Filed under: iPod Family, Hacks, How-tos, Terminal Tips, iPhone
Terminal Tip: Syncing your iPhone or iPod touch from the command line
This is one of those completely useless but cool things that one figures out when one is spending far too much time trying to do something else and not accomplishing it. In my case, I'm trying to figure out how to force an iPod touch or iPhone to load a backup set. (Do you know? Let me know in the comments!) What I accomplished though was figuring out how to sync the unit with a simple command-line utility. Here's how.
Launch System Profiler. Choose Apple > About This Mac > More Info.
Identify your iPod In System Profiler, go to Hardware > USB and locate the iPod or iPhone you're using. Look up the Manufacturer ID (0x05ac (Apple Computer, Inc.) and Product ID (0x1291 for my iPod touch)
Launch Terminal. This requires shell access.
Find the utility. Change directories to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework/Versions/A/Resources/.
Run reenumerate Give it one argument: the vendor id followed by a comma followed by the product id, e.g. ./reenumerate 0x05ac,0x1291
Wait. iTunes will reload your iPod or iPhone and sync it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tbehunin said 6:47PM on 1-16-2008
Any chance this will work to sync an iPhone using OS X 10.3 and iTunes 7.5?
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Peter Zich said 6:48PM on 1-16-2008
Nice.
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Fritz Laurel said 7:01PM on 1-16-2008
Bahaha -- my dyslexic brain read the headline as "Terminal Lip Syncing."
Reply
edwin said 8:26AM on 1-17-2008
I don't know why, but something is telling me that through Terminal (this same way) iTunes can be manipulated into unlocking an iPhone "a la Germany." We just need the right command lines.
Remember, the iPhones truly unlocked via iTunes were unlocked in "just seconds."
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Fritz Laurel said 3:18AM on 1-17-2008
Vee have vays of making you unlock!
("a la Germany")
edwin said 8:54AM on 1-17-2008
Come again Fritz!
What do you mean when you say "we have ways of unlocking . . . 'a la Germany'?"
I know there are a few ways of unlocking your iPhone (anySim, iPhonesimfree, iUnlock, etc.) But from what I've heard (or read) NONE of them unlock the iPhone using iTunes. And when I say using iTunes I mean a "true-master unlock", like the one performed by iTunes when the user buys the iPhone (at an extremely expensive price) from the carrier (which in Germany I think it's T-Mobile) and then the carrier send Apple the IMEI number so that they can unlock the iPhone via iTunes. Or in other words "a la Germany." This unlock is the true-master and mother of all unlocking procedures because it's the one performed by Apple itself. So, as you may know, no firmware upgrade, downgrade or jailbreak can undo or even brick you phone.
So Fritz... If you know how to perform such true-master unlock PLEASE let me know. I'd pay anything!
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Scott said 10:57AM on 1-17-2008
This would be extremely valuable to me but doesn't seem to work consistently. It does, in fact, occasionally initiate a sync when running this command from the terminal. However, there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the consistency (or lack of it). I've tried it with iTunes running and with it inactive, with new information to sync and with none, with the iPhone selected in an active iTunes window and not, etc. The result is different almost each time.
When running the terminal command I do get the tone from the phone indicating the initiation of a sync. If the phone is sleeping (e.g., the screen is dark) it does light up the screen momentarily. If the phone is awake (view all icons on the screen) then I hear the same tone but the sync does not get initiated.
Occasionally, it _does_ work. As I said, though, there's no discernible pattern to it.
This could be a valuable function for me as I use my iPhone as my primary phone and keep it in the cradle on my desk. When I remove it to make or receive a call and then replace it in the cradle it goes through the syncing cycle.
(Yes, I know I can turn off the "Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected" option. That is, in fact, what I want to be able to do - I want to leave that option OFF so that the phone does NOT sync every time I put it in the cradle. I want to be able to command the system to sync the phone on demand; I'll either create an AppleScript or Quickeys sequence for it.)
Are there any Terminal jockeys out there that can help troubleshoot this? I am running the latest version of the Mac OS and the latest update of iPhone software (1.1.3 - excellent new features, by the way).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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