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.