The guys over at Make It Work were lucky enough to sit down with Saurik, the developer of Cydia, for a few minutes and talk to him about the current iPhone 4 jailbreak situation.
Saurik confirmed that an iPhone 4 jailbreak will be released in the near future, and that Comex, MuscleNerd, and PlanetBeing are working hard on it.
Getting Saurik on video is a pretty rare event so I suggest you check it out.
[ModMyI]
Every time Apple releases a new firmware, they stop signing the older one, which means you technically can't downgrade to a previous firmware by restoring. Fortunately, if you have your ECID SHSH on file on Saurik's servers, then you might be able to downgrade your iPhone from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 or earlier.
The trick is to make iTunes believe it is requesting a signature from Apple's servers while it will actually be talking to Saurik's servers.
Downgrading from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 does require you saved your SHSH on Saurik's servers. If you haven't, then you can't downgrade.
Downgrade from iPhone iOS 4 to firmware 3.1.3Step 1 for Windows: Make sure you are logged in with administrator privileges. Launch Notepad and navigate to C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com
Now save the file back where you found it.
Step 1 for Mac: In Finder, select Go To Folder, and enter /etc. Search the hosts file and right click on it to open with TextEdit. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com
Click Save As to save the edited file on your desktop. Name the file hosts, and make sure to uncheck the box that says "if no extension is provide, use .txt".
Now drag and drop this edited file to /etc.
Step 2: Download the firmware you want to downgrade to from here.
Step 3: Put your iPhone in DFU mode. Launch iTunes and plug your iPhone in. Press and hold the home and and sleep button together for 10 seconds. After exactly 10 seconds, release the sleep button while still holding the home button. Keep holding the home button until iTunes tells you it has found an iPhone in recovery mode.
Step 4: Now hold the Option key (Mac only) or Shift key (Windows only) while clicking the Restore button in iTunes. A dialog box will pop up and you’ll be able to choose the firmware you downloaded in step 2.
Step 5: At this point, some of you will be fine. The iPhone will restore without any problem. However, some of you might end up in recovery mode again. It's ok. We just need to kick the iPhone out of recovery mode. To do so, download and launch iReb for Windows or iRecovery (both Mac and Windows).
Welcome back to 3.1.3!
[image Life Hacker]
Every time a new iPhone firmware comes out, many of us accidentally update their device to the latest OS, making it impossible to jailbreak/unlock, or even downgrade to an earlier version.
In order to have a shot at downgrading your iPhone, you must have your ECID SHSH on file on Saurik's server, just in case Apple stops signing the older firmware version, just like it did a few weeks ago with 3.1.2.
How to Save Your ECID SHSHNote that this is only valid for iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 2G/3G. iPhone 3G owners are not concerned as they can downgrade the firmware (not the baseband).
The Easy Way
If like me you are lucky and you launch Cydia and see that "this device has SHSHs on file for iPhone OS: 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3", then you don't have anything to do. I have these 4 SHSHs on file but it's ok if you only have the latest SHSH on file. At the time I am writing this, the latest firmware is 3.1.3 so to date, you should make sure you have at least the SHSH for 3.1.3.
The Other Easy Way
If you don't see this message then don't worry, just scroll down a bit on Cydia's homepage and look for the "make my life easier" button. Simply tap on it and your ECID SHSH will be automatically saved on Saurik's server. Close Cydia and launch it again. You should now have a message at the top saying your SHSH is on file.
You're good to go now! But remember that anytime a new firmware is available, do not update right away. Just wait until a new jailbreak is available.
My friend Patrick over at JAiB finally said out loud what I've been thinking for quite some time now. In an article titled "why does using Cydia have to suck so much", Patrick explains his frustration about how slow Cydia can be:
Cydia is slow to load and refresh its data, so you have a wait on your hands straight away when you launch it.
When it finishes loading I generally go straight to the Changes tab, to see what’s new. Today the Things for LockInfo plugin immediately caught my eye and I knew I wanted to take a look at it.
The plugin’s main screen said to scroll down for screenshots. There’s another very noticeable wait period while the page loads ads before I’m able to scroll down and see the Screenshots bar.
Once I tap the screenshots bar I get … nothing useful to me at all. Instead I just get a page with a banner for the plugin’s source – modmyi – and another general ad, and no screenshots anywhere to be found (after again waiting a fair while for that page to load). I tried refreshing the page a couple times – but no screenshots showed up.
So I gave up and ended up grabbing the plugin without seeing screencaps. Not the end of the world, but frustrating and just dumb really.
This has happened to me so many times that I can't even count them. I got frustrated on so many occasions that I simply closed Cydia, probably missing out on some great jailbreak apps or themes.
I sometimes feel like Cydia is like a great movie that keeps being interrupted by commercials: I can take the ads for a while, but at some point I just switch to another channel.
Saurik, the creator of Cydia is is no way responsible for all these ads. He just provides a platform for the various repos and each of them display their data as they want.
How Can We Make Cydia Better?I believe there are a couple simple things Saurik can do to improve the user experience on Cydia.
