Tag Archives: Cydia

[iOS] Top Ten Cydia Apps

This Top Ten List is the MetaParadigma’s Editor’s choice of Apps available solely thru Cydia. Cydia is the alternative software distribution platform available to users, who have jailbroken their iDevices.

So you may ask: why jailbreaking anyway? Ain’t there enough software on the App Store?

Well, let’s answer this with another question: do you wanna have a fancy Gameboy like smartfone, for which Apple decides what allowed to be installed do you wanna have a handy pocket computer which you can configure completely?

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[iPhone] GeoHot Releases Jailbreak for 3.x Called BlackRa1n

Today notorious GeoHot released a standing new jailbreak tool called BlackRa1n. BlackRa1n is currently only available for Microsoft Windows. It is supposed to jailbreak any 3.x based iPhone or iPod touch. No matter if you’ve jailbroken before or not.

BlackRa1n is fairly self explaining and straight forward designed. It’ll bring your iPhone or iPod Touch automatically into Recovery Mode.

Sadly currently BlackRa1n does not hacktivate your iPhone. So you still need a valid subscription with an Apple licensed carrier or a factory unlocked iPhone.

Kudos fly out to GeoHot. Standing work again.

» Download BlackRa1n here

[iPod] GeoHot Jailbreaks iPod Touch Firmware 3.1

GeoHot today posted a photo of a jailbroken iPod Touch running iPhone OS 3.1. He eventually made it. As of now there is no more information available, but it is likely that this is the approach he and the Chronic Dev Team were talking about.

[iPhone] HowTo Make MMS Work on iPhone 2G

NOTE: This walkthrough is for iPhone OS 3.0 only!

For MMS on iPhone 2G with firmware 3.1, buy SwirlyMMS on Cydia Store

I. Abstract

Many iPhone 2G users are not very amused about Apple’s update policy. As of iPhone OS 3.0, owners can eventually use MMS on their iPhones. All owners? No, not the ones who have iPhones from the very beginning.

The MMS feature is not officially available on the iPhone 2G, although there is no technical reason for the limitation – as we’ve seen with SwirlyMMS.

This seems to be one of Apple’s ways to tell you you need to get a new iPhone at least every two years. Quite expensive you think? Right, but get used to it as this seems to be Apple’s business strategy of lifecycles with many products.

Anyway, Apple provides one of the best user experiences for their products and that’s the point why you are here reading these lines.

To make things short. There is a way to make MMS work on the iPhone 2G with firmware 3.0. Kudos fly out to Geniusan for the ActivateMMS2G patch, and to Craig_16 (this walkthrough is based on his findings!).

II. Requirements

You need to have the following configuration:

  • an iPhone 2G with iPhone OS 3.0 (Warning don’t try this on an iPhone 3G or 3Gs, you’d be screwed!!!)
  • jailbroken (find Jailbreak HowTo here)
  • with Cydia running

Of course you’ve done a backup of your contacts, your calendar, and your photos, didn’t you?

And you need to have your carrier settings available (!!!!). Search MMS settings here before you proceed! In the following example we’re going to use a reseller of the german T-Mobile network called Callmobile. Callmobile got these settings:

Internet / Wap Callmobile Germany
APN internet.t-mobile
Username tm
Password tm
Visual Voicemail (not available!)
APN
Username
Password
MMS settings
APN mms.t-d1.de
Username t-mobile
Password mms
MMSC http://mms.t-mobile.de/servlets/mms
Proxy 172.28.23.131:8008

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III. Preparations

The preparation steps are intended for user who already have tempered to make MMS running but failed. Those steps help restoring the iPhone to a status where we can eventually enable the MMS feature. Our recommendation: if you didnot try to make MMS running yet, you may want to read these steps anyway and apply most of the steps as available.

Pre.Step 1: Resetting Cellular Data Profiles

If you already tempered with the network settings to make MMS work, you first need to reset the settings. On your iPhone go to

  • Settings » General » Network » Cellular Data Network
    If the Cellular Data Network menu is no available: that’s no problem, we’re gonna enable it later. Jump to Pre.Step 2.
  • Scroll down and click on Reset Settings

  • Confirm question with a click on the Reset button
  • Click the Network button to leave the settings menu and
  • Reboot your iPhone

Pre.Step 2:  Removing Cellular Profiles

On your iPhone go to

  • Settings » General » Profile

    Again: if this menu is not available, we’re gonna enable it later. Jump to Pre.Step 3.
  • Click Remove
  • Confirm Remove
  • Reboot your iPhone now

Pre.Step 3: Uninstalling ActivateMMS2G

On your iPhone go to

  • Cydia (available on jailbroken iPhones only! Wanna do a jailbreak now? Go here.) and
    Click Manage

  • Click Packages
  • Click ActivateMMS2G
  • Click Modify
  • Click Remove
  • Click Confirm
  • Click Reboot Device

IV. The Walkthrough

After having applied all the preparations we now have the situation that all of us should have almost the same conditions with the cellular network settings. This is an important condition.

