Filed under: Cool tools, Hacks, How-tos, Ask TUAW, iPhone
Fixing iPhone signal loss
Yesterday, Scott forwarded me along a question from TUAW reader John Stuart. He wrote in asking about his cell signal. When put on sleep/hold, the signal fades out and he can't receive calls. His phone is unlocked and in the UK, and this signal loss appears to be a common fault.
As a temporary measure, John started playing back music on repeat, with the volume cut off. As you might imagine, this runs down the battery and prevents him from actually using the iPod features without having to do extra work.
TUAW to the rescue. After polling the developer community, ApolloIM developer Alex "Arminius" Schaefer came to the rescue. He remembered that SummerBoard supported a mode that would retain your signal even in sleep mode.
The hack works like this: You install SummerBoard (it is available via Installer.app) and then create a temporary file called SummerBoard.DisablePowerManagement. Once created, SummerBoard sees this file and keeps the signal from powering down.
With this knowledge in hand, I was able to create a small utility for John, which is hosted here. To use, just tap it each time you reboot your iPhone. It creates the temporary file, which lasts until your next reboot. (All tmp files are deleted then.)
The JohnTool application will be available in short order via Installer.app and is already available at the PXL package repository.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Steve said 3:42PM on 10-19-2007
Erica, honestly, you have the most beautiful phone in the world yet you insist on having the ugliest icons for your apps! Please set yourself up with a decent iPhone icon template or something! You should be ashamed :-)
Otherwise, nice work Erica, love to see your utils!
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Sam Weiss said 3:54PM on 10-19-2007
Sooo....
What does it do to battery life?
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Aron Trimble said 3:59PM on 10-19-2007
It's already in Installer.app
Any word on Summerboard compatibility with 1.1.1?
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Dane Omazic said 4:16PM on 10-19-2007
where do i create "SummerBoard.DisablePowerManagement." file and what do i save the file as
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Whurm said 4:37PM on 10-19-2007
Seriously, I don't mind all the iPhone post, I have one. But titles like this are misleading, it involves hacks. I thought someone had issues with a non-hacked phone. I have to ignore all iPhone info it seems from this site since 90% is about hacks. If I wanted that info I'd go to hackint0sh or something. TUAW - hacks != apple I don't think.
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Andrew said 5:16PM on 10-19-2007
Hmm, this doesn't "fix" anything.
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Merlin said 5:27PM on 10-19-2007
Erica, please don't listen to people like #5. If it wasn't for TUAW pushing the envelope in iPhone 'hacking' and development Apple may never have even decided to release an SDK!
Also, I count on TUAW for my iPhone news because no other blog I've found covers it so well. The hackintosh forums are good if you have an hour to read through hundreds of posts. Thanks for the great work and keep up the iPhone (and iPhone underground) coverage!
BTW, I was having a HUGE problem with losing reception all the time and never even knew others had this problem! I used this app and so far haven't lost reception once!
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NG said 5:56PM on 10-19-2007
Yea Erica.. that dude from the #5 just can't afford an iPhone, he's depress and is on prozac.. he doesn't know what he is saying..
Great job you are doing, we love u
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Michael said 6:19PM on 10-19-2007
Ok I have a iPhone with 1.1.1 and its not hacked or unlocked.
So I am up a creek until Apple wakes up and puts out a fix for the most problematic issue going with this device?
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louis said 3:24PM on 10-20-2007
sweet! Thanks........ Just what I need.
so how long before we can use a bonjor printer from the iphone!
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oshawapilot said 8:45PM on 10-20-2007
Yaaay! Now I can finally get Apollo (my instant messenger client) to stay connected all the time instead of having it disconnect every time my iPhone goes into standby!
This was one of the major pet peeves I had about how the iPhone worked. Issue now solved!
Woooo Erica!
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mok said 3:41AM on 10-21-2007
please put something in the article about how this appears only to affect iPhone users who have used some form of unlock. If you have an iPhone that has not been hacked and it's happening to you, you have a defective piece of hardware. Sleep mode is just like any keylock on any other phone and is (in iPhone's case) vital to battery life as well. Non-hacked phones don't exhibit this behavior - no need to freak everyone out!
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John Stuart said 3:45PM on 10-21-2007
I'd like to thank Erica once more for creating this app for me. I can report that battery life is really great. I've had no issues since installing the software, and it's great to see it on Installer.app. There's many more happy users over on the hackint0sh forums.
Mok - I have actually read reports of this problem affecting non-unlocked/hacked iPhones. Of course these people are simply taking their phones back for a replacement.
Steve - I've created an icon you'll hopefully prefer to Erica's original. I've uploaded it to my site (http://www.johntstuart.co.uk).
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christoph.graeber said 10:27AM on 10-23-2007
Great work! It fixed the problem I was fighting with for weeks!
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Zaiks said 5:36AM on 10-22-2007
Thank you - this is a very good utility, but is it possible to "autostart" this somehow?
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Tony said 5:44PM on 10-22-2007
I tried the app doesnt work for me, I am on avirginized 1.1.1 totaly unlocked 8\ playing the ipod on mute works tho
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kip said 2:14PM on 10-22-2007
hi,
What is one supposed to do if they're unlocked and still running 1.0.2? I downloaded summerboard, but it told me I needed to be running 1.1.1 for the current summerboard to work on my iphone. Searches bring me to the summerboard page, but I've not been able to find any older versions of the program ---where can I find one?
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rodolpho said 3:00PM on 10-24-2007
the app doesnt work for me...
But lowering ipods volume does...
Summerboard is cool anyway.
Hope to find a permanent solution.
Cheers
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Sexyguy said 12:38PM on 10-23-2007
Where (which directory) do i upload the downloaded JohnTool pack to?
Be specific. Thanks in advance!
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alex n said 10:04PM on 10-24-2007
ok... i'm having the same problem offcourse..
can someone please send me an email and explain how and where to put this johntool...
i looked for some instructions or something that explains the thing step by step.. but.. nothing
thank you
alex n.
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