Fix for DFU or Recovery mode problem after unlocking iphone 3GS on 3.1.2 with redsn0w or blackra1n

Currently, there are two alternatives for unlocking 3GS running 3.1.2 firmware. The tools are
redsn0w(0.9.2): Only for jailbreaking
blackra1n(RC3): For jailbreaking + unlocking
blacksn0w: Only for unlocking

The two alternatives are
1. Use redsn0w to jailbreak followed by blacksn0w to unlock
2. Use blackra1n only

Now coming to the problems, various users reported that unlocking with blackrain followed by installation of some software (like SBSettings) from cydia lead to a condition where the phone is constantly in a recover mode loop after every reboot (reboot loop). I did not face this issue first hand as I did not install any software from cydia after unlock. I tried both the redsnow & blackrain approaches on different 3GS iphones. (Update: See the comments to this post which suggests a fix)

While the above condition might be true in some cases, I think that most people are missing one important point. If they jailbreak latest(>week45) 3GS iphones on 3.1.2 firmware using tethering (via USB), they have to use tethered boot also. This point is clearly mentioned in the redsnow software at the step after loading the 3.1.2 firmware.

They should use the same software everytime they have to reboot their 3GS iphone. After the unlock they would see the normal screen with the applications. But after reboot, it will go into recovery mode (screen showing itunes and USB cable). This is not DFU mode but people are using this term interchangeably with recovery mode. So, lets us ignore the terminology for time being and focus on how to fix it.

blackra1n:
1. Boot the phone. It will show screen showing itunes logo and a USB cable.
2. Just run the blackra1n software and click "Make it ra1n".
3. It will show a screen showing geohot's face.
4. Just wait, it will come out of it and will show the normal screen with icons.

redsn0w:
1. Boot the phone. It will show screen showing itunes logo and a USB cable.
2. Launch redsn0w and select the 3.1.2 firmware and click next.
3. It will show a warning screen. Click yes or no, depending on your iphone week number.
4. If you had already jailbroken, it will just show two options
5. Select "just boot tethered right now" and click next.
6. It shows a screen asking to hold the power & home button, but it is not needed. Do not do anything.
7. It shows the same recovery mode screen for some time and then will come out of it.


Happy unlocking!

Tutorial to unlock 2G iphone running 3.1.2 firmware on windows (link)

Here is the link to the article that was published last week from iclarified.

I had been waiting for this article for a long time. Though apple released 3.1.2 firmware long back the windows users are not blessed with the latest version of redsnow. The mac version of pwnage came almost two months back. Here is the link if you are interested.

I am currently having unlocked 3.0 firmware. There are some connection issues and call related issues. I am not very happy with 3.0 firmware. So, I want to upgrade to 3.1.2 firmware which reportedly fixed these issues.

3G: This is the tutorial for unlocking 3G phones having 3.1.2 firmware.

Now, hack your ipod

I realize that I have been writing more and more articles about firmware hacking and related stuff. It  makes me more and more excited to learn how to play with your gadgets. Especially playing with their core. Now this article is about putting custom firmware on your ipod and many other personal music players. But first let me warn you that doing this will void your warranty.

Rockbox is an open source firmware written for personal music players. It supports wide range of players like apple ipod, iriver, sandisk sansa etc. The latest 3.0 version of the frimware is released in sept-08. The question anyone would ask first is "Why should I upgrade ?". I guess the answer is simple "Because it has loads of features that your vendor would not have provided"

Take apple ipod for example. It supports very limited codecs (file formats). But with this rockbox firmware, your same ipod can play upto 15 different codecs including ogg/vorbis, wma, realaudio-cook format etc. You can have themes for the user interface. Can you believe that you can play "doom" on ipod ? yes, doom. It has plugin support where you can add games, applications. In case of ipods, this firmware is supported for ipods right from the 1st gen ones. So,  you can breath new life into your otherwise obsolete ones.

Iphone 2.0.1 firmware updates 3G baseband

There seems to be lot of confusion around the latest 2.0.1 firmware from apple in relation to unlocking. It seems that this firmware updates the baseband only on 3G phones and not on 2G phones. However, both the 2G & 3G iphones cannot be unlocked(as of now) with the latest pwnage 2.0.1 tool.

What this means is that you cannot unlock the 2G/3G iphone with the existing tools if you upgrade firmware to the latest 2.0.1. Apple released this firmware fixing the bugs in 2.0 firmware and making some performance improvements. The 2.0 firmware does not upgrade the baseband even on 3G phones. Firmware 2.0 on 2G iphones can be unlocked using the latest pwnage 2.0.1 tool, but 3G iphones on 2.0 firmware cannot be unlocked yet. See the blog of iphone-dev team which have clarification on the above confusion.

The earlier vulnerabilities exploited by the tools like ziphone, pwnage etc will be fixed in the new baseband. So, apple threw one more challenge to the hackers keeping itself ahead in the catch-up game. The hackers need to find new vulnerabilities to hack the latest 3G baseband in 2.0.1 firmware.

