iPhone World

One Jailbreak to Rule Them All – Spirit

Vaelek — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:43:04 +0000

After what seems like forever, it is finally here… Some of you have waited a very long time for an untethered jailbreak, and the wait is now over. Enter Spirit.

With Spirit, you can now jailbreak ALL devices (iPad is ‘beta’) on the latest firmware, in about as much time as it takes to read this, maybe less. Anyone currently using a tethered jailbreak is going to want to do a restore before running Spirit on it.

The beauty of Spirit is that it is a userland jailbreak. To you, this basically means you don’t have to mess around with putting your device into recovery or DFU mode. It’s as simple as plug it in, click, wait for it to reboot.

The timing for Spirit couldn’t have been better as a few hours ago my 3GS decided to freeze, and upon forcing a reboot, proceeded to no longer stay powered on for more than 10 seconds at a time, ending in a ‘fsck failed’ error.

The process is the fastest yet. From the time I clicked the Jailbreak button, to the time I was back at the springboard running Cydia, 2 minutes. That is to say, once I got past this..

At first I realized I had iTunes open, figuring that had to be the problem I closed it and tried again. Same thing. Running it as Administrator also did no good.

All is not lost, and the solution is quite simple. You just have to set the compatibility mode for Spirit to Windows 98. Once I figured that out, the rest was a piece of cake.

Spirit doesn’t have any fancy options, or rather, any options. You can’t set verbose booting, boot logos, installing icy or any packages, but what it does it does very well. And as long as you’ve got Cydia, the rest is just a matter of installing.

Check out the Spirit page for more information and download links for Windows and OSX.

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µGrowl 1.0.1 Posted – Minor bug fix

Vaelek — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:20:08 +0000

So there are still some things I want to get added to µGrowl, but have been slow at working on it mainly because all of you seem to be quite content with its current state. For those that haven’t been following the forums, the main addition was to be integration with a torrent site or two. This has proven to be fruitless as site layouts are constantly changing and maintaining such a thing would be a nightmare. So that has all been scrapped.

Don’t cry just yet though, while there won’t be full-on integration, there will be RSS support. This may not seem like much, and you may wonder why I’d bother since µTorrent can already do RSS, so I’ll tell you. The biggest weakness in the µTorrent WebUI (in my opinion) is the lack of ability to view any of the feeds in µTorrent. If you have feeds that are not set to auto download, you must use µTorrent itself to get them going. With the RSS addition, it won’t be quite perfect, as feeds in µTorrent will not display in µGrowl. Rather the idea would be to add the feeds separately (or only) to µGrowl. It is not in this release, but I have already worked out adding a .torrent file via µGrowl. See where I’m going with this? After the next update, there will be little need to ever look at µTorrent itself. Some other little things will be coming also, like confirmation when removing things.

Soooo. Now that you know what is NOT in this release, let me tell you what is. Don’t get too excited because it’s nothing major. A bug was discovered that would prevent Windows from shutting down if µGrowl is running. A number of folks had reported this in the forums, and I am happy to announce that it has been fixed.

Head on over to the µGrowl page to grab the latest version!

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Chrome extension ‘BrokeTunes’ = free songs on iTunes & Amazon

Vaelek — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:31:58 +0000

I haven’t gotten a single song from iTunes, ever, but a lot of you have. Apparently, both iTunes and Amazon release free singles and sometimes complete albums on a daily basis. I installed it for this write-up, and of the currently 10 songs available, spanning 3 days worth, I have not heard of a single one of the artists. I’m not sure if it’s because of the fact that next to nothing I listen to would ever appear on any Top 40 list, or if these are just totally obscure and unheard of artists. Either way, if you find something you like here, then this post has served its purpose.

In order to install this you will need to be running the 4.x version of Chrome, and visit the extension page at http://www.chromeextensions.org/music-videos-photos/broketunes/

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Localization Fail – Vielen Dank, Apple

Vaelek — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:50:18 +0000

This isn’t really news, and is barely iPhone related, but since I’m trying to make more posts, here you go..

This is either the result of bad programming, or just a shiny PR page. A few days ago I finally registered my wife’s iPhone with the AppleCare plan. Today I got an email asking me to complete a survey. I usually don’t do those, but I figured why not.

After answering what I think was 6 questions (which Apple estimated would take me 3 minutes), I was presented with the following page. Keep in mind all of the questions were given in only English. Why? because my browser reported my language as English. The fact that I had to make it over 1/2 way down the page before I had a clue what I was looking at puts the icing on the cake.

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Disabling ads in Cydia

Vaelek — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:56:34 +0000

While it can be a bit annoying, I can understand why free apps often come with ads. If done correctly, there is nothing wrong with this, it’s free, so you can’t really complain. What I do have a problem with however, is when the ads are placed so as to make it difficult to use the app without accidentally tapping on the ad. 9 times out of 10, this is done intentionally, and this I have no patience for. Cydia doesn’t have too many ads, but when they do show up, they can get a little out of hand. Lately I have been noticing more and more of the ads that will follow you as you scroll down the page, to the point where they can make it difficult to read app descriptions.

