I know I've been silent for a while on the Tap Tap front, but now I can break the news! Tap Tap Revolution has been bought by a new company called Tapulous, and they've hired me on as a developer to maintain TTR.
Suffice it to say, their push for more features definitely works out better for you guys. Here's a low-quality leaked video demonstrating the sweet new features and look:
Check out the rest of this post for some exclusive screenshots.
This travel is taking its toll, but I'm still alive and kicking. After a great Bible study Friday night and a short Sabbath rest, Sparky picked me up and we headed over to the airport for 16 hours of travel.
The flight to Amsterdam lasted about 10 hours, most of which I spent watching movies in the in-flight video screen thingy. On a related note, the movie Solaris is very confusing.
We got into our hotel and went on a quick photowalk, the results of which shall follow presently:
I've been out of Taiwan for a day and a half now but only just now have had the time to post.
The night before our departure, Jake and I plus another Jake from AMD headed to a night market, which is apparently like a swap meet but it takes place at night and it has many more food vendors vending unsanitary and unidentifiable foods that smell bad.
Yesterday was a long day, starting on Sunday with a lot of packing and tying up loose ends, and continuing with a 13-hour flight at 1 AM non-stop to Taipei.
I was also coughing a lot because I'm getting over this throat infection and I'm still coughing more than I'd like to. The dextromethorphan isn't working like it's supposed to.
Anyway, we got into the Grand Formosa hotel and I must say, AMD/BuzzCorps really went all out. The room is huge and sports a fantastic view:
If you've been following me on Twitter you will already know. I'm traveling to Taipei tomorrow, to attend Computex 2008. Apparently AMD is launching something at Computex Taipei and Gear Live is going to be all over it, naturally! I'll be the video tech/producer with Jake Ludington as the host.
It's going to rock. Hard. Yes, I will be taking lots of pictures and posting them!
Yo, I need 100 people who are both jailbroken iPhone users and active Twitter users to test out a new top-secret Twitter client app for the iPhone. I can't say much here but if you're interested, send your Twitter username to ultratopsecret@natetrue.com - only the first 100 responders will get in.
Okay, so I've finished my preliminary examination of the iPhone 1.1.4 firmware. And what's new?
Bug fixes. Like three of them. No new features, no new apps, nothing.
Not even any significant changes that would render the current jailbreak methods unusable.
So it looks like the official iPhone SDK and the hacked SDK will live in harmony, at least to begin with. That seems like a mixed blessing - on the one hand we will have developers and iPhone users remaining free to do with their phones as they wish - something I am very passionate about.
However, it will likely also mark the rise of the market for pirated iPhone applications - bought through iTunes, then copied off using one of the many ways to get files off the phone. Then shared through various channels, as usual.
I for one am hoping that the developers of paid applications will get their dues - for people like myself who make a living off of their creations it's important to get money for things we put up for sale.
What I do hope is that the iPhone SDK will allow publishers to develop and publish applications for free, like the hack SDK does now.
Yo guys, just a quick post. iPhone 1.1.4 firmware is still out, and Zibri's fantastic jailbreak utility, ZiPhone, still works great, at least for jailbreaking. I have not tested unlocking or activation.
Zibri, you are an excellent iPhone hacker!
I'll be looking for changes in the firmware and posting what I find soon.
Yo peeps, I just published my latest cool invention. It's a wristwatch that tells you the time in binary, or you can swipe it through the air to make it write the time out for you. It's mad awesome.
Master iPhone hacker Zibri has released ZiPhone, a utility that can jailbreak and unlock any new iPhone (as of firmware 1.1.3) directly, without any complicated upgrading or downgrading steps. Way easier than my crap.
This is NOT my release, but enough of you e-mail me about unlocking iPhones that I figured I should blog about it. Thanks to George Hotz who released this method.
So, if you're looking for how to unlock your new iPhone right out of the box (as of the 1.1.3 firmware), head to this post at The Unofficial Apple Weblog:
I'll be hanging out in ##iphone and #iphone-hackers over on irc.freenode.net . Check out the Freenode IRC instructions if you're new to IRC.
##iphone is for general stuff, and #iphone-hackers is specifically for people who want to create applications for the iPhone (SDK or hacked).
Oh, and I will be talking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies conference about iPhone development (with a brief history, and a how-to). The conference is March 3-6 this year, and I'll be speaking on Monday morning. Check out ETech today - spots are filling fast.
My inbox has been overflowing with various questions about the 1.1.3 jailbreak, including numerous failures (I said there was risk, didn't I?). So I put this FAQ together to try and answer the most common ones.
If your phone is broken please scroll down to the PANIC section below.
Well, the iPhone Dev Team has done it again. A working jailbreak for 1.1.3 is finally here.
