Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone
iPhone Safe Mode: Who knew?
What happens when you set your jailbroken iPhone to "fast respring" (that is, turn on one of the SpringBoard relaunching options) via BossTool, and SpringBoard crashes? Safe mode, apparently. Who knew that Safe Mode even existed on the iPhone? I certainly didn't until TUAW reader Max S. sent in the pictures below.
Safe Mode apparently disables certain system extensions. You can get out of safe mode by rebooting. So let's see, a blue screen of doom and safe mode. Hmmm. I thought this phone was manufactured by Apple. Where's Seinfeld?
Anyway, this isn't the first time the topic of iPhone's Safe Mode has come up. I googled up this Austrian page and a few other hits -- most of which seemed to appear in September of 2008, after the recent firmware upgrade.
Know anything about Safe Mode and the iPhone? Drop a comment and tell us more.
Gallery: iPhone Safe Mode
Update: Readers do know more! They point out that this is a Winterboard feature and not part of Apple's firmware.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ziff said 4:09PM on 9-19-2008
This happened to me earlier today after I attempted to install Inteliscreen from Cydia. I simply rebooted and it went away. However, after my next reboot, I got stuck at the apple logo screen and had to restore. The iPhone is getting more and more crash-prone with each update. Going in the wrong direction. Also, where's my push API?
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Joshua Ochs said 4:59PM on 9-19-2008
Hmm... You're running Cydia on a jailbroken iPhone - and you're concerned about stability.
Does not compute.
ziff said 5:01PM on 9-19-2008
Joshua,
I see your point. Well played.
Hawkman said 5:02PM on 9-19-2008
I'm not sure installing Intelliscreen (which has always struck me as an exceptionally buggy, cluttered, hacked-together piece of software - and I'm sorry if the author ever reads this and feels offended, it's just my opinion) on a jailbroken iPhone is really a very fair test of how stable the iPhone OS is. I've noticed noting but improvement since the admittedly flawed 2.0 release.
ziff said 5:07PM on 9-19-2008
You're right about IntelliScreen. I hadn't tried it before and thought I'd give it a go. Uninstalled after a few minutes, but the damage was done. Oh, well. Not the first time I've had to restore because I did something I shouldn't have done.
Nick said 5:21PM on 9-19-2008
Yes, I have to agree. You are totally wrong here. I think the updates are amazing, from 2.0.1 to 2.1 stability has improved 100%, my iPod touch works like a dream now! So smooth.
whateverg said 4:20PM on 9-19-2008
I figured out how to enter safe mode go here
http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99653&highlight=safe+mode
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esposimi said 5:20PM on 9-19-2008
this happened to me too ,after i installed veency. i should have taken a screenshot!!
Jash Sayani said 1:37AM on 9-20-2008
Cool. Now there should be an app to switch to SafeMode and normal Mode. Also booting options !
Oscar said 4:31PM on 9-19-2008
Same thing happened to me yesterday after uninstalling MobileTerminal from Cydya.
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iambored8907 said 4:33PM on 9-19-2008
It's not an official Apple feature, its a backup utility for the Winterboard app. Instead of the endless spinningwheel you get "Safe Mode." Unless there are two safe modes....
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iambored8907 said 4:35PM on 9-19-2008
And it should be obvious its not a Apple feature since it suggests restart the springboard lol. There is no Apple app to respring
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Alex said 4:37PM on 9-19-2008
Mobile Substrate is a jailbreak package that is a requirement for other apps. It's basically just a framework to allow code to be injected into SpringBoard. This shouldn't ever show up on a vanilla iPhone... it's just Mobile Substrate falling back to 'normal' iPhone mode from the sounds of it.
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Andune said 4:40PM on 9-19-2008
"Hmmm. I thought this phone was manufactured by Apple."
The phone may be manufactured by Apple but the Safe Mode isn't...
If you jailbreak your iPhone you lose your "right" to complain about crashes, it's almost like breaking apart something and expecting the warranty to still be there.
Just like Ben said.
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Kahnyl said 4:41PM on 9-19-2008
Why would Apple refer to SpringBoard when most users don't know it's called that?
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Ben said 4:47PM on 9-19-2008
err isn't Inteliscreen a jailbreak app?...
Crashing iPhone should be the first thing you are prepared for when you jailbreak your iPhone.
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Bob S. said 4:54PM on 9-19-2008
"So let's see, a blue screen of doom and safe mode. Hmmm. I thought this phone was manufactured by Apple."
Um, while this particular "safe" mode is from a third party, Mac OS X has had a safe mode built into it for, apparently, longer than you've realized.
http://www.tuaw.com/search/?q=%22safe+mode%22&invocationType=wl-tuaw
(In case you don't read the site, Erica.)
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Nadeem said 4:55PM on 9-19-2008
OMG .
This post is so misleading ...
This Safe mode is provided by MobileSubstrate from Jay Freeman ( Saurik ) who promised this feature in MobileSubstrate Long ago.
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sinx80@gmail.com said 4:56PM on 9-19-2008
@iambored8907 My phone went into safe and I don't have winterboard installed. It could possibly be a cydia feature but, like most people, this has only happened since the 2.1 update.
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iambored8907 said 7:13PM on 9-19-2008
Winterboard used to use the mobilesubstrate (and so did cydia, Bossprefs and categories) but now they dont need it. So now the safe mode is now included in winterboard