There is a quick easy way to eliminate these ads altogether. To rid yourself of these dreadful things, FTP/SSH to your device, and modify the file /Applications/Cydia.app/package.js. What you are looking for should be on line 209.

Find this

if (depiction == null)

and change it to

if (depiction == null || true)

From that point on, you can enjoy an ad free Cydia. There will however still be ads on the screenshot pages, but at least they will be gone from the app details, and they will load faster also.

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AT&T to lose iPhone exclusivity on Wednesday?

Vaelek — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:27:00 +0000

There are a number of rumors going around about just what Apple will be announcing on January 27th. iPhone OS 4.0 and 4G device, the Apple Tablet, and possibly the most noteworthy, is that an “inside source” claims that the iPhone will finally be liberated from the clutches of AT&T, at least exclusively.

Who will Apple call on to run with the ball now? Verizon? T-Mobile? Or will we begin seeing legitimately unlocked iPhones begin to surface? Will current AT&T customers run in droves to escape, even at the cost of early termination fees?

The other big speculation is that OS 4.0 will finally feature the ability to run applications in the background. Will it actually happen? If it did, it would be a step in the direction of finally allowing iPhone owners the control they deserve over their devices, rather than only what Apple thinks you can handle.

One thing I’ve learned since I began following Apple news, is that they do not ‘leak’ information, and the rumor mill is rarely inaccurate. Apple is a media machine. Event after event, blogs all over the place speculate about what Apple is going to announce. Key bits of information always manage to make themselves known, and the rumors always seem to turn out to be true.

What do you think? will OS 4.0 be announced? Will background applications finally be a reality? Will iPhone users finally be free to choose their own carrier? Will the 4G iPhone sport dual mode GSM / CDMA? Stay tuned Wednesday, same iPhone time, same iPhone channel.

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Follow & RT for a chance to win a Google Wave invite

Vaelek — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 08:16:41 +0000

A while ago I offered a chance to win an invite to Google Wave via Twitter. Unfortunately, due to the rather low number of followers so far, the response was, well, zero. Just by the law of averages, based on the number of visitors IPW gets, at least some of you have to be dying to get your hands on an invite. So I figured it was time to mention the offer here on the blog. Not only do you get a chance to win, you also help spread the word to those who haven’t heard of us yet.

So here’s the deal…

Over on the right you will see the new Follow Us badge. Simply click that, sign in if needed to your twitter account, follow us, and re-tweet our tweet for this post. For those of you reading this from the feed, there is a follow us link at the bottom of the post.

For this contest, I have 20 Google Wave invites to give away. I haven’t fully decided yet, but the winners will be chosen in one of two ways:

Randomly
Based on a comment left stating what it is you intend to use your Wave account for. The service is still fairly new and I’m sure there are a lot of people that aren’t quite sure what it is, or what it might be used for. If you really have no idea what it is all about, then say so, and consideration will be given for you as well.

Being that I haven’t decided yet, I would suggest just going ahead and leaving that comment, either here or via Twitter (Just make sure to include @iFoneWorld if you do it on Twitter). The winners will be chosen next week.

If you don’t have an interest in Google Wave, it could still be beneficial for you to follow us because when this contest is over, I will be giving away invites for Google Voice and Ribbit Mobile, which I’m sure much more will have an interest in.

Good Luck!

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Facebook updated. Now supports Push/Sync!

Vaelek — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:47:58 +0000

So it’s been quite a while since the last post I know. The problem is I always have more to say on a topic than I have time to write it. Postings will hopefully be resuming opting for a brief write up if that’s all I can manage, with later edits to get out everything there is to say.

Now on with the post!

Facebook published an update today that claims to add push and contact synching. This is great news as both of these are long overdue. Unfortunately, after installing the update, both features seem to be MIA. There is no prompt to allow push notifications when launching the app, it doesn’t appear in the notification settings, or in the app options (all 2 of them). Likewise there is no option that I can find to sync contacts anywhere. All in all it looks as if there are no changes whatsoever in this update.

~~I call FAIL.~~

Not wanting to admit defeat I uninstalled the Facebook app and re-downloaded it. After signing back in I was finally greeted by the push approval dialog, as well as being able to locate the options in the settings app now. The notification settings allow you to choose to receive alerts for Messages, Wall posts, Friend requests & confirmations, tags, events, and comments so if you are getting flooded with notifications you can tweak it a bit.

It was not immediately apparent that synching was now available as it only shows up if you are viewing your friends list. There are a number of apps available for synchronizing your contacts with Facebook, I believe all of which are not free so this is a nice addition also. It is fool-proof to use and “just works”, but does not offer as many features as some of the 3rd party apps, such as displaying and resolving conflicts, or providing the option to manually match contacts to friends.

There also seems to be an addition that is not mentioned in the updates, which is the ability to change the feed you are viewing. Any feeds you have defined within the site are available in the app.

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µGrowl 1.0 Released!

