Here is a very good news. It is now possible to completely unlock an iPhone that shipped with 1.1.2 or 1.1.3 software. A lot of people have been waiting for this to happen.
Okay, I’ll take time later to edit and come back on Apples announces yesterday morning. Meanwhile, here is a 60 seconds version thanks to Veronica Belmont from Mahalo.
The magic of the internet & wikipedia tells us what will be released at macworld. Pretty sure this is not a scam! So here we go:
New iPhone!
Not a big revolution here, but Apple introduces the awaited 16GB version at $499. The 8GB version remains at $399.
iPhone/iPod touch SDK
Now, this is big news, even if awaited, it will now be legit to develop apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch, better late than never! Most important is that price range of the apps is controlled by Apple. Not only apps but also widgets can be developed and developers must submit source code! The SDK becomes available Wednesday as a beta and finalized in february. In details:
Developers can create both Applications and Widgets
Using Cocoa with Objective-C
Developers submit programs as source code, not executable! Pretty sure this will cause issues to some developers
Specify iPhone or both iPhone/Touch (certain features iPhone only)
Price of the apps range from $0-$6.99, Widgets’ prices range $0-$2.99
Developers get 70% of the price
Users buy/download in iTunes Wi-Fi Store / iTunes Store (Mac/PC)
Automatic updating wirelessly or when docked:
When: Developers can get their hands on a beta version of the SDK tomorrow on ADC and start developing; final version due early February
iPhone 1.1.3 new apps update
This part is certainly uncomplete since it doesn’t feature the other 1.1.3 enhancements but here are the highlights found on Wikipedia: New/available apps for download include: Apps
iChat (AIM, Jabber/Google Talk)
RSS Feed Reader(read feeds online or off)
Last.fm (scrobble tracks played on iPhone/touch wirelessly without syncing w/ computer) (not directly in 1.1.3)
Widgets
Dictionary (quickly look up words, translate, use wikipedia)
Yellow/White Book (search for contacts, add them to your address book directly from the app, will sync back with address book on your Mac/PC)
Sports Ticker (choose your sports and teams, get updates on their progress)
Twitter (not directly in 1.1.3)
New Macbooks This is the news I expected the most: New Macbooks, thinner 0.8 inch/2cm compared to actual 2.75cm! (certainly lighter) and with a wow 1440×900 resolution, starting at $1199. Here are the details:
- What would MacWorld be without a new Mac? (sorry about last year)
Completely redesignd with aluminum body like MacBook Pro
13″ screen at 1440×900
Two colors: Black and Silver
Only 0.8″/2 centimeters
DVD drive pops open on side when eject button is pressed (we’ll see how this looks)
New on all notebooks and iMac: iSight HD (720p), means better resolution photos and video conferencing
New backlit keyboard based on recent Apple Keyboard revisions (keys slightly lighter than that of laptop casing, colorwise)
New matching MagSafe cable (Aluminum ends, cord color matches that of keyboard)
New matching Apple Remote (slightly smaller with larger overall buttons)
Graphics card: Intel GMA X3100
There are 3 models
Completely phasing out the combo drive on all product lines today
BTO models can upgrade all the way to 2.6GHz/4GB Memory/320GB hard drive
4.5 hours of battery life
Starting at$1199
Others
Apple is releasing on tuesday a big 10.5.2 and upgraded their mac pro line this week
I’ve managed for long enough not to talk or write any article about the iPhone. That was before I got my hands on one long enough as a user (not a tester), which happened last sunday. For the anecdot, I bought it at the San Francisco Apple Store and the seller warned me at least 3 times that if I unlocked it, cool for me, but I shouldn’t come to the apple store again, complaining if I had problems…
Anyway, here are a few tips and tricks I found in the past days (went to bed really late yesterday night because of it) that wil, I hope, help you get the most out of this extra ordinary toy.
Activation
So, first things first, to begin with, you will need to activate it. You can do it via the regular iTunes process if you intend to use it with an at&t subscription, but that was not my case. So to get a working ipod phone, you’ll need a simple software named iNdependance.It’s very convenient and keeps you (partly from the hassle of command line).
I won’t go into every detail since the process is quite complicated but getting your iphone activated is fairly easy, especially if you have a 1.02 version (which was my case). But I decided I wanted the latest 1.1.1 version… and things became a bit more complex, but once again, the help menu of indendence will be your friend.
Unsimlock
Trickier part: You’ll need to use a special procedure (with many steps) to downgrade and then upgrade your firmware to 1.1.1. Once this is done, you’ll have to install the latest version of anySIM. This part can be tricky for several reasons:
You’ll need to use the command line
The root password indicated in the doc was not the good one
So, after investigation, the correct root password was alpine (and not dottie) and an ftp client that supports sftp (such as transmit) can be used to browser and transfer files to the phone (in the /Applications folder in the case of anySIM).
Here’s a short video I shot with my N95 (sorry it’s blurry) showing the rather complicated process anySIM went through to unsimlock the phone.
Some cool native apps The first one (the mother of all) that you’ll need to install is the awesome installer.app. Thanks to it, you’ll be able to install, update and remove apps, over the air, in a very simple an intuitive interface. When you know that Apple has been preventing (up to early next year) custom apps development, this app is simply stunning!
Then you’ll need a serious app to manage your installed apps SummerBoard is a themable launcher replacement/hack with themes and various functions support. It’s an absolute must!
Last but not least, the excellent apollo IM client is available in the installer.app community sources (it took me a while to understand that this app was in fact an additional series of apps sources ;))
Some cool web apps
There are now plenty of very cool web apps, so here are 2 random ones that I find particularly well done:
Here is a very good news. It is now possible to completely unlock an iPhone that shipped with 1.1.2 or 1.1.3 software. A lot of people have been waiting for this to happen.
SummerBoard is a themable launcher replacement/hack with themes and various functions support. It’s an absolute must!