What can you expect ?
- For 2G iphones, hackers will shortly release unlock tools for 2.0.1 firmware
- For 3G iphones, hackers will shortly release unlock tools for 2.0 firmware(not 2.0.1)
- For 3G iphones, hackers will take some time to release unlock tools for 2.0.1 firmware

Pwnage 2.0 : Unlock 2.0 firmware on non-3G phones

iphone 2.0 is the latest firmware that is released by apple. Apparently, this is the same firmware that runs on the newly released 3G phones also. This new firmware brings a bunch of new features. Some of them include: push email, support for microsoft exchange server, better email, contact search, scientific calculator, additional languages, support more email attachments like powerpoint etc.

Now the good news is that you can upgrade your non-3G phone to this firmware and can jailbreak+activate+unlock it. Iphone dev team, has release their new Pwnage 2.0.1 tool for public consumption. This pwnage 2.0.1 was released immediately after fixing some problems found in pwnage 2.0. Obviously, one should use the latest tool to unlock their 2.0 firmwares. There is a bad news also. This tool is currently available only for mac users. However, windows users need not get disappointed as there are other ways to unlock the phones.

Naturally, all the community is out there to help you in the upgrade + unlock process. See the pwnage discussion forums at hackintosh.com. In case you do not know, hackintosh is the home for the Iphone dev team which released this pwnage tool. So you might be able get help from the authors. Here is the full tutorial with scree shots of pwnage 2.0 for mac users. Here is the step-by-step instructions from iphonehacks for windows users. Here is one more tutorial for windows users from iunlocked.

iphone 3G unlocked using sim based solution

Apparently, this is the worlds first unlocking solution available for the 3G model. This came from a brazilian hacker within 2 days after the official launch. The hack is a hardware method of building a sim adapter. It will trick the iphone to believe that the inserted sim is a test sim and it allows all the operations from that sim. See the report from iphonehacks about this. You can visit the original authors page also (It is in portugese).

This technique does not need any software/hardware hacking. You need not jailbreak the firmware also. But unfortunately this is going to be a costly affair. It seems that they are charging around $250 for their solution. See this article about the pricing.

On a related note, iphone dev team announced that they are able to jailbreak the iphone 3G model. Yet another worlds first. They will be releasing the new pawnage tool 2.0 shortly, after some testing. See the report on this from iphonehacks.

May be we should recap a little bit of history. It is announced that iphone 3G runs the 2.0 version of the firmware. The 2.o firmware had been released earlier to the launch of 3G phones. 2.0 version can be used on the older non-3G phones also. As per the confirmations, the 2.0 firmware on non-3G phones can be jailbroken and unlocked. There is no confirmation for this on the 3G models.

Added CHDK firmware. Could not tune motion detection

After a row with vendor of card reader from ebay, and after some hiccups, I was finally successful in loading the CHDK firmware into my canon S2IS camera. Loading the CHDK firmware is easy once you follow the instructions carefully. I tried to be smart by not reading the manual fully and guessing the remaining.

I realized lately that the memory card should be kept in locked state for the firmware to load. If the card is not put in locked state, the CHDK firmware would not load. The camera will continue to work with the default firmware(by canon). The interesting thing to note here is that the pictures can still be recorded in the memory card even if it is locked. Till now, I thought that the lock physically protects the card from writing. But now, I understand that it is just a logical protection. i.e., The software has to respect the lock on the reader. I can write a software that will not honor the lock and will write it into the memory card even if it is locked.

I experimented a little with the new firmware and enhanced capabilities. I liked the RGB histograms etc stuff. I still need to explore lot of new functionality. The most interesting thing that drove me to upgrade to CHDK firmware is the motion-triggered photography, especially the lightening photography. But I am not much successful with it. There are a bunch of scripts on motion detection and others that one can explore.

The problem with the motion triggered photography is that there are a bunch of parameters in each script, which needs to be tuned. I am not able to tune those parameters to quickly take a photograph after motion is detected. The camera takes a lot of time after the motion happened. Added those parameters, the camera settings also should be tuned well. I was able to improve somewhat by setting the manual focus mode, and continuous shooting mode. Another problem is that the picture is not taken even if there is motion. I guess we need to tune the "threshold" parameter properly.

I will write one more post if I am satisfied with my experiments on motion triggered photography.

Hack your canon powershot camera

Incidentally, this is my first post on gadget other than iphone. I will try to do more justice to my blogname "gadgetsandyou"(not "iphoneandyou") by trying to write more about other gadgets too. Technically, the following is not really hacking, but just upgrading the fimware in a twisted way.

Do you know that you can power up you canon powershot camera with enhanced capabilities. All you need to do is to install an add-on firmware to the existing firmware. The best part of this exercise is that the original firmware from canon does not get erased or overwritten.

This is the article that I first came across related to this topic. It finally lead me to the home page of the CHDK project. With this you can enhance your cameras which has DigicII/DigicIII processors. This is the list of supported cameras.

Some of the cool additional features that you would get are as follows
- Enhanced Image Capture
- Additional display information
- Additional Settings
- Support for custom scripts (I am exited about it)
- Continuous display of battery charge
- RGB Histograms
- Motion-detection triggered photography
- Additional applications like calendar and games.

The above is just a tip of the iceberg. There are lot of major and minor enhancements. I am going to try this out this weekend. I will post my experience.