Vaelek — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:00:00 +0000

µGrowl has finally moved out of beta and in to 1.0. Especially for those of you still on 0.9.3, there are loads of new features here!

Be aware that it seems the WebUI in the new beta of uTorrent causes some notifications to not work correctly.

New in 1.0

Ability to start / stop / remove / remove+delete any torrent in the list

remove and remove+delete do so with no confirmation.

Ability to start with Windows finally!
Ability to add a new torrent by URL
Selectable columns include status, upload/download speed, % done, ratio, seeds & peers, total downloaded/uploaded, ETA, and label.
Columns can be clicked to sort and all columns sort perfectly
Columns can be rearranged but the positions are not saved
Torrents with a ratio of 1 or greater can be shown in bold
Automatic check for updates, which can be disabled in the settings
Automatic check for important notices, also can be disabled
Tweaked the status coloring
Fixed a bug causing the window to be resizable only once per execution
Fixed a bug causing the window to be visible when minimized to the tray
Fixed a number of other bugs that now escape me

Still to come:

The ability to add a .torrent file directly (as you can with the WebUI)
The ability to send comments and feedback from within µGrowl
Compatibility with the upcoming release of uTorrent
Your request here

So everyone head over to the µGrowl page and download the 1.0 release!

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iPhone 3GS owners beware of powered dock accessories

Vaelek — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:53:01 +0000

I’ve seen a few forum postings recently from people claiming the Belkin FM tuner kit is doing bad things to the 3GS. It is claimed that simply plugging a 3GS into these docks while they are powered will fry the dock port on your phone. The problem seems to only be for the 3GS so if you have a previous model you should be fine. The only one “confirmed” to cause this problem looks to be the Tunebase model, pictured on the right. This report could be nothing, but one user who had this problem stated it happened to multiple 3GS phones while working just fine with a 3G, so on the side of caution, be warned. If this is a true problem, then there could be other accessories that could cause the same results.

Anyone own one of these and used it with their 3GS? Post your results in the comments.

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µGrowl updated, Snarl now supported!

Vaelek — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:02:44 +0000

Version 0.9.9 Beta of µGrowl has just been released. This one has some major UI changes and enhancements. Read the official write-up and download the newest version at the µGrowl page. It is now at 0.9.9 Beta as I hope this will be the final beta release, and may already prove stable enough to become 1.0.

-The screenshot still shows 0.9.3, I know, yours won’t

Changes in 0.9.9 Beta

Complete UI redesign.
Added Snarl support.
Added a list of all currently active torrents.
Added µTorrent bandwidth usage on status bar.
Counts for total, active, downloading & seeding are displayed.
Errors now displayed for authentication or connection failures.
Window is now resizable.
Settings have been moved off of the main window.
Removed from Alt-Tab list when minimized.
Close button now minimizes to the tray.
Fixed bug preventing the server settings from being saved in some cases.
View menu now has option to turn on debug messages. Not much at this point.
Support link added to the help menu.

Features yet to come

Ability to start, stop, remove & delete torrents from within µGrowl
Ability to control µTorrent max bandwidth usage from µGrowl
Ability to add torrents right from µGrowl
Toggle to display all torrents, not just active
Control run at startup
Your request here?

Head over to the µGrowl page to download.

The interest in µGrowl is much higher than I thought it would have been. Once again I want to say that this is provided at no charge. If you feel µGrowl is worth a few bucks, even if you feel it is worth a quarter, please consider making a donation.

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Google states Phil Schiller personally rejected Google Voice app

Vaelek — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:21:33 +0000

You all remember the statements Apple and Google submitted to the FCC in response to the inquiry regarding the rejection of Google Voice and Google Latitude from the AppStore, and you all remember what Apple said. What you may or may not remember, is that Google requested parts of its own statement to be made confidential. Recently they have released the complete statement to the public.

In Apple’s release, they claimed Google Voice had not been rejected, it just was still under review and had not been approved.

In the now public statement, Google states

Apple’s representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone. The Apple representatives indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality.

In Google’s statement, it is claimed that Phil Schiller, the senior VP of marketing, had several meetings, phone calls, and numerous e-mail exchanges with Alan Eustace, Google’s senior VP of Engineering & Research. Of those conversations, on July 7, Schiller told Eustace over the phone, that the app was being rejected because it duplicated core functionality.

Apple has apparently issued a statement in response to the new information in which they say they do not agree with all of the statements made by Google and maintain that they are still reviewing the Google Voice app, stressing it has yet to be rejected. In the spirit of obscurity, they of course did not indicate which statements they are disagreeing with, and to me this sounds like they are just repeating what they said in their initial statement. PR for PRs sake.

So who do you believe? Apple or Google? The part I like about this is that Apple seems up a creek either way. If they did in fact reject the app, then perhaps the FCC will come in and lay the smack down. On the other hand, if they by some miracle actually still reviewing the app, then it is more obvious than ever that their approval process is horribly broken and unreliable, in which case again, we may be hearing more from the FCC. Additionally, if they haven’t been able since July to determine if the GV app uses VoIP technology, then they are looking rather incompetent. Any developer can tell you it would be no large task to solve this mystery, and that just makes Apple look even worse for intentionally appearing to be incompetent.

