iPhone Blog

Below are instructions on how to unlock your iPhone 3G using Yellow Sn0w. Unlocking your iPhone 3G will make it possible for you to use any cellphone carrier.

Before you go any further, make sure to READ EVERY SINGLE WORD OF THIS TUTORIAL. If you think you’re too cool for school, then go directly to the instructions but please, do not complain if you mess up your iPhone during the process, which is very unlikely to happen anyways…

First things first. In order to be able for you to use Yellow Sn0w to unlock your iPhone 3G, you have to be on a jailbroken iPhone that runs the latest firmware 2.2 with the latest baseband 02.28.00. To find out what firmware you’re on, go to Settings > General > About and look for “Modem Firmware”. It should say 02.28.00.

If you have not jailbroken your iPhone yet, you have to now in order to unlock. To jailbreak your iPhone, follow the QuickPwn 2.2 guide that I wrote a few weeks ago.

If you have already jailbroken your iPhone using PwnageTool to preserve your baseband, sorry but you have to restore and rejailbreak again in order to have the latest 02.28.00 baseband.

If you have updated to the latest firmware 2.2 with its latest 02.28.00 baseband, then you’re good to go.

So from now on, I assume that you are on a clean firmware 2.2 with firmware 02.28.00 and that your iPhone is jailbroken.

1. Go to Cydia and install this new source: http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ (note that snow is spelled with a zero, not an “o”). To install a new source in Cydia, go to Manage > Sources > Edit > Add, then type in the source http://apt9.yellowsn0w.com/ and tap “Add Source”.

2. Once the source has been added, tap “Return To Cydia”, then tap “Done”.

3. Now tap “apt9.yellowsn0w.com from the list of sources “Entered By Users”.

4. Select Yellow Sn0w, then tap install nad confirm.

5. Once the installation had been successfully completed, return to Cydia.

6. Hard reset your iPhone. To do this, hold the home and power buttons simultaneously for a few seconds until the phone shuts off by itself (ignore the “slide to power off” message)

7. Insert whatever SIM card you want! Wait a few seconds and you should be good.

8. Done!

See, that wasn’t too hard at all. Users that are already familiar with Cydia and sources shouldn’t have any problem at all. But first time jailbreakers might be a little lost, which is why I detailed this tutorial a lot.

Now there are a few known issues with Yellow Sn0w and I highly recommend you either read my previous post about it, or go directly to the Dev Team’s blog.

Troubleshooting:

1) If you are on tmobile USA you should disable 3G in Settings or sbsettings.
2) YellowSn0w does not work with a SIM PIN. You  must disable your SIM card pin lock.

At any rate, I would really appreciate it if you could digg this post, then write a comment, then go to the Dev Team’s blog to thank them for their great work.

This piece of news might mean something for iPhone geeks out there,but I guess the average iPhone owner couldn’t care less… Dev Team member PlanetBeing found a way to port Linux 2.6 kernel to the iPhone.

This is a rough first draft of the port, and many drivers are still missing, but it’s enough that a real alternative operating system is running on the iPhone.

Visit PlanetBeing’s blog for the download.

Crackulous is a software that allows you to easily crack any iPhone application, without having to pay a dime to the developer or to Apple. No need to say that this is illegal… In what seems to be a very ironic story, a beta version of Crackulous was pirated and leaked on the Internet before it could enter a full open-source distribution.

Erica Sadun wrote a good article about it over at Ars:

SaladFork, the author of Crackulous, called the leak “absolutely disgusting, and downright insulting.” He writes about his pride of development, saying, “[I] have released a new version of Crackulous almost every day or two, fixing all the bugs that had been reported up until that day. I was proud of Crackulous, and put a large majority of my free time into ensuring it will be the best application it possibly could be. I responded to beta tester feedback, and each version of Crackulous was better than the last.”

Did SaladFork learn his lesson? Obviously not as he wrote:

Several of you had noticed the irony in me complaining that a tool used to steal from other developers was stolen, but I hope you realize the difference in situation. iPhone developers almost always (99% of the time) develop applications for the App Store in hopes of getting money.

Firmware update 2.2 surprised a few people who accidentally updated their iPhone. If that happened to you, you now have 2 choices: either stay and 2.2 and wait for the Dev Team to come up with a jailbreak method for 2.2, or you can try to downgrade from 2.2 to 2.1.

I personally don’t have this issue. I haven’t updated to 2.2 but I figured that some of you guys may have, so I started looking for a solution to post here. The problem is there doesn’t seem to be a solution that works for one main reason: 2.2 updates your baseband and once your baseband is updated, you can’t downgrade it to 2.1 (not as yet anyway).

