November 10, 2019Wow jailbroken on currently signed firmware. Awesome! Smoothest jailbreak in many years thanks to checkra1n.No need to run this 10-20 times before it will take unlike Unc0ver and Electra. Another awesome thing is not having to use Impactor and Apple's annoying two factor authentication nonsense. You also do not need to run through a myriad of settings turning things off so the jailbreak will work (airplane mode, Siri, password, etc. etc. etc.). You can download the jailbreak at qwertyoruiop's site here. |
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September 28, 2019Thanks axi0mX for the bootrom exploit! Having an upatchable vulnerability in so many iOS devices is breathtaking! It's been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG 9 years since we've had one of these. I'm hoping Pwn20wnd will create a program like Pwnage Tool from the iOS 5x days so we can start rolling our own ipsws again.It's also exciting to see GeoHot back in the fold. He was live streaming today on Twitch and playing with checkm8. If you want to learn more about this check this article at ArsTechnica. |
July 7, 2018Thanks Electra Team for the iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak! I've been sitting on iOS 9.0.2 for so long I thought I'd never upgrade again. I had to wait for version 1.0.1 to come out for the jailbreak to work. I also ran the rootlessJB by Ian Beer. I then had to SSH in and run uicache to get Cydia to appear.It all appears to be working fine. If you need more information head on over to Redmond Pie. They kick butt with their jailbreak coverage. |
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October 14, 2015Thanks Pangu team for the iOS 9 jailbreak! Worked the first time on my iPhone 6 plus. It took about 6 tries on my first generation iPad mini before it would work, so don't be discouraged.Hey Apple, weren't you supposed to be using some new "rootless" technology to stop jailbreaking? Good job guys! Not. |
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September 9, 2014Well ladies and gentlemen, these last 7 years have been quite the ride. This site sure started out with a bang back in 2007, and hit a high point where the tutorials I created were translated into some 23 languages! People sure loved learning about how to modify their iPhones and greatly expand its capabilities.With the proliferation of the iPhone into dozens of countries around the world over the years (and more and more iPhone how-to sites appearing as well), I've watched this site's traffic steadily dwindle from a high of 50,000+ uniques daily to about 1,200. While working on this site is fun, it's something I'm not willing to do for free. With the release of iOS 8, scheduled for September 17th, I currently have no plans to develop tutorials for this site any longer. I've enjoyed recouping the time I used to spend here by placing it into an even more exciting online effort: The Catholic FAQ. A big THANK YOU goes out to all of those readers who have supported the site over the years! You're the best! A note to all members: The members only section has been retired. All content is now in the free section which can be accessed from the main page through the Tutorials icon. |
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August 1, 2014The President signed legislation making it legal once again to unlock cell phones. The Library of Congress chose not to renew this protection in the latest update to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act a couple years ago. You can read more about this at the White House blog here. |
July 22, 2014Former iPhone Dev Team member NerveGas, and now iOS forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski spoke at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE/X) conference recently. He discussed several backdoor mechanisms that Apple has developed and uses to assist government agencies in their investigations.You can check out his blog here. You can download his slide presentation here. He also links to an even more in-depth 17-page article he wrote in the International Journal of Digital Forensics and Incident Response here. You will have to pay a pretty high fee ($31.50) to download this magazine. He notes that some basic precautions one can take are to set a complex passcode, and to install the Apple Configurator program (which is free in the Mac App Store). Use of this program will allow you to set Mobile Device Management (MDM) restrictions on your iOS device to delete all the pairing records on it. This of course won't help if your iOS device is sent to Apple for repair or research. 
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September 19, 2013
Yet another reason you shouldn't update on release day.
September 10, 2013It sure feels good to have something to post about for a change! Apple had many announcements today. A quick summary:
Planetbeing tweeted that the evad3rs team is actively testing exploits in iOS 7 now! You can watch the Apple keynote here. Update 9/11:@planetbeing tweeted: Achieved unsigned userland code execution with some of our stuff in reserve. Now we have a good platform for poking the kernel. Update 9/13: @pod2g tweeted to another member of the Evad3rs team: being more and more confident about an iOS 7 public jailbreak ;-) [ that does not mean soon ] Update 10/2: @planetbeing tweeted: We're still working hard on the jailbreak. May have all the pieces at this point (but not certain yet). 
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March 26, 2013It's about time!Oh I like the no contract thing too. Maybe I won't have to purchase factory unlocked phones at a premium now. I can just stick my pre-paid SIM in the next model that comes out.You can read more here. 