After all of this, still do not forget that Phil Schiller himself, personally approved the other Google Voice app, GV Mobile, which was also later removed from the AppStore.

I for one am tired of this whole game. No manufacturers, carriers, government agencies, nor any other entity, is going to tell me what I can and can not have on the phone I bought and rightfully own, and can safely say that without the existence of the Dev-Team for the jailbreaks and the work of Saurik most notably on Cydia, I would have never owned an iPhone in the first place, as I’m sure hundreds of thousands of others would agree.

To read Google’s full uncensored response to the FCC, check it out on their website.

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Follow us on Twitter

Vaelek — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:34:21 +0000

There are a lot of minor bits of information on a daily basis that I see or discover on my own that may be useful to some folks but don’t really warrant a post devoted to them. For these random thoughts, I’ve decided I will start posting little blurbs on Twitter, along with notices when new posts go up here. With that said, if you want to be sure to keep up on the breaking news before I can get to a computer to post about it, get notified when new articles are posted, or just want to read the random musings of yet another blogger, give us a follow on Twitter. As you can imagine, iPhoneWorld is already taken. I am feeling rather uninventive, and so we are now officially tweeting under iFoneWorld.

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OS 3.1 Has Been Jailbroken!

Vaelek — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:39:22 +0000

The Dev-Team has wasted no time getting the 3.1 jailbreak working. Just posted to there blog is the announcement that PwnageTool has been released for 3.1. Before you get too excited, as always, the first release is the Mac version. Shortly we will have a Windows version, and then finally Redsn0w to make the process a breeze. There will be no need to wait for an updated Ultrasn0w as PwnageTool will preserve your baseband.

The other bad news, it is not yet ready for the iTouch 2G & 3G, or the iPhone 3GS. While some of still have to wait, things are in motion and we are well on our way now.

If you are a Redsn0w user, and rely on the ability to have an unlocked phone, then now is the time to move to PwnageTool. Going forward, each time a new firmware is released, you will need to rebuild it with PwnageTool in order to keep the vulnerable 04.26.08 baseband. Which, for the curious, you can view in Settings by going to General > About, and scrolling down to modem firmware. I am going to repeat it one more time, if you update to 3.1 (or for now, any version beyond that) with the official ipsw and not a custom PwnageTool one, you WILL lose the ability to unlock your phone, possibly forever.

So if you’ve got a Mac, head on over and get your Pwn on

One other thing worth noting, is that everyone except us 3GS owners should be able to use a custom firmware generated by anyone else. So you folks without Macs may want to keep an eye out for someone to post it, as always happens.

If you’re heading over there now, or if you’ve already been through it, let’s hear how it went? Any hiccups?

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Q&A Vol 1

Vaelek — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:41:02 +0000

After watching the stats for the site for a while now I’ve seen people show up here by searching for all kinds of things, sometimes they land on a page that answers their question, sometimes they do not. I’ve decided that I will have regular Q&A posts to answer those that are not covered. Ideally this will be weekly, but we’ll see how it goes. Anyhow, on with the show…

Q: Should I trust Saurik/Cydia with my ECID/SHSH?
A: Absolutely! I can think of no better hands to put that information into than Saurik. Though this is a bit of a moot point at this time since Apple is no longer signing for 3.0. I don’t believe it it available yet, but I’m sure something similar will appear for 3.1 as well. When it does, I would urge everyone to have their SHSH on file with Cydia. I still want to dedicate a proper post to this topic, but for the information hungry, check out this VERY well written post by Saurik.

Q: Does AppSync work with iTunes 9?
A: Yep! Though usb ssh doesn’t appear to work yet.

Q: Will iTunes 9 remove Cydia?
A: No.

Q: If I reset my phone will it remove Cydia?
A: If by reset, you meant restore, yes it will remove everything.

Q: Will Winterboard make my [device] run slower?
A: Unfortunately, yes. Overall there isn’t much of a difference, the biggest slow down will be noticed when respringing, or when returning to the springboard after closing an app.

Q: How can I change the UDID?
A: There was an app called UDID Changer, but all traces of it seem to have vanished. I’m not even sure if it would work in a 3.x world. Currently there is no way I am aware of. But I assure you there is a way.

Q: Can someone steal my ECID and hack my phone?
A: No

Q: Can I install Cydia on 3.1?
A: As of September 15, 2009, No. 3.1 has not yet been jailbroken. The DevTeam has confirmed a well known exploit still exists and it shouldn’t be long before PwnageTool works with 3.1, and of course Redsn0w will follow shortly after. YES! As of 2hrs ago it is now possible. Note that as always, the initial release is just for PwnageTool, and just for Mac. Note that the 3GS, and iTouch 2G/3G are not yet supported. See the Dev-Team’s post for details and expect a guide here once everything is completed.

