Filed under: Bad Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, Jailbreak/pwnage
Announcement: Saurik live chat at 4:15 (ET) today
Please join us this afternoon at 4:15 Eastern for a live chat with Jay "Saurik" Freeman. Jay is going to talk to us about Apple's new signature server and what that means to you as an iPod or iPhone owner.Have you noticed a new message in iTunes when you restore an iPhone or iPod touch? "Verifying restore with Apple..."? iTunes is now checking your unit against a registered database and deciding whether to allow you to install your firmware or not. Potentially, Apple could disallow downgrades to previous firmware versions. According to Freeman, this move allows Apple to "recall existing firmwares by keeping people from restoring to them in the future. To do this they simply would refuse to ever sign, for example, iPhone OS 3.0 again."
Freeman will explain why this is a real problem to both the standard App Store community and to the jailbreak community. Join us with your questions.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bassjunkie said 11:41AM on 9-24-2009
what does this all mean for the state of jailbreak? Hating the fact that I upgraded to the most recent version of iTunes last nite...
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Noah said 11:51AM on 9-24-2009
You can always go back to an older version of iTunes if you can find the executable online.
Matt said 11:53AM on 9-24-2009
No you can't Noah. An older version of itunes will say it isn't compatible with the phone.
bassjunkie said 12:10PM on 9-24-2009
well i haven't synced my phone with the new iTunes version yet. can I still go to an older version of iTunes without experiencing any issues?
mark said 12:26PM on 9-24-2009
Apple has been linking certain version of iTunes to certain firmwares. That's one way the hamper jailbreaking. Version 9.0.1 is fine if you are jailbroken, the team has already given us the all clear on that.
If you want to read more about this issue of verifying the restore process right now, Saurik wrote a fantastic article on the procedure of how Apple uses the ECID in the 3G S to create a signature that is sent back to iTunes on your computer which then allows or disallows the restoring of a specific version of firmware. Basically Apple wants to keep 3G S phones on the most recent version. They have stopped signing 3.0 and 3.0.1 already. Saurik's article on this is here: http://www.saurik.com/id/12
Note - the 3G and 2G are unaffected by this signature checking.
If you are a Mac user, I've got a couple tutorials to help you sort out this mess. First a flow chart so you can see the current state of the jailbreak as it stands for 3G S owners. http://www.hackthatphone.com/3x/3GS_flowchart.html
Saurik's method stores an ECID SHSH file on the Cydia server. A new movement allows you to store this file on your own computer, just in case. You can read about this here: http://www.hackthatphone.com/3x/local_ecid_shsh.html
Bob said 11:45AM on 9-24-2009
>Please join us this afternoon at 4:15 Eastern for a live chat with Jay "Saurik" Freeman.
Where do I go to join you? A link would be nice.
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totoro said 12:03PM on 9-24-2009
"Freeman will explain why this is a real problem to both the standard App Store community and to the jailbreak community"
Well, its obviously a "real problem" for the jailbreak community. I'm sure we'll hear about how the rest of users will be "losing out on the chance to legitimately go back to older firmware to "troubleshoot" etc...but the reality is the vast number of those in standard App Store community really don't care about stuff like this.
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Manny said 12:13PM on 9-24-2009
for those of us that were smart enough to stay on 3.0 just be happy you did. But as apple continues to try and cap every loop hole found by the dev-team its going to only get harder to jailbreak.
now that they are requesting signature of the firmware its going to be even harder, i just hope that the dev-team finds another workaround to this signature request. Just to throw it in apples face!!
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toratoko said 2:07PM on 9-24-2009
It's not that some of us weren't "smart enough" to stay on 3.0, there's also the fact that our devices just blow up in our face and we have no choice to restore with an ECID that isn't on Saurik's server. Please be aware that not everyone in the world is an unwise upgrade-fiend.
But I understand what you are trying to say in your comment...
lostgame said 1:25PM on 9-24-2009
As a legit app store developer, this situation is the worst for us - we need to test and support these new firmware versions, but we also sometimes want/need to support older firmware versions as well. This makes testing on older firmwares near impossible.
Apple, what the hell? Seriously. Go die somewhere.
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jb510 said 1:59PM on 9-24-2009
"Potentially, Apple could disallow downgrades to previous firmware versions."
There is no "potentially" they are are refusing to sign 3.0.1 on 3GSs.
I'm looking forward to this chat :)
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