Filed under: iPhone
iLiberty frees my iPhone
My refurb AT&T iPhone finally arrived and I found a chance to test out iLiberty+ this afternoon. After wasting a day jailbreaking and messing with my new iPhone, I just could not bypass that annoying activation screen. Yes, I could ssh into the unit and run stuff from the command line but I had to keep working my way around "Connect to iTunes" to get to the SpringBoard screen. So I gave iLiberty+ a try.
After a few false starts, it got going and worked brilliantly. I was able to track progress with the on-screen updates and not only did it activate my iPhone but allowed it to work with a disposable Cingular SIM I had on-hand. All in all, a great success.
After activation though, I could not get iLiberty to work with the iPhone still connected. I wanted to grab screen shots and the program would not launch and stay launched. (I have crash logs if any of the developers are interested.) So in the end, I unplugged the iPhone in order to get the one screen shot you see here.
Part of me wanted to deactivate the iPhone and try again for a screen grab gallery but a much smarter part of me asked "why mess with success?" Given how badly I messed up the phone several times today, that was the part I listened to. A later, complete reboot seemed to fix the problem but I was in no position to go backwards after a day fending off cranky children and an impatient husband, all of whom seemed to think there was a world outside of iPhone.
Update: No, I did not unlock my iPhone.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Luigi193 said 10:06AM on 3-29-2008
after a day fending off cranky children and an impatient husband, all of whom seemed to think there was a world outside of iPhone.
LOL
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claus2488 said 10:53AM on 3-29-2008
erica
until the cranky children and impatient husband ... i had you in the goddess realm and am have a hard time seeing you as human ... oh well
wally... associate writer PA
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pj said 4:37PM on 4-01-2008
I'm very wary about jailbreaking my iphone. I don't want to lose my contact info. I input everything by typing on the phone and was wondering if iTunes or something else could back it up in case I need to restore. I'm on a Windows system (and 1.1.4 on iPhone) but before you pass judgement, I plan on switching later this year thanks to the quality products of my iPod Photo and my new iPhone. Anyways, I just wanted to know if there was a way of making sure I can reload my contacts, bookmarks and homescreen bookmarks. I really want to try out Summerboard once I jailbreak the phone. Any help?
By the way nice blog. I discovered it two weeks ago just by surfing.
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Graham said 5:50PM on 3-29-2008
iTunes backs up your iPhone's data every time you sync. After you do the jailbreak and connect it back to your computer, all you have to do is restore from the backup when iTunes prompts you to activate. The process may be slightly different if you aren't using an "official" carrier.
DistortedLoop said 8:24PM on 3-29-2008
Can't iPhone/iTunes sync your phone contacts with MS Outlook or Address Book?
The Mac OS X version syncs with Mac Address Book, iCal, Safari Bookmarks, email accounts/settings, etc.
starkruzr said 2:51PM on 3-30-2008
I promise you will not damage your phone by jailbreaking, the worst thing that can happen is you render it somehow unable to activate and just have to perform a restore again.
Jailbreaking 1.1.4 is ridiculously easy. Don't worry :)
pscs said 11:08AM on 3-29-2008
I used ziphone back in february... it worked fine. Now I think the hackers are waiting for the 2nd gen iphone...
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ryanm said 11:16AM on 3-29-2008
How does this differ from Ziphone? Is it based on the same source/libraries, or is this a different method?
PS, why would you go to the trouble of sim-unlocking your iphone? I remember the problems that occurred in the 1.0.2 days with corrupt seczones and the like, and you managed to avoid it because you stated you never fully ran the unlock, even though you had a part in writing it (seczone code was commented out)
do you have that much trust in the latest unlocks? I was under the impression that any unlocks were risky business, and you shouldn't do them unless you _really_ have to. There will be many more software updates to iphones in the months and years ahead, and a corrupt baseband is one way towards an iBrick
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Chad Zeluff said 11:20AM on 3-29-2008
The unlocks done using ZiPhone are 100% safe at this point. I'll tell you why I unlock:
1. AT&T really...REALLY sucks in Utah.
2. I get 600 minutes with unl nights & weekends for $50, unl text for $15, and I can use the T-Zones hack so I only have to pay $6/mo for internet.