Q: How to set permission 755?
A: First I will clarify. This is what needs to be done after transferring an app via SSH (WinSCP or FileZilla). It sets the permissions to executable, readable, and writable. If it is not, when you attempt to launch the app, it will crash immediately. To do this with WinSCP or FileZilla, right click on the app folder and choose set permissions (actual wording may vary). You will see a number in the window that opens along with a bunch of check boxes. Change the number to 755, and select the option to recurse into subdirectories. To do it from the command line, you would either launch Terminal on the device, or connect via SSH. After changing to the correct folder (most likely /Applications), you would type chmod –R 755 Yourapp.app where Yourapp.app is the name of the folder containing the application. To change the permission of a single file just omit the –R.

Q: How do I set up uGrowl?
A: Can you be more specific? Post your questions in the forums please!

Q: “uGrowl bug torrent add”
A: I’m not sure what the problem is that you found, but kindly post more details in the forums!

Q: Why does my phone drop calls when plugging in headphones?
A: See this post

Q: Why doesn’t my iPhone split music into each headphone?
A: I’m taking that to mean stereo audio is not working. I had an Apple audio cable that ended up to be quite cheap and one of the wires must have severed because I only get stereo if I pull it to one side coming out of the plug. Point is, for any problems like this, always rule out any cables, connectors, adapters, headphones, etc first as that’s where the problem usually lies.

Q: How can I downgrade from 3.1?
A: I’ve been meaning to post on this, but see this article for an excellent guide.

Q: What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0.1?
A: Basically, the only difference is there is a nasty SMS bug that could allow someone to gain complete control of your phone. You would know as you would receive a text message containing only a square. Developers would know this as an unprintable character. Should you receive one of these, they say you should turn your phone off immediately, but I say it would be just as effective and slightly faster to enable airport mode. Give it a few minutes and you should be good to go.

Q: I’m in a respring loop, help!
A: If you are fortunate enough to have installed SSH and syslog, I highly recommend connecting via SSH and issuing the command tail –f /var/log/syslog. This will list logged entries as soon as they are added. Often you can get a clue as to what is going on from this. It has saved me multiple times from having to restore. If you are not one of the lucky ones, I’d suggest rebooting it and if all else fails be prepared to do a restore. Next time install syslog!

Q: Is it safe to generate a provisioning profile using a hackintosh?
A: Absolutely!

Q: Does jailbreaking remove some functionality?
A: Absolutely not! Quite the opposite in fact.

Q: dpkg-i command not found
A: You need to put a space before the –i there sparky

Q: Will my unlocked iPhone 2G/3G[S] stay unlocked if I update to 3.1?
A: NO NO NO NO NO! While unlikely, if you update now, you could potentially lose the ability to unlock for good! You MUST wait until PwnageTool is updated for 3.1 so you can restore with a custom firmware containing the 3.0 baseband. While you may be able to downgrade back to 3.0, the baseband is not able to be downgraded and you will be up a creek until a new exploit is found.

Q: Can I install Cydia/SSH/FTP to/etc without jailbreaking?
A: No. Installing Cydia should be synonymous with jailbreaking.

Q: Restore from backup removes Cydia?
A: Sortof. It seems after restoring a backup, the Cydia app and anything installed via Cydia remain on the device, they just do not appear on the springboard. I honestly couldn’t tell you if there is a way to make them appear again or what exactly causes them not to appear. I always advise against restoring a backup unless absolutely necessary. Many random problems tend to creep up as a result of this whether the device is jailbroken or not. Restoring a backup is especially not recommended if it was made while running a previous major version of the OS (ie 2.x to 3.x).

And that wraps it up for the first installment of Q&A here.

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.NET Comes To iPhone Development!!

Vaelek — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:06:32 +0000

I don’t know how I didn’t know about this sooner, but it appears the long wait is [sort of] over. .NET has come to iPhone development. Yes, you heard me, the ability to write for the iPhone in C# is here.

This changes everything.

First, the bad news.. It’s not free. The personal edition will set you back $400. There was a beta test program but 1.0 was released today so there will be no more of that. I’m sure it will eventually show up on torrent sites but for now there doesn’t seem to be anything out there.

MonoTouch is the Mono edition for Apple’s iPhone and Apple’s iPod Touch devices. MonoTouch allows developers to create C# and .NET based applications that run on the iPhone and can take advantage of the iPhone APIs as well as reusing both code and libraries that have been built for .NET as well as existing skills.

To purchase a copy, you need to head over to Monotouch. It seems this was also just posted to Slashdot, and the site already seems to be suffering, so I am reposting the following from the FAQ which is what most of you will be interested in.

What is MonoTouch?

MonoTouch is a software development kit for Mac OS X that lets you use .NET programming languages to create native applications for Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch devices. MonoTouch allows developers to use the .NET framework and more efficient programming languages, such as C#, to create applications that run on the iPhone and can take advantage of native iPhone APIs. Developers can test MonoTouch applications on the iPhone simulator, as well as physical hardware, and can distribute MonoTouch applications on Apple’s App Store.

