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iLiberty frees my iPhone

by Erica Sadun Mar 29th 2008 at 9:00AM

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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My refurb AT&T iPhone finally arrived and I found a chance to test out iLiberty+ this afternoon. After wasting a day jailbreaking and...
 

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33 Comments

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Gavin Eadie

Does anyone know if iLiberty+ will unlock an iPhone that's been taken to a 2.0 beta OS? Unexpected trip to Italy looms!

May 11 2008 at 2:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jason Fields

This is for Spinstorm, re: I have used iPlus, ZiPhone and Independence.

If I was not informed and I jailbroke my iPhone w/ ZiPhone but did not UNLOCK, just jailbroke so I could use apps, is my phone also screwed? Can I re-jailbreak my phone with iPlus to fix the issue?

Thanks!

April 30 2008 at 7:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rob

@Raul & Spinstorm

Thank you for the clarification(s). VERY informative. I learn something new every day (hopefully). ;-)

March 30 2008 at 3:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Firefox90

Just to clarify, none of this baseband, etc stuff affects the iPod Touch right? I used ZiPhone to JB my iPod Touch and everything went smoothy.

March 30 2008 at 2:47 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Raul

Just to add to that iNdepedence for Mac uses an all together different method to unlock firmware 114. It keeps your boot loader at 4.6 and downgrades your baseband to 4.02.

For some users this mix and match of firmware 114 and baseband 4.02 is not desirable hence the the preference for iLiberty+ to unlock firmware 114, which allows you to unlock the latest baseband 4.04 (by downgrading to 3.9FB - this is 3.9 bootloader with a slight modification to allow it to be upgrade to 4.6 by software, not their own created bootloader) and yet gives you a choice to upgrade your boot loader back to 4.6 standard if necessary. No point closing doors if its not absolutely essential, is there?

March 29 2008 at 5:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Raul's comment
Spinstorm

I have used iPlus, ZiPhone and Independence.

First of all I am most comfortable with Independence as it is extremely well written and native to Mac. It used the same method as ZiPhone/iPlus/iLiberty+ to Jailbreak and activate but it does not add installer automatically. You have to manually upload it to your phone.

If your only after a jailbreak/activation and don't need installer I would always use Independence as its very clear to see what it does and how it works!

I don't have a problem with ZiPhone - obviously the 3.9 permanent downgrade is not a good thing BUT if your not on an official iPhone contract Apple won't fix your phone if you break it anyway so there is no reason not to use it.

Having said that ZiPhone has been known to break Wi-Fi on phones and there is a chance in the future that the only way to unlock/JB/Activate new firmware is to use a hacked bootloader and if you use ZiPhone then your bootloader is permanently stuck at 3.9 and you may never be able to unlock again.

But again having said that - all original iPhones have bootloader 3.9 so it seems likely that if this ever becomes and issue someway will be found to sort that problem out even though right now there is no way around the 3.9 upgrade/change bootloader problem that does not mean there never will be!

iPlus and iLiberty+ (which is the GUI wrapper for the latest version of iPlus) change the bootloader to the reversible type and are better written than ZiPhone so are inherently safer and the unlock of choice for those on official iPhone contracts who may need to restore the phone to factory settings before taking it to Apple for warranty.

BTW Independence does also unlock your phone but puts the firmware 1.1.2 baseband on the phone as without the 3.9 bootloader that is the latest unlockable baseband for 4.6 on iPhone.

March 29 2008 at 6:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Raul

I see Ziphone fanboys are here misleading themselves and other people as usual and I am sure those ignorant enough tofall for this and go and downgrade their bootloader irreversibly and then land up on forums for help.

Understand this, All iPhones since firmware 112 come with bootloader 4.6. Previous versions came with bootloader 3.9. Now pay attention: Every version of iPhone firmware comes with its corresponding baseband ie firmware 112 has baseband 4.02, firmware 113 has beaseband 4.03 and firmware 114 has baseband 4.04. Boot loaders cannot be easily upgraded or downgraded, for instance boot loader 3.9 cannot currently be upgraded to 4.6. Basebands are relatively simpler and easier to upgrade and downgrade

Unfortunately firmware 113 (baseband 4.03) and 114 (baseband 4.04)cannot be unlocked with boot loader 4.6. Unlockers have a choice, downgrade bootloader to 3.9 to unlock the latest basebands 4.03/4.04 or stay at boot loader 4.6 and use baseband 4.02 (from firmware 112)

Ziphone downgrades your boot loader IRREVERSIBLY TO 3.9 to unlock firmware 114. iPlus/iLiberty uses a slightly more sophisticated mechanism to downgrade your boot loader to 3.9FB (notice the FB) that CAN BE UPGRADED back to 4.6 standard. That's why iLiberty+ is now the preferred way to unlock. Because it is reversible.

But Ziphone users either are too ignorant or too slimy to inform readers of the facts. Since the author of Ziphone is on record to admit he can't code I will let readers take a call on the merits of his work, he has pinched the code without permission from the authors. So why support someone like this when superior alternatives exist.

March 29 2008 at 5:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Raul's comment
sparc

Straight out the box, connect and launch Ziphone. Five minutes later you can use any sim. Its that simple. When I explained how easy its now become people who wasn't sure about owning the iPhone soon order one.

March 29 2008 at 3:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kevin

Why would I want to use anything besides ZiPhone? The software is great, and the source is available.

March 29 2008 at 2:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
OWRC

Why use this buggy software? Use ziphoine

March 29 2008 at 2:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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.

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

March 29 2008 at 1:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Nathaniel's comment
Rob

@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. :-(

March 29 2008 at 3:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Spinstorm

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!

March 29 2008 at 5:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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