iPhone 4.0 Beta Downgrade to 3.1.3

For $7, I was able to have my iPhone’s UUID added to a developers account to enable me to download and install beta 4 of OS4 for the iPhone.  It seems pretty neat, but rather uninspiring- especially since there are no available jailbreaks for OS4 beta on a 3GS (only on a 3G).

Luckily I came upon an article at MacLife that provides a solution for this…

Note: this can only be done on OS X.  The article has links for 10.6, but I was albe to find the 10.5 LibUSB package.

Step 1: Download the following:

• iRecovery v. 1.3 for Mac
• LibUSB Library (10.6) or
  LibUSB Library (10.5)

Install the LibUSB and extract iRecovery to a place where you can access it (such as the desktop).

Step 2: Restore

• Power off your iPhone
• Hold down the ‘Home’ button and plug in the USB cable to your Mac; this will put the iPhone into recovery mode
• iTunes will inform you that your iPhone is in recovery mode and must be Restored. 
• Run an iPhone restore in iTunes as you normally would.
• The recovery will run for a few minutes and then fail with ‘An Unknown Error has Occurred: 1015’

Step 3: iRecovery

• With the iPhone still plugged in, open a terminal (Applications, Utilities, Terminal) and navigate to the location where you extracted iRecovery (cd Desktop).
• Enter the following commands, pressing return between each:

./iRecovery –s

setenv auto-boot true

saveenv

fsboot

exit

The command prompt will return after a few seconds; you can now reboot your iPhone (hold Home + Power for a few seconds). 

After you power back on, you should be able to connect to iTunes and re-activate (and run Spirit to Jailbreak).

VHS Anyone?

I didn't realize the blank VHS tape was still so popular...

HTC Incredible Tear-Down

The Demise of Clear WiMax

For those of you following my blog, you might have noticed I have some mixed feelings about Clear WiMax in Atlanta, GA:

Clear WiMax Initial Review

Clear WiMax Follow-up

Clear ‘Unlimited’ Plans

Clear Usage Addendum

Clear WiMax: Bandwidth Throttling Now In-Place?

WiMax Speeds at Different Times:

Clear WiMax- getting progressively slower…

Clear Upgrades?

The past few weeks have been abysmal for Clear WiMax; as the trees leaves grow in the spring, the WiMax speeds have plummeted.

I positioned my modem in the top of a closet nearest to the North wall of the hose and for most of Winter I was enjoying speeds of 8-12Mbps (except when it rained- then the speed was 1/2 of that). 

My 5 bar Winter signal dropped to 2 bars in a matter of weeks; I have tried to re-orient the modem to get most signal, but I am getting a max of 3 bars. I now consider myself ‘lucky’ on nights when I can get over 200Kbps… 

Currently I am ‘blessed’ with 2 bars of signal strength (or a 7dB CINR) and tonight’s speeds are:

My other WiMax device (the Mobile USB device) cannot even get a signal lock in my house; I have to go outside on the edge of the deck to get 2 bars. 

I think it is time to call Clear and tell them what a piece-of-shit service they have.

I dread to see how many pissed off people there are once the Sprint EVO comes out- unless it is released in late Autumn. 

HTC Incredible

I moved to Verizon around 10 months ago when they release the Motorola Droid as I was looking for a better Android device than my aging T-Mobile G1.  The original Droid was an awesome device and I have no regrets in purchasing. 

However, in the worlds of computers and cell phones, technology changes fast and last years ‘ultimate phone’ is almost a dinosaur when placed along-side the newer offerings.

Enter the HTC Incredible- also known as the Verizon Droid Incredible.

I am very impressed with the unit so far.  It is very fast device- period.  I have yet to see a freeze or a pause when I want to open an application.

The HTC Sense add-on enables linking between Google Contacts, Facebook and Flickr pages.  It is easy to pull up a friend in contacts and then browse their photos on either of the above services.

However, there are some issues with the device:  I have noticed that in a bad coverage area (where the phone is switching between 3G and 1x EVDO) the phone gets very warm and the battery life takes a nose-dive.

The battery itself will not last me a full day unless I do not use the phone like I normally do: occasional web browsing, price checks, SMS messages, taking a few photos, home alarm system check, webcam camera checks, etc.  I rarely use the phone as an actual phone.

Currently there are not many accessories for the Incredible, but documents from Verizon indicate an upcoming Car GPS cradle, media dock and extended battery in the works.

I will be watching the XDA Developers forums, Droid Forums and Android Forms for a root patch for the Incredible.

Spirit Jailbreak for 3.1.3 iPhone/3.2 iPad

Just released; Spirit Jailbreak for the iPad and latest iPhone OS.

Requires:

• Activated iPhone/iPad
• iTunes v9.x.x
• Spirit Jailbreak Application

Note: Before running this program, be sure to backup your SHSH blobs.  Nothing should happen, but it is better to be safe and have them- just in case!

I will focus on the iPad jailbreak as my iPhone is still jailbroken at 3.1.2 and I have seen no reason to upgrade.

Download the Spirit program, connect your iPad/iPhone to the PC via USB cable.

Either wait for the device to sync to iTunes or cancel the sync. 

Run the Spirit program and click ‘Jailbreak’

 

In a few seconds, you should see a ‘Restore in Process’ message on the iPad screen, a ‘Jailbreak succeeded!’ message in Spirit.

The device will reboot.

On reboot you will see a multi-color screen and a progress bar.  After this is done, the iPad will return to normal- but now with a Cydia icon:

There is an updated version of Cydia to fit the larger screen of the iPad:

If get an error code c000005 (which I was under Windows 7 x64) when trying to use jailbreak, the Spirit site indicates that the program should be run in Windows 98 compatibility mode:

Make sure to change the default root password on your jailbroken device! Instructions can be found on the Cydia main screen under ‘Root Password How-To’. (Note: The current iPhone ‘Terminal’ program does not run on the iPad; I am sure and updated version is soon to be released).

Now I am just waiting for an updated Winterboard for 3.2!  :)