What is included in the MonoTouch SDK?

MonoTouch is delivered as a static compiler that turns .NET executables and libraries into native applications. There is no JIT or interpreter shipped with your application, only native code. In addition to the core Base Class Libraries that are part of Mono, MonoTouch also ships with bindings for various iPhone APIs to allow developers to create native iPhone applications with Mono.

Do I need a Mac to use MonoTouch?

MonoTouch requires a Mac and Apple’s iPhone SDK to test on the emulator and deploy on the device. And you will need to be an Apple iPhone developer to deploy on the device.

How is MonoTouch Licensed?

MonoTouch is a commercial product based on the open source Mono project and is licensed on a per-developer basis.

With which version of .NET is MonoTouch compatible?

MonoTouch is based on a hybrid .NET 2.0 and Silverlight 2 API profile. If you want to use existing C# code, you will need to compile it from scratch using our compiler and tools to make sure that the proper assemblies are referenced.

What .NET features does MonoTouch support?

MonoTouch supports garbage collection, multi-threading, and many features of .NET 3.5, including C# 3.0 and LINQ, with some exceptions due to the security system in the device. See Limitations for more information about the limitations of MonoTouch.

Does MonoTouch support running Silverlight /Moonlight applications?

No.MonoTouch does not currently include Moonlight or Silverlight functionality.

What is the difference between MonoTouch Personal Edition and MonoTouch Enterprise Edition?

A MonoTouch Personal Edition license is non-transferable, entitles the owner to one year of MonoTouch updates, and allows distribution of applications built with MonoTouch on Apple’s App Store.

A MonoTouch Enterprise Edition license is owned by a legal entity for use by one developer at any given time, entitles the owner to one year of MonoTouch updates, and allows enterprise deployments of MonoTouch applications, as well as the distribution of applications built with MonoTouch on Apple’s App Store.

Soooo. If anyone decides to pony up the cash for MonoTouch, or happens to find it by some other means, let’s hear about it in the comments. How does it stand up? Is it the biggest thing since sliced bread?

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OS 3.1, iTunes 9, Jailbreakers / Unlockers Caution

Vaelek — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:09:50 +0000

If you haven’t noticed yet, OS 3.1 was made available today as well as iTunes 9. As always, if you are jailbroken and wish to stay that way, do NOT update to 3.1 just yet. Wait for the Dev-Team to release a 3.1 jailbreak. More importantly, if you require the ability to unlock your phone ala ultrasn0w, DO NOT update to 3.1. The 3.1 update has a new baseband and will render your phone un-unlockable, possibly for good. You will need a custom firmware containing the current (04.26.08) baseband. (You can see the version in the Settings app under General and About, look for modem firmware).

Along with that, before updating, I would recommend launching Cydia at least once more. If you haven’t noticed, there is a new announcement on the main screen. After opting in, the top of the app will say you are pending (didn’t grab a shot of that) and eventually it will change to this

It isn’t totally clear if, when, or how these will be used, but the current assumption is it would allow you to downgrade from 3.1 back to 3.0. If you don’t plan on updating to 3.1 until the jailbreak is released, then I wouldn’t worry about this. If you do update to 3.1, it *may* be possible to downgrade back to 3.0 but doing so will keep the updated baseband preventing you from unlocking unless a new exploit is found. Has anyone tried going back to 3.0 after updating? Were you successful?

As far as what’s new in 3.1, the list is not all I could have hoped for but there are a few notable items. One thing that doesn’t seem to be listed is MMS support (beyond an indirect mention anyhow). Seeing as AT&T is turning on MMS support on September 25th, it would be fair to assume 3.1 will have the capability and it will be enabled through iTunes at that time. On with the list.

Genius recommendations for Applications
Support for iTunes 9
Redeem iTunes Gift cards, codes, and certificates in the App Store
Display available iTunes account credits in the App Store and iTunes Store
Browse and download ringtones wirelessly from the iTunes Store
Save video from mail and multimedia messages into Camera Roll
Option to "save as new clip" when trimming a video on iPhone 3GS
Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
Remotely lock iPhone with a passcode via MobileMe
Use Voice Control on iPhone 3GS with Bluetooth headsets
Paste phone numbers into the Keypad
Option to use Home button to turn on Accessibility features on iPhone 3GS
Warn when visiting fraudulent Web sites in Safari (anti-phishing)
Improved Exchange calendar syncing and invitation handling
Fixes issue that caused some app icons to display incorrectly

With iTunes 9 finally comes the ability to rearrange your icons from your computer, big win! It is also not yet known if iTunes 9 has any effect on AppSync 3.0 or ipa’s that it would be needed for. Let us know if you have upgraded if this still works for you.

If you have already upgraded are there any notable changes not mentioned or subtle but useful features that snuck in?

Last, how is Wi-Fi working for everyone? 3.0 seemed to be plagued with instability and unexplained fluxuations in signal strength along with high packet loss, mostly associated with having push email on. Any improvements there?

