Filed under: Cool tools, Hacks, iPhone, iPhone 101
iPhone 101: Hacks Vocabulary Primer
We here at TUAW are always on the lookout to help you, our dear readers, understand what is going on in the crazy world of Apple related technology. The biggest news, as of late, has been the continued efforts to hack the iPhone. A rich language has developed around the iPhone hacking community, and we thought it might be time for a primer of sorts. Never again will you confuse your jailbreaking with your bricking.Jail. The public areas of the iPhone or iPod to which, by default, Apple allows read/write access via USB. In Unix terms, this refers to the /private/var/root/Media folder.
Jailbreak. The iPhone and iPod touch hacks that allow users to gain access to the entire Unix filesystem. In Unix terms, this refers to changing the root of the directory tree to /.
Activation. The process that allows you to move beyond any of the various screens that instruct you to connect your device to iTunes before it can be used. On the iPhone, you can only make emergency calls until your iPhone is activated.
Bricking. To render an iPhone or iPod touch inoperable. The 1.1.1 firmware update turned many iPhones into iBricks. Users could not reactivate their iPhone to get past their "Please connect to iTunes" screens. Although the phones could still be used for emergency calls, users were locked out from all normal iPhone operations.
File system. The way your iPhone or iPod touch uses its memory to store data and applications. The iPhone and iPod touch use two "disks": a smaller private file system that contains the operating system and a larger public one that contains your media (songs, videos, etc), preferences, and data.
/etc/fstab. The file on your iPhone or iPod touch that states whether your file system allows read-write access.
SIM lock. A limitation imposed by the manufacturer of a GSM phone to limit a phone to certain carriers. The US iPhone is SIM locked and can only be used with AT&T.
Baseband. The part of an iPhone's memory that provides the firmware for the phone's radio modem chip.
GSM. Global System for Mobile Communications, a popular mobile phone standard used by the iPhone.
Unlock. Bypassing a phone's SIM lock to allow it to be used with any carrier with compatible equipment. In the US, the iPhone is compatible with both AT&T and T-Mobile's GSM equipment.
Unlocking Software. Software that allows the iPhone to be unlocked. You must jailbreak a phone in order to install and use unlocking software.
Third party apps. iPhone and iPod touch applications that were neither created by nor commissioned by Apple.
ssh. Secure shell. This is a shell that runs on your iPhone or iPod touch using port 22 and allows you to connect wirelessly to a Unix shell.
Toolchain. In terms of the iPhone/iPod touch world, a compiler and linker developed by Patrick Walton of the University of Chicago and his compatriots. It allows developers to create applications that can run on the iPhone and iPod touch's ARM processor.
DevWiki. The developer wiki for iPhone is hosted at iPhone.fiveforty.net. Many developer projects first appear here and the site contains a wealth of iPhone and iPod touch related information. The iPod touch Developer Wiki contains many of the most important recent developments regarding the touch. The phrase DevWiki may refer to either of these two sites.
Thanks Tony Hoyle, phire
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Meatwagon said 2:13PM on 10-11-2007
sweet, now the question that everyone is thinking and affraid to ask... is there anyone working on a free unlock app for 1.1.1?
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oshawapilot said 2:34PM on 10-11-2007
Cue the "Oh geez, another iPhone story on TUAW" whiners..
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EatingPie said 2:35PM on 10-11-2007
Yes there is. (No, it's not me.) :)
-Pie
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EatingPie said 2:37PM on 10-11-2007
Previous directed at #1.
Now, the other question...
SummerBoard and AppTap updates for 1.1.1 in the works?
-Pie
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Not A. Asshat said 2:53PM on 10-11-2007
TUAW has become TUAIUW. Sad to see.
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Bork said 3:04PM on 10-11-2007
*sigh*
I thought eventually that the staff at TUAW would listen to the majority of its readers and stop accepting Erica's banal and senseless iPhone hacking posts.
Remarkably, the staff is accepting even more of them.
Even more, the quality of the non-iPhone hacking posts is lamentable.