Rewrite the Way Cydia Updates
I don't know about you but waiting 20 seconds for Cydia to "load data", then wait another 20 seconds while "downloading release", then another 20 seconds while "downloading packages", and finally wait another 20 seconds while "reloading data" is just plain painful.
I'm no programmer but I'm pretty sure there are some ways to improve the loading speed.
Set Some Standards
Again, I have no idea what's going on behind Cydia but I can't imagine it would be too hard for Saurik to create a format that all repos would have to follow in order to show in Cydia.
For example, a proper format would include the following information in this specific order and across all repos: app name, description, screenshots, source information, more details. Just like the App Store app, I'd like to be able to get all the information about the app on one page only.
Of course it's easier for me to be a critic than actually do something about it. After all, who am I to complain about Cydia?
Well, I am an iPhone owner with a great respect for Cydia and the amazing work Saurik has accomplished. I think he is out there with the Dev Team as one of the pillars of the jailbreak community.
This being said, having this blog is a great opportunity for me to send a message and hopefully being heard.
I know Patrick and I are not the only one out there feeling a bit frustrated with Cydia and I am confident that Saurik will know how to take this into account and maybe work on implementing some standards in a future version of Cydia.
What about you? How do you feel about Cydia?
Saurik, the developer of Cydia, wrote an article last week on how to cache Apple's signature server, which helps downgrade an iPhone 3GS from 3.1 to 3.0. Besides all the technical stuff about the downgrade process, Saurik shared his view of Apple has a company. We share the same opinions about Apple, but he expresses it much better than me, because of my poor English (remember I am French).
Here is where Saurik is right on:
I have very little respect for Apple at this point: I make no secret of this fact. Apple, as a company, has turned into a corporate hypocrisy, embodying the very ideals that it claims to be rebelling against. "Think Different", as a slogan, has become a cold criticism of their own actions with regards to their product lines.
[...] Sometimes, it is "only" marketing restrictions: there is no fundamental reason why only the 3G[S] can record video (although the quality of the camera on the iPhone 2G and 3G is not very high), or why the iPhone 2G is somehow unable to do MMS.
Applications like Google Latitude or Voice are likewise "rejected" (Apple likes to claim that they didn't reject these applications, they simply "didn't accept" them...) from the App Store because they might "confuse" the user by replacing functionality that exists with better equivalents.
Our need for "more", however, goes deeper: jailbreaking isn't just about applications that Apple "rejected", but is also about taking provided tools and going in a new direction. The most popular packages available in Cydia aren't even "applications", but are "extensions": seamless and pervasive modifications to existing software.
What do you think about Apple and the way they do business?
Saurik, the creator of Cydia, has come up with a way to downgrade the iPhone 3GS from firmware 3.1 to firmware 3.0. The method is not for the faint of heart but it can be a life saver if you accidentally upgraded your iPhone 3GS to 3.1. Saurik did a great job at explaining how and why this downgrade works and I invite you to read his article for detailed information. On my part, I will only give you a step by step on how to downgrade from 3.1 to 3.0.
1. First and foremost, you must have saved your ECID file through Cydia. If this was done, you should see the following message at the top of Cydia's homepage: This iPhone 3G[S] has an ECID SHSH on file.
2. Now we're going to duplicate the functionality exposed by Apple's signature server and trick iTunes into thinking it is connected to Apple's servers. Make sure you have iTunes 9 installed on your computer.
On a Mac, go to /etc/hosts. On a PC, go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts. Open the file in a text editor and add the following entry at the bottom of the file: 74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com
Save the file and close it.
3. Now we have to put your iPhone into DFU mode. To do this, open iTunes, plug your iPhone and hold down the power and home buttons for 10 seconds, then let go of the power button but continue to hold the home button until iTunes recognizes the device with the message: "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes." Your iPhone screen should be completely black. If you see an image on your screen, you most likely didn't perform the previous step correctly. Try again.
4. You can now do a "normal" restore to the 3.0 software. To do this, hold down the Option key (on Mac OS X) or the SHIFT key (Windows) while clicking the Restore button in iTunes. Select the firmware 3.0 (which can be downloaded here).
Theoretically, you should be done with the downgrade. That's just for the theory though... You're most likely going to get several errors.
If you get the "unknown error (3002)", it's because you probably don't have your ECID SHSH's for 3.0 on file with Cydia and it is unfortunately impossible to register your device with Cydia anymore. There is no solution, your iPhone can't be downgraded from 3.1 to 3.0 and you're gonna have to wait for a new jailbreak.
If you get the "The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An unknown error occured (1015)" error, then re-do the process all over again. You will get the same error again and it is normal. Ignore the error and jailbreak your iPhone using RedSn0w.
I agree that this is definitely not the easiest way to downgrade your iPhone from firmware 3.1 to firmware 3.0, but you don't have much choice at this point. If you don't feel like taking on this project, I suggest you just wait for a proper 3.1 jailbreak, which may take days, weeks, or months. I am very confident that the jailbreak community is getting closer to a 3.1 jailbreak though.
If you have any tips and tricks to make this whole process smoother, or if you have any question, please leave a comment.
UPDATE: If you have an iPhone 3G, you can now downgrade from baseband 05.12.01 to o4.26.08.