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Free your RAM

Vaelek — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:42:20 +0000

If you run SBSettings, as it would seem most jailbroken users do, you’ve no doubt seen the Free Memory feature when viewing processes. This is one of those things that I would definitely not respond well to if it went away. The lack of a swap file in iPhoneOS, means memory is much more of a concern than pretty much everywhere else. If your app uses too much memory, it is swiftly terminated by the OS, no questions asked. Poorly written apps will also cause memory leaks and leave you with less free memory than you started with after running and exiting them. Apple’s solution to this? Reboot.

Wut? No thanks. Boot up time for the iPhone 3GS is anything but lightening fast, and the 3G is takes even longer. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I don’t typically restart my phone. This is where the ‘Free Memory’ option is crucial.

The free memory option is not limited to jailbroken users. There are a few AppStore apps that have this ability as well, or at least there were. Apple it seems is having a fit over this function and is forcing developers that currently offer it to remove it or have their apps ejected from the AppStore. Why would they do that?!?!?!?

Here’s my best guess… The method used to free the memory works by allocating everything available. The OS will then see memory levels are critical and start terminating background processes. Here, this means Phone, Mail, and iPod. Of course they automatically restart, and in the end you typically have much more memory available. So what is Apple’s problem? When the apps are terminated, a crash log is produced. These are sent to Apple when you sync. Apple is likely getting flooded with these crash logs and so has decided to pull the plug on the ability to use this method.

What is my response to this? Free your RAM every chance you get. Apple has been all but negligent in their AppStore processes and their refusal to approve certain apps or the adamant rejection of apps that use undocumented or restricted API’s, not to mention the rejections that have no real merit whatsoever. Free your RAM every chance you get. Apple is not a company that exercises the skill of listening to it’s users or even acknowledging when problems exist. They come up with blatant lies to discourage and attempt to make illegal the process of jailbreaking YOUR device that YOU own¹. They spew their bullshit claiming they don’t know if Google Voice uses VoiP technologies, or that it hasn’t been rejected, they just haven’t approved it yet. Come on guys, there is no doubt they have plenty of tools at their disposal that will tell them exactly what your app does, what API’s it uses, etc. Free your RAM every chance you get. They charge $99 a year for the privilege of being able to develop iPhone/iTouch apps, so that you can submit them to the AppStore so they can take another 30% of your profits. What about refunds? A little known fact is that if someone purchases one of your apps, and is later granted a refund for whatever reason, the entire purchase price comes out of YOUR pocket while Apple sits back and keeps it’s 30% commission. Apple is obviously annoyed by what results when users free their memory the efficient way, so let’s stick it to them until it hurts.

Free your RAM every chance you get and use one of the few things that has actually gotten Apple’s attention to protest their [mis]management of just about everything related to the AppStore.

1. Apple’s claim to the copyright office in response to the EFF’s request to officially declare jailbreaking a legal activity. It’s a hefty read, I’ll note some of the key pieces of manure here.

5. In testimony, the Electronic Frontier Foundation stated that the iPhone warranty would not apply to an unauthorized modification on an iPhone. Would other services or functionality be affected by “jailbreaking” an iPhone, e.g., would AT&T phone, data, or GPS functionality be affected? Would AT&T be required to provide service to an iPhone modified by the user?

Apple’s Response:

Yes, ..services and functionality of the iPhone can be affected by jailbreaking of the
phone, as well as services .. on AT&T’s phone and data network. The OS controls a critical portion .. known as the “baseband processor” (“BBP”) that is used to connect .. to a .. network and to utilize services .. Once an iPhone is jailbroken, it is much easier to hack the BBP software .. Such modifications can interfere with ..phone, data, and GPS functionality .. Modifications to the BBP software may introduce .. errors into that software or cause it not to function correctly .., which in turn can render the iPhone incapable of connecting to the network at all in order to make phone calls or send/receive data. Such modifications may also interfere with GPS functionality. There is a special GPS chip in the iPhone that .. computes location of the phone .. However, an enhanced functionality called “assisted GPS” enables the location .. to be pinpointed
with greater accuracy than ordinary GPS by utilizing data about the location of the cell tower to which the user is .. connected. If modifications to the BBP software were to render the user unable to connect to the local AT&T cell phone tower, the assisted GPS functionality would, in turn, not function.

It gets better..

…each iPhone contains a unique Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID) number that identifies the phone to the cell tower. With access to the BBP via jailbreaking, hackers may be able to change the ECID, which in turn can enable phone calls to be made anonymously (this would be desirable to drug dealers, for example) or charges for the calls to be avoided.