From what I read, only 2-3 people were actually able to get their iPhone back to 2.1 without issues but it is very unclear what they did exactly… Now let’s have a look at these different methods that supposedly show you how to downgrade from iPhone firmware 2.2 to 2.1. Read more »

Mr.Haklab, self proclaimed savior of iPhone developer community is working real hard to take the cracking community down. He seems to be undeterred by all the rage and fury directed towards him by millions of cracked application lovers. It was this merciless pound of human flesh (hacklab) who was responsible for taking down themonkeysball.com by garnering support from Tapulous and Apple. Now he has turned the tide of destruction towards Appulo.us by stealing away their domain name. On his blog, Haklab explains how he worked his magic and was able to get away with it right under Kyek’s (Appulo.us site creator) nose:

I had purchased Appulo.us from its original owner about a week ago. The guy was nice and agreed to sell the domain name to me. Apparently Kyek had someone else register the domain name so he wouldn’t face legal issues and I think that was a smart move. It amazes me how smart the cracking community is.

Kyek creator of Appulo.us retaliated with the words:

For someone against the cracking of iPhone apps, plainly taking someone’s domain– even if they claim it’s only for a week — is despicable and incredibly dishonest. I believe wholeheartedly in our right to try software before buying it, whether that right is sanctioned by Apple or not. I’ll never stop fighting for that cause

As an immediate disaster management mechanism, all the content got moved to a new domain. This means crackers are off the hook for now, but one cannot deny the fact that cracking community is under threat and so is Appulous. Meanwhile, millions have their fingers crossed that it doesn’t cease to exist.

It took a while to Apple’s lawyers to find out and do something about TheMonkeysBall.com but they finally did it. They finally got this site shut down for uber massive copyright infringement.

For those of you who don’t know, TheMonkeysBall.com was the reference in matter of cracked iPhone apps. The website offered a gigantic library of cracked ipa files, making it the preferred destination for anyone who didn’t want to spend a dime on iPhone apps.

Wyze, the owner, explains:

Well, Apple, it took you long enough to find us. We’re sure Mr. Haklab will take credit for this and all we have to say to that is that it took you long enough. We had a good run and honestly we are surprised we lasted this long. We don’t want to move servers again to another country to avoid DMCA as we’ve lost interest since the site first launched.

The site is now up for sale. I doubt you can do anything with such a URL but who knows…

The clever guys over at Hackulo.us have released yet another time saving app through Cydia! One of the most popular posts on this site has to be Sebastien’s guide to adding .ipa’s to your iPhone.

Many of us remember the long, dreary process of creating extra folders and changing the MobileInstallation file… well not anymore! The new app from Hackulo.us, labeled miPatch, will create all the directories for you, and patch the MobileInstallation file… Just like that!

And what makes it even better is how simple the process is. I would post a screenshot, and maybe give a guide, but the thing is… There’s no reason to! All you have to do is simply install the app, and it’s done. Nothing will show up on your springboard, you should just see the app under Manage > Packages within Cydia.

All this has been tested on my iPhone (1st gen), and everything seems to be working fine. Once done, simply add the cracked .ipa’s to your iTunes and sync.

This app can be found in hackulo.us’s Cydia source, http://cydia.hackulo.us

As you probably noticed, I don’t post much about cracked ipa games and apps for iPhone. However, today we’re adding 19 of those to the list. Please do not ask me for the download link as I will not give it to you. If you know how to use Google, you’ll probably know where to get these apps…

• Folders 1.4 [Cracked]
• Gazette 1.0.1 [Cracked]
• iSilo 1.25 [Cracked]
• ABGroups 1.0 [Cracked]
• Naboko (Sokoban) 1.1 [Cracked]
• Recorder 5 [Cracked]
• AlloWin Pool 1.0 [Cracked]
• iBall3D 1.0 [Cracked]
• Debugger 1.0 [Cracked]
• BlocksClassic 0.9.9 [Cracked]
• FreshWater Aquarium 1.02 [Cracked]
• Hexterity 1.0.1 [Cracked]
• AlibiSMS 1.0 [Cracked]
• Voice Changer 1.0 [Cracked]
• Besiegement 1.0 [Cracked]
• JellyCar 1.0 [Cracked]
• Crazy Snowboard 1.0 [Cracked]
• MobileStudio 1.1.0 [Cracked]
• VirtualDeck 1.6 [Cracked]

I don’t post links to cracked applications but I will make an exception so people who live in a country where the Google Earth iPhone app is not available can download it.

This is a link to Google Earth ipa file (RAR Password: http://ihacks.ru). Your iPhone has to be jailbroken and you must also have done this little hack to allow cracked ipa files on your iPhone.

It’s been such a long time I haven’t posted about these that I don’t even remember when the last time was. So here are 10 cracked iPhone games and apps. They have been added to our loooooong list of cracked games and apps. Note that for legal and moral reasons, I do not link to the downloads, so please do not ask me where to get them as I won’t tell you.

I also want to say that if you download cracked apps and you actually end up liking the app, please buy it through iTunes so the developer can make a little money on it. It is the right thing to do!

• Air Sharing 1.0.2 + Crack
• BeejiveIM 1.0.2 [Cracked]
• Amy A.I. 1.0 [Cracked]
• Topple 1.0.1 [Cracked]
• MarbleMash 1.0.2 [Cracked]
• Sonic Boom 1.0 [Cracked]
• iCopter 1.3 [Cracked]
• Earthscape Basic 1.2.0 [Cracked]
• BreakClassic 0.9.8 [Cracked]
• Banner 1.1 [Cracked]

As usual, hack responsibly…