Step 1. Installing ActivateMMS2G

On your iPhone go to

  • Cydia (available on jailbroken iPhones only! Wanna do a jailbreak now? Go here.)
  • Click Search,
    Enter manually ActivateMMS2G, and when found:
    Click ActivateMMS2G

  • Click Install and Confirm


  • Click Reboot Device

Step 2. Installing A Custom Profile

On your iPhone go to

  • Safari and open this website: http://help.benm.at (kudos!)
  • Scroll down and click Mobilconfigs create
  • now the fun part starts, as here many issues may occur if you don’t pay attention
  • In contrast to what the fields’ description show we enter in all fields the required mms settings, got it? According to our example for Callmobile we enter this:

    click Enable Thethering
    and click Generate
  • you’ll be asked if you wanna install a new profile: Click Install
  • Confirm with Install Now
  • Click Done
  • Now quit Safari
  • Don’t check the settings, but
  • again Reboot now

Step 3. Adding Appropriate Cellular Settings

On your iPhone go to:

  • Settings » General » Network » Cellular Data Network
  • Now you see, that the MMS settings are present in all fields, of course this is wrong.
  • Now remember one thing: don't touch or edit the following entries: MMS/APN, MMS/Username, and MMS/Password. Once edited manually they will be lost and missing, because they will not get saved after leaving the menu. You would then have to start over above with point III. Preparations. You got me, right?
  • Enter MMSC and MMS Proxy first.
  • For Callmobile Germany (see above)
    MMSC is http://mms.t-mobile.de/servlets/mms and
    MMS Proxy is 172.28.23.131:8008
  • The result will look like this:
  • Click the Network button to leave the settings menu and
  • do a Reboot now to make sure the iPhone has loaded the new MMS settings

Step 4. Sending two Test MMS’

What we here basically do is, we’re gonna send the MMS to us. This allows us to check if receiving works and this also auto-enables the MMS feature on many carriers worldwide (not with AT&T in the U.S., sorry). After sending the first MMS you may receive an SMS instead that tells you you can watch the MMS on the internet. This is because the carrier has not updated your MMS capability yet. Now wait about five minutes and send another MMS to your own iPhone. This time you should receive it.

This is how we do it. On your iPhone go to:

  • Messages
  • Click on New Message icon (also note that a camera icon will be left to the text field)
  • Enter your own iPhone cell number
  • Click the camera icon and take a photo


  • Back in the Messages app, click the Send button
  • Your first MMS will be send now
  • As already written above: you should be either receiving now a text message telling you to read the MMS on the internet or you receive the MMS. If you only get a text message wait a couple of minutes and try again.

If anything does not work: we recommend to check the internet for your carrier specific settings. In 99% of the cases it is not related to the iPhone, but due to wrong carrier settings. Or your carrier simply has deactivated the MMS feature for your subscription (i.e. AT&T)!

Step 5. Editing the EDGE/GPRS Internet Settings

Again on your iPhone ;-) go to:

  • Settings » General » Network » Cellular Data Network
  • Edit the Cellular Data fields
  • As written in the beginning, for Callmobile Germany take this:
    APN is internet.t-mobile
    Username is tm
    Password is tm
  • Click the Network button to leave the settings menu and
  • Reboot your iPhone

V. Final words

You should check if your EDGE/GPRS settings work by deactivating your Wi-Fi and go online via GPRS/EDGE only. People reported it may be slower than before. We cannot confirm this. EDGE/GPRS is slow like hell anyway. If you are running a subscription that supports Visual Voicemail you can also enter the appropriate information after reboot and test if it works.

Did we tell you about our sponsors? They help us maintaining this site free. You may visit them to check their coolest offers. Thanks! If you got questions, additions or shouts, don’t hesitate…

[iPhone] Activate MMS on iPhone 2G? (Update)

Update July 04, 2009: MMS now works, MMS server settings are getting saved with the help of some (more or less complicated) tricks. We’re currently prepping a fool proof step-by-step tutorial for all of you. We recommend to not play around with those settings at the moment to not screw up settings worse. Tutorial will be up on Monday. Please wait until then. Thanks for your attention.

Update July 05, 2009: Wanna know how to enable MMS on iPhone 2G? Find our definitive MMS on iPhone 2G HowTo here

Abstract

Since SwirlyMMS has been released last year we know the iPhone 2G is capable to send MMS. Anyway with their newest update Apple makes MMS available only for 3G and 3Gs customers. They say it is hardware related. This is not the case.

What has been found

It was quite logical that some people would be starting to investigate and research into the MMS feature sooner or later. Now an application has been released through Cydia that claims to unlock MMS capability for the iPhone 2G. It is called ActivateMMS2G and it is distributed on the iSpazio repository. Anyway we recommend not to install it as of now. to read our definitive MMS on iPhone 2G HowTo here.

Current Status

The status is almost alpha. Most forum reports indicate these issues:

  • MMS settings are not getting stored if they differ from the EDGE settings (occurs on any iPhone)
  • iPhone does not restart (rarely reported)
  • Camera symbol is not shown in Messages.app (often reported)

Our Recommendation

Don’t misunderstand us, but this is deeply alpha. If you really want MMS on your iPhone 2g, get yourself SwirlyMMS. It is much safer than tempering with ported hacks from 3G iPhones to 2G iPhones. SwirlyMMS is currently getting ported to iPhone OS 3.0. then follow our definitive MMS on iPhone 2G HowTo here.