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February 4, 2013I don't normally post news updates for tutorials, but since we've been waiting so long for the 6.x jailbreak I'm posting that evasi0n has been released. If you are a member you will finally see a Step 1 tutorial in the navigation bar. More tutorials to follow! You can download evasi0n here.
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If you'd like to read an interview with @planetbeing done by Forbes about evasi0n, then click here.
November 30, 2012I picked up an unlocked iPhone 5 from the Apple store tonight. Thank you!I then got out the Noosy SIM cutting tool that's been sitting in my desk drawer for the last couple months and converted my micro SIM into a nano SIM in seconds. That thing works great! I'm running T-Mobile and dying for a jailbreak just like the rest of you. At this point I'd even be willing to cover a tethered jailbreak if one was available... I love that this iPhone doesn't suffer from the grip of death like my 4 and 4S did. |
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October 18, 2012I've reached the goal to purchase a new iPhone 5 unlocked model. I do want to thank "Nikko" for stepping up and donating the remaining $150 needed to fund the phone! Without awesome readers like him and those of you who also helped, this site would not have gone forward. We're going through some tough times at home and I was not able to afford this phone on my own. That's all I will say about that.Let's just all hope for an untethered jailbreak (PlanetBeing hinted at some progress tonight in a Tweet) soon. I'm now just waiting for Apple to offer the iPhone 5 in a factory unlocked edition. Thank you again to all who pitched in! Here's a list of those who helped me during this fund drive: Robert B. (donated twice!), Nicholas R., Sérgio O., Kenneth S., Juan M., William P., Taneya T., Tim C. (major donater), Penny K. (major donater), Thomas G., Leslie M., Sergio R., Miles A., Henrique P., Mina A., Shane D., Ralph S., Robert B., Craig C. and Clive H. Half the cost of the phone was donated by 4 people! I hope all the readers of the site appreciate their help too. |
July 4, 2012
We've dreamed of the day when AT&T would unlock iPhones for a long time. AT&T decided to start unlocking iPhones back on April 8th of this year. My wife's iPhone 4 just came off contract yesterday and we unlocked it through AT&T. It only took a few minutes! Thank you AT&T for finally coming around on this.While they advise you to restore your iPhone for the unlock to take effect we didn't want to do that. If you are jailbroken you could use redsn0w or SAM to get around restoring. We didn't want to jailbreak the iPhone either. I've posted a tutorial where I demonstrate how to deactivate the iPhone instead. This is the simplest, least intrusive method to unlock. Read about it here.
How appropriate that this is the Independence Day holiday as well.
March 7, 2012Apple released 5.1 firmware today. Do not install it if you value your jailbreak or unlock. Apple does not force you to install updates so there is no excuse for this accidentally happening. The iPhone does allow you to apply an update on the go. Just say no! Note: if you are jailbroken the over the air (OTA) update will fail anyway as Apple performs a check of the /Applications folder looking for jailbreak activity.Update: You can read the iPhone Dev Team's post on this new firmware. They have released a version of redsn0w that will provided a tethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4 and an untethered jailbreak for old bootrom versions of the iPhone 3G S. Update 2: I know there is a tethered jailbreak. I won't cover it. I realize there is an unofficial untethered jailbreak. I won't cover that either. Trust me, you want the real deal that the iPhone Dev Team or the Chronic Dev Team will eventually release. The less bugs, the better. |
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July 26, 2010
Jailbreaking has been ruled as an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by the Librarian of Congress. This means jailbreaking is now a legally protected act for the next three years. This case for a DMCA exemption would have to be presented again in three years to the Librarian of Congress to continue to be upheld.Keep in mind, jailbreaking was NEVER an illegal act despite what many media sources claim. They are wrong. They just like to make wild statements and create a frenzy to feed their ratings so they can charge more for air time to marketers from time to time. I haven't heard of anything jailbreak related going to trial ever, certainly not anything being ruled on by a judge as legal or illegal.
You can read the full statement from the Library of Congress here. The sections that relate to us are:
- (2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.
- (3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.
Here's an article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who represented jailbreakers from a legal standpoint. They brought our case before the librarian.
Here's an article from CNN on what the Library of Congress ruling means. I find some of the information incorrect with regards to jailbreaking being illegal up until this recent exemption came to be.