STATEMENT OF RISK
As all upgrades are risky, this one is doubly so. You may have to restore your phone using iTunes and start again if it fails. Make sure to back up first!
Let's continue
This jailbreak, like the 1.1.2 jailbreak, comes as an upgrade. This means you need to have a 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 jailbroken phone already, before you can begin.
Official Jailbreak release works for iPod Touch, and is easier to do. Go here for that.
Update - unlocked phones appear to remain unlocked and work properly after the update, according to scattered reports.
MAC VERSION - Download the 1.1.3 package maker and open it, then run Run_This. Read carefully, press Enter when necessary, and the image will be uploaded to your phone. Then skip to the Installer part below.
Here's how you do it: - Start with a 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 jailbroken phone with Installer.app installed AND AT LEAST 300mb OF FREE SPACE.
- Plug in your phone via USB to your computer.
- Download, extract, and run iBrickr Special 1.1.3 jailbreak edition (ibrickr.exe in the archive).
- iBrickr will determine what firmware you are running on your phone and make sure you can run the update.
- iBrickr will then guide you through the process of obtaining and modifying the 1.1.3 firmware (make sure to read everything thoroughly).
- iBrickr will upload the new firmware image to your phone. Note that this only puts the file on your phone and does not modify it at all, yet.
- When iBrickr finishes (should take about 10 minutes), it will tell you to go to Installer and install the "1.1.3 soft upgrade" package. Do that.
- The upgrade will stall at about halfway. THIS IS NORMAL. DO NOT INTERACT WITH YOUR PHONE WHILE THIS IS HAPPENING. Just leave it plugged in and leave it alone.
- When the installer finishes (this should take another 10-15 minutes), your phone should reboot with a fresh activated 1.1.3 firmware.
If you feel like giving, please donate to a worthy charity. Donations directly to the Dev Team are not possible. If you wish to donate to me directly, you can do that via Paypal.
Props to everyone on the Dev Team, including (in no particular order): netkas, NerveGas, asap18, bgm, Bugout, bushing, chris_, dinopio, drudge, Fred_, gray, MuscleNerd, natetrue, pr3d4t0r, roxfan, Turbo, Zf[strike], np101137, pumpkin, and kroo, along with many contributors who wish to remain anonymous.
And props to Fred_ and planetbeing, who were among the first with a 1.1.3 jailbroken iphone, and Zibri, by whom this method was largely developed. Additionally to Shaun Erickson, who packaged the Installer half of the upgrade, and runs most of the application packaging for the iPhone. He's looking for a job too - hire him!
Additionally, members of the iPhone Elite team also played a part.
So the new iPhone 1.1.3 firmware allows you to put icons on your home screen for websites, but I know many of us want to put phone numbers on there for a Speed Dial screen.
I've put a little hack together that lets you have a (somewhat) speedy speed dial icon. There's no jailbreaking required for this one - it can all be done using Apple-approved Web Clip creation.
So I've had the chance to examine the 1.1.3 firmware on a deeper level (using a technique not developed by me and which I can't release so don't ask) and have noticed some interesting changes behind the scenes that are quite blogworthy:
- SpringBoard no longer needs to be modified (via SummerBoard) in order to show extra applications in the /Applications folder.
- All applications now run as the user 'mobile' instead of as root.
- Preferences are now stored in /var/mobile rather than in /var/root.
What does this all mean? I'll tell you what it means.
The iPhone 1.1.3 firmware is ready for official installable applications.
Even though there are no applications available for purchase (besides the iPod Touch's $20 "upgrade package"), the installation architecture appears to be there already.
It also appears that the frameworks have undergone many changes, ostensibly to make it easier for official SDK developers to make programs. It does, however, break many of the existing applications including most of mine (Lights Off still works though :D).
Additionally, the SpringBoard app appears to have widget support - it contains a class called SBWidgetApplication which manages the package location and icon.
I will update this post with more details as I find them, so keep checking back.
So lately I've been somewhat unsatisfied with URL tiny-ifying services such as TinyURL and URLTea, and decided that it was about time I made my own.
I wanted to do something a little different, so thus was birthed QLNK - named because it was a short-ish domain name that I found and registered.
The basic deal is the same - head over to http://qlnk.net with your long URL, and it will spit out a short URL for your linking pleasure.
The difference, though, is that the unique part goes at the beginning. For example, a link to my blog is http://re.qlnk.net - so it's technically a subdomain rather than a path.
Additionally, if you feel like it, you can claim a custom subdomain, with as many dots in it as you like. For example, you could claim this.is.a.test.qlnk.net just by going to it. If it's free, you can claim it by throwing your URL in there. If it's not, you'll be whisked away to some random site on the