Well, I have had enough.. I shall not be coming back to read TUAW.
To others, like me, who are looking for better alternatives, I offer the following sites:
daringfireball.net
macsurfer.com
macminute.com
macdailynews.com
macworld.com
macuser.com
Ta!
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Luna Lovegood said 3:09PM on 10-11-2007
QuotaPost FTW!
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yacoub said 3:11PM on 10-11-2007
Looking forward to all the whiners getting banned. =)
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frank said 3:11PM on 10-11-2007
Erica has been doing a freakin' great job covering this and deserves some props.
Thanks!
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MacDaddy said 3:18PM on 10-11-2007
Even though I'm still working fine on 1.0.2, I unlocked with iUnlock and IPSF claims to fix the problems caused by this method... I'm tempted to buy it.
I'll probably just wait for IPDev to come out with theirs.
Oh and thanks TUAW for providing one of the main repositories of up-to-date info on how things are proceeding.
To the whiners.... skip what you don't like reading- or- die in a fire.
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mparkes said 3:27PM on 10-11-2007
Funny how the iphone enthusiasts don't complain about the non-iPhone blog entires :)
Thanks Erica!
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joseph said 3:38PM on 10-11-2007
How can you have a how to hack post without mentioning Terminal? Step one to hack is to open terminal, of course!
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Pibroch said 3:52PM on 10-11-2007
Well, I don't own a Mac capable of running Leopard so I don't want to see any Leopard related blog postings. Since I don't care nobody else should either.
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Macroy said 4:01PM on 10-11-2007
#7: "the majority of its readers"? What, the subset of whiny people in the subset of people who leave comments? That doesn't sound like a majority to me.
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bshell said 4:03PM on 10-11-2007
Just adding my thanks to Erica Sadun for her iPhone posts. I love TUAW mainly because of Erica. Keep posting, Erica!! Because of Erica, TUAW is arguably the finest source in the world for iPhone news.
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jsanchezj said 4:09PM on 10-11-2007
Erica- you rock. This is a great glossary (I know you didn't intend it to be a how-to).
I am a long-time Mac user, yet only an occasional visitor to TUAW. For me, this is not about hacking (I was willing to switch to AT&T).
To me, this is about unleashing the full potential of the iphone as a mobile Mac. For every one of the whiners TUAW may lose (yet they still continue to while :-/) you'll gain someone like me. I visit TUAW many times a day, and your RSS feed on my Toolbar!
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Brent Schooley said 5:47PM on 10-11-2007
@ #7
Funny how the majority of comments are in praise of the topic and the minority are the now-oft-referred-to-as whiners. That should tell you something. Frankly, it's quite naive for you to think that the staff is not looking at how many views these topics about the iPhone are getting. I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that the stories relating to iPhone are getting way more views and comments than anything else on the site. If you don't like it, here's a thought for you: don't read the article.
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Stan said 5:59PM on 10-11-2007
Tto be honest, the iPhone hacking stories are one of the only unique features of TUAW. There are many indistinguishable Mac blogs which all cover the same news. The fact that the cranky commenter could rattle off 5 of them is evidence of that. (I exclude Daring Fireball, which provides interesting commentary, in an entertaining, cranky uncle sort of way.)
TUAW has found a novel angle and should run with that. Fighting for readers by being the same as every other blog is pointless. If anything, I'd vote for less of the standard Mac coverage. (Who gives a crap about the latest security update for Microsoft Office, or another Apple store opening up?!) I have an RSS reader for a reason, and can subscribe to other sites if I'm not getting enough of the usual Mac news fodder.
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Macroy said 6:47PM on 10-11-2007
Hey! Listen!
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/06/22/iphone-free-tuaw-feed/
Or, for the lazy...
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=hNQjSv4g3BGE8lINYEsBXw
(this was made before the iPhone even launched!)
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marina said 1:46AM on 10-12-2007
Great post! Thank u for your work, Erica! Just enjoied your interview on the macbreak weekly podcast. You r fantastic!
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