To me, this sounds like “We didn’t make the devices and network secure enough and people figured it out, rather than fix anything, outlaw jailbreaking!” Seriously guys… We’re on the 4th generation now with the 3GS and they haven’t managed to store this uber-sensitive data in ROM? Implement a secure handshake process between the towers and devices that is based on more than one piece of information? Add a carrier password of some form that the user chooses which is authenticated with the tower? All of the ill-doings Apple is claiming are possible with jailbreaking come down to design faults in the end. Poorly implemented protocols that can be easily hacked. History has proven time and time again that the black box design approach does not work. Security through obscurity is not a solution but an effort to cover up a poor implementation. I also like how they state specifically state “this would be desirable to drug dealers”. Ok, it would also be desirable to illegal telemarketers, robo-callers, collection agencies, scammers, politicians, basically anyone who might want to make an anonymous call.

I could go on and rant about Apple’s incompetence and need to play puppet master for another 15 paragraphs. Perhaps another day as if I continue this is likely going to meander a bit past the “all-ages” rating I aim to keep here.

FREE YOUR RAM EVERY CHANCE YOU GET. Make Apple bend over and take it without any lube while convincing them it’s really better that way, just like they do to their users.

Got something to add? Go.

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Facebook 3.0 finally available

Vaelek — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:16:48 +0000

Nobody can deny the fact that the Facebook app has been quite lacking for some time. After waiting forever for an update, Joe Hewitt announced 3.0 was finally complete and submitted. After waiting in queue to get its allocated 10 minutes or so of review time, it finally showed up in the AppStore ~~tonight~~ yesterday (believe it or not I started typing this paragraph yesterday).

By now I’d imagine most everyone has already updated but I still have to at least give it a mention. The functionality boost from 2.3 to 3.0 is the difference between Windows 3.1 and XP. Better notifications, notes, events, pages, chat, it’s all there. Long overdue is also the ability to now manually refresh posts, ‘like’ posts, and even the ability to apply your filters to the news feed. Along with all of this, icons can be added for profiles and pages that you might frequent.

The icons can also be rearranged the same way as the springboard icons, just hold one for a few seconds. This is cool, but if you’re like me it’ll take a while to get used to NOT pressing the home button when you are finished rearranging and closing the app. Doh!

All in all, this is an awesome update. Personally, given the bugs and lack of functionality, I would have considered everything prior to 3.0 to be beta. Now we wait for 3.1 on which work started immediately after submitting 3.0. The only change coming in 3.1 I can say for sure is that it will finally bring push notifications to Facebook.

A few people seem to dislike the new version. What do you all think? After only 5 minutes I could never go back to pre-3.0.

New Features

- Landscape mode
- See your upcoming Events and RSVP
- See your friends’ birthdays
- See Pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
- Write Notes and read your friends’ Notes
- Upload videos from an iPhone 3GS
- Upload photos to any album
- Complete photo management (create albums, delete albums, delete photos, delete photo tags)
- Change your Profile Picture
- Zoom into photos
- Like posts and photos
- See the same News Feed as the Facebook website
- Visit links in a built-in web browser
- See all of your friends’ friends and Pages
- See mutual friends
- Easily search for people and Pages
- Make friend requests
- Become a fan of Pages
- Quickly call or text your friends
- Create shortcuts to your favorite friends and Pages
- Friends sorted by first or last name according to your settings
- Chat friends sorted alphabetically

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A message from Saurik to all Winterboard themers

Vaelek — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:44:19 +0000

Being physically unable to upgrade anything, ever, without first reading the change log, I noticed a message from Saurik in the latest Winterboard update. Given that the message is 2 taps from the package screen I’m guessing most folks have not and will not ever see it so I am re-posting it here in an attempt to spread the word.

A Word on Remapping Files

I have gotten a flood of questions from users asking why SMS themes “don’t work”. The answer is: the applications changed, and the people making the themes refused to upgrade them.

WinterBoard is designed to be very flexible: it can theme nearly anything. With such power comes responsibility. In essence, the process of making a theme for WinterBoard requires an understanding of the application you are theming and knowing what files it loads, so you know what to replace.

This, in turn, means that when the themed program changes, such as from 2.x to 3.x, the themes may also have to get upgraded to still match.

No one seems to get this fact.

Instead, theme developers complain to me to “fix WinterBoard” so that, for example, SMS themes work again.

That is simply not reasonable: every time I add code to WinterBoard to remap old filenames I slow down a performance critical component. In this case, what happened is that the SMS application got broken up into the actual application and a new 3.x framework called “ChatKit”.

Most of the images people had been theming are now part of ChatKit: if you want to keep theming them, you need to start theming that bundle, not the SMS application. I don’t think a single theme has been updated to account for this change in the last two months.

OK: I did it. I added a remapping for the SMS application. If I am loading an image for ChatKit that isn’t themed, I check to see if a file with the same name from the SMS application was themed, and take it instead. In practice this is not a big deal, as it is a single remapping and most of the cost is going to come from the SMS application, but if something similar to this were ever done for UlKit it would be downright devastatingly painful.

So, this is the last time I want to do something like this, and I even consider this ChatKit remapping “deprecated”, even in the first version of WinterBoard that includes it: people really need to upgrade their themes to theme the right files going forward. (Note: this has nothing to do with SMSBackground.png, which is a WinterBoard-specific feature that simply had to get rewritten for 3.x.)

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