It's nice to see main stream media picking up this story. I've appeared in the New York Times, and CNN as a destination website. Hopefully this will bring many new people into the fold. You can click the images below to be taken to those particular articles.
July 19, 2010
Well it seems like Apple is up to their old tricks again. The iPhone Dev Team just posted two hours ago about ECID SHSH blobs being used on 4.0 firmware for all iPhones, now including the 3G. You owe it to yourself to launch Cydia and press the make my life easier button right away. I'm guessing since we are just hearing about this that 3G owners can no longer restore to 4.0 firmware? The dev team's posting on this isn't clear. They do state you can always downgrade to 3.x firmware however since no ECID SHSH blob check is being done. This really isn't that big of a deal as 4.0.1 firmware can be jailbroken and unlocked on the 3G using redsn0w and ultrasn0w. I have a tutorial for it here.Update: I can not restore to stock 4.0 firmware on my already jailbroken 3G. I CAN restore to a custom 4.0 .ipsw made with PwnageTool however :P You'll receive the same error message as the 3G S owners where Apple states the requested build isn't available for this device, if they don't approve of the firmware you are trying to restore to.
Once you've done this, much like with the 3G S, you'll see the message that your device has a pending TSS request. It only took about twelve hours and I received confirmation of being on file for 4.0.
July 13, 2009PlanetBeing, from the iPhone Dev Team (and Android porting fame), tweeted just a few minutes ago: "Looks like I now have an unlocked iPhone 4. :)"Now it's just a matter of waiting for Apple to release its signal bar algorithm update and then the team will release their tools. Congrats to PlanetBeing, MuscleNerd and the team! |
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May 13, 2009
Nothing like waking up to find you are in the New York Times. I was interviewed along with Jay Freeman "Saurik" who created Cydia, and the creator of the Rock your Phone program. It's nice to see jailbreaking covered in the main stream press like this. Hopefully this will bring more people into the fold to help expand the community in a positive way. It may also open the eyes of current iPhone owners who never realized what can be added to their iPhones outside of iTunes and the App Store.The article discusses jailbreaking and the legal battle being fought by Apple and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Apple has claimed jailbreaking is illegal and should be forbidden in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can read the article online here, it is also in today's edition of the New York Times on page B1.
April 10, 2009
Check out this month's issue of Laptop magazine. There is a nice article about why hacking the iPhone is so appealing. They interviewed Pytey of the iPhone Dev Team, and yours truly, the webmaster of this site. I was hoping for a much longer article, of course. However it is nice to see something like this in main stream press. Thanks Laptop magazine!
August 28, 2007
I have an unlocked iPhone running on the T-Mobile network! I did it with a couple needles that cost me 86 cents at the drug store and some speaker wire. There have also been developments which enable the ability to travel and swap out multiple SIMs without having to go through the iPhone's activation process.I prefer to use T-Mobile personally because their pre-paid plan is an inexpensive option for me. Also, AT&T refuses to update my phone number to the new state I live in without me signing a new contract for a more expensive plan, so to heck with 'em. I'm glad T-Mobile is now an option.
The full tutorial can be found here.
Here it is, the unofficial iPhone unlocking tool... Not what you thought, huh?
The T-Mobile logo appeared on its own. This is not a graphic swap by me! In fact it's impossible to switch out graphics at this particular screen.
August 23, 2007
GeoHot is in the process of posting his how to on how he accomplished the hardware unlock on the iPhone. You better be good with circuit boards, probes and soldering irons. If not, this isn't the tutorial for you. I think I may give this one a try myself, looks like fun. I've done some nasty things with Dremels and L7s and V3s before, so I'm not afraid....http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
August 21, 2007
The iPhone is unlocked and working on T-Mobile here in the U.S. Here is GeoHot's video demonstrating it.The equipment used during this process is only needed to unlock the iPhone, and can be removed once the process is complete. Thanks to gray, iProof, geohot, dinopio, lazyc0der, and an anonymous contributor for making this possible. Thanks also to everyone who donated and stuck with us in #iphone.unlock. The group has agreed to release the method in one week. The current method involves taking apart your iPhone and either performing some soldering, or using another method, with a high probability of a destroying your iPhone should you make a mistake during this delicate process. They hope to find a software unlock very soon. So in one week exactly from this blog post (that's less than the time it takes to ship a TurboSIM) they will release instructions for unlocking. Sorry about the wait, but I assure you it will be worth it.
Posted at GeoHot's blog here.