The same or similar AT&T bill is about $40 more per month. No thanks.
mark said 2:17PM on 3-29-2008
First, Ziphone is a pice of crap that breaks/damages/permanently destroys as many phones as it "fixes".
Second, iliberty is out to address that problem. Now you have a better solution that isn't full of a patchwork of misappropriated code that was cut and pasted together by an idiot.
As far as unlocking being dangerous, everything in life is dangerous. Have you seen some of the morons who have driver's licenses out there? People actually slip and die in the bath tub, so save the dangerous spiel ok?
I've unlocked over 50 iphones with no problems using many programs (none of them ziphone) without any problem. If you are the typical computer owner (who is also computer illiterate and could never be bothered to read a manual or learn something about the computer) then stay the hell away from modding cell phones, you are too stupid to be doing this. Go back to playing video games and watching cable all day ok? The sky is not falling chicken little.
Greg said 11:31AM on 3-29-2008
iTunes backs up everything, so you're fine with that. The question is really why this app needs to exist when ZiPhone is around. ZiPhone can activate, jailbreak, unlock, or any other combination or any of those.
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marginatus said 12:14PM on 3-29-2008
iliberty downgrades the 4.6 BL to 3.9 Fake BL (that makes possible to upgrade to 4.6 if needed). it alows loading costum payloads...
Nathan Hesson said 12:09PM on 3-29-2008
I would add ziphone works great. Sim unlocks are no biggie. I am on 1.1.4 w/ Tmobile and it is everything I ever wanted. Ziphone does its thing in about 3 minutes. No problems on three phones.
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Dave said 12:26PM on 3-29-2008
There's a world outside of iPhone?!?
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Rubbinz said 12:51PM on 3-29-2008
You wasted an entire day trying to bypass activation Erica? Stop wasting your time and use ZiPhone and you'll done in under 4 minutes.
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Edsel said 12:59PM on 3-29-2008
Some humble advice for Erica.
When you reach the backside slide of life as I have, diagnosing malcontent devices or debugging code becomes a quixotic parlor game. After an hour or so of purposeful experimentation, you forget the entire purpose of the adventure and so you call your kids and tell them to come home and fix "the damn thing!"
Children are the most fabulous, programmable chaos machines ever schemed by the powers greater than we. Debug them while they're still open-source, so perhaps one day, they'll return the favor and and come home to merrily fix your iPhone.
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Rob said 1:10PM on 3-29-2008
Couldn't agree more with all the above posters: ZiPhone is the Golden Master of iPhone unlocking/activating at this point. There's simply no reason to use anything else when ZiPhone works so perfectly.
http://www.ziphone.org/
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Nathaniel said 1:40PM on 3-29-2008
People, ZiPhone makes irreversible changes to your iPhone! This means that if you ever have a problem with your iPhone and send it to Apple ZiPhone has voided your warrenty. You will not get help or repair! iLiberty+ is a far better and safer solution.
If you can figure out how to use iLiberty+ then follow one of the many tutorials!
Mac: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=847
Windows: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=849
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Rob said 3:05PM on 3-29-2008
@Nathaniel: "People, ZiPhone makes irreversible changes to your iPhone! This means that if you ever have a problem with your iPhone and send it to Apple ZiPhone has voided your warrenty. You will not get help or repair! iLiberty+ is a far better and safer solution."
Completely. Not. True.
From the ZiPhone read me:
Legal notice:
ZiPhone does NOT change the iPhone internal IMEI.
It changes the baseband to THINK the imei is another one.
No changes are made inside the SECZONE.
To restore the original IMEI, just issue:
ziphone -u (to keep it unlocked)
or the full restore procedure below.
And ANY phone can be restored to a BRAND NEW state, by using this procedure:
ziphone -e
then..."
You must have some undisclosed affiliation to iLiberty+ to be pimping it this buggy app this hard. :-(
Spinstorm said 5:58PM on 3-29-2008
ZiPhone DOWNGRADES your bootloader to 3.9 from 4.6.
There is NO WAY to go back to 4.6.
This voids your warranty with Apple and they will not replace your phone should it be broken.
iLiberty downgrades it to a special hacked version of bootloader 3.9 which CAN be returned to its original bootloader.
Refurbish DOES NOT put your bootloader back to 4.9 - it is not possible via software unless you have the iLiberty version.
SO you my friend are WRONG! you should do more research!