the check of the rom then click on the IPSW Builder. This will bring up the following dialog.

This shows what applications will be installed by default in the jailbroken rom.  Onto the next screen.

As you can see in the screen above you can select a boot up and a restore screen.  You can either select a boot logo from one that you have on your hard drive or search online for several.  You can skip the Customer payload screen and go directly to the advanced screen.

This is the most dangerous screen in the entire process, but everything works right the above settings will work on pretty much any iphone upgraded to 2.0.  Once the screen looks like it does above click on Build .ipsw file and save it some place you can find later. Once that is done you will get a pop up that looks like this.

Once that is done and you hit ok you will be shown the following screen.

Once you click the button the application will ask for the rom that you created earlier, after you tell the app where to find that file it will “enable” itunes to accept that particular file.   When it is ready you will get this.

Next you will want to dismiss this window and set your phone to what they call DFU Mode.  To do this hold down the power button and the home button at the same time, the screen will go completely blank at this point plug in the iPhone to the computer and load up itunes, but what ever you DO NOT RELEASE THE HOME BUTTON, you can release the power button though.  Soon after if everything went right, iTunes will display this dialog.

Once that happens, you will be taken to the iPhone restore screen and you will have to select the restore option.  But you want to select the rom that we made earlier using winpwn.  To do that hold down the SHIFT key and click the restore button, it will ask you to select the correct ipsw.  iTunes will start to do a restore, your iPhone will blank out several times and look kinda scary but I assure you that if you did all the previous steps everything should work right. Your iPhone will reboot itself, once it does iTunes will ask if you want to do a restore or treat this as a new phone.  This decision is up to you.  If you set the phone as new, you will be asked what to sync to the phone and it will be like the first time you plugged in your iPhone. If you choose to restore your iPhone it will be back to the way it was before you started the process.  After all this when your iPhone is finished booting, you will notice two new apps on your iPhone, Installer and Cydia, both of these installers will install 3rd party apps, but thats a blog from a different time.  Also I will go into what to do if you need to restore back to the original Apple rom.

Prax