[iPhone] Baseband Downgrading Possible on 3G

We’ve recently reported that exploits can be applied to the baseband bootloader 5.8 to install any bootloader. Now a working exploit has been released via Cydia.

As we have not tested this program we strongly recommend not to try this for two reasons: first it seems this package is in violation of Apple’s copyright, as it distributes a bootloader and second the script seems to have issues. In quite a few cases downgrading did not work, although everything seems to have applied properly. Don’t use untested exploits. Sideeffects and damaged basebands might be the result.

[iPhone] iBluetooth available

Eventually a Bluetooth application has become available for the iPhone. As this is not approved by Apple it can be downloaded only via Cydia on jailbroken iPhones.

iBluetooth costs 4US$ and can be downloaded from the iSpazio repository. The purpose of the shareware fee is buying a complete Bluetooth stack to make it available to all customers. Currently iBluetooth comes with a seven days trial period.

The pictures are courtesy of iSpazio. See more pictures here…

[iPhone] Recommended Apps: Cycorder

Ever wanted to do some video recording with your iPhone? With Cycorder waiting is now over. Cycorder’s features as follows:

  • imho best recording quality on iPhone
  • 6-15 frames/sec
  • resolution 384×288 / 4:3 aspect ratio
  • mjpeg compression

We feel this app is really fun and we really use it a lot.

Requirements: Your iPhone has to be jailbroken (read the HowTo here) and you need to have Cydia installed, because this app is not available on Apple’s AppStore. It is maintained by the Cydia developer Saurik (Jan Freeman).

Installation: is performed by Cydia and is straightforward…

Enjoy…

[iPhone] PwnPlayer for Beta Testers

What it is

Eric Castro released a beta version of his All-In-One media player named “PwnPlayer” to chose beta testers. PwnPlayer is intended to be a replacement for the iPod player included with the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Features

PwnPlayer’s features as follows:

  • playback from file system – PwnPlayer reads any folder from the file system
  • copy files to the iPhone via FTP client, iTunes not required
  • Compatibility with iTunes music library
  • Search songs, artists, albums or files
  • Gesture controlling even on locked screens

For obvious reasons this app will not be available on Apple’s AppStore

Requirements

  • Jailbroken iPhone 2G or 3G
  • Jailbroken iPod Touch
  • Cydia Installer

More information

Interested in becoming beta tester of this amazing app? Simply donate Eric some money. He’ll contact you then.

» Visit Eric Castro’s PwnPlayer pages here

[iPhone] Cydia and Telesphoreo as replacement for BSD and Installer.app

english

“Why would we need to have alternatives for the Installer.app and the BSD subsystem?” This seems to be the major question. Since we are all (quite) happy with those two we don’t need anything else, do we? Let’s face the whole picture.

Installer.app is a great tool to install third party software to your jailbroken iPhone, but it is not open source. Although Nullriver said they would release the source code for it, no steps have been taken into this direction until now. There is no timeline available if it will ever be released. I expect this not to happen…

BSD subsystem was great to have when there were no alternatives. There are know issues with several commands like bash (commands truncated), passwd (damages /etc/passwd file) and the vim crashes when using backspace…

Telesphoreo and Cydia are bound to address those issues and until now those two new programs do very well.

» Installation Guide for Cydia/Telesphoreo here
» Jay Freeman’s memo about bringing Debian APT to the iPhone here

deutsch

Warum sollte man überhaupt eine Alternative für die Installer.app und das BSD Subsystem benötigen? Das scheint wohl die große Frage zu sein. Sind wir nicht alle restlos glücklich mit diesen beiden Paketen? Lasst uns mal das ganze Bild betrachten.

Installer.app ist ein großartiges Programm, um von der Community entwickelte Programme auf das iPhone zu bringen, aber es ist nicht Open Source. Obgleich Nullriver schon seit langem sagen, dass der Source Code veröffentlicht wird, wurden keine offensichtlichen Schritte in dieser Richtung unternommen. Es gibt keinerlei Aussagen, wann der Source code veröffentlicht wird. Und ehrlich gesagt: ich glaube, es wird nicht passieren…

BSD Subsystem war eine großartige Sache, als es keine Alternativen gab, um im Terminal mit dem iPhone zu parlieren. Aber es gibt bis heute eine unzählige Masse an Fehlern in Befehlen, die nicht sauber portiert wurden: bash (schneidet Befehle ab), passwd (zerstört das passwd File) und der vim stürzt in die ewigen Jagdgründe, wenn man Backspace benutzt…

Telesphoreo und Cydia sind angetreten, um diese Schwierigkeiten anzugehen und es sieht so aus, als würde sich das neue Programmpaar gut machen.

» Installationsanleitung für Cydia/Telesphoreo hier
» Jay Freeman’s Memo über die Portierung von Debian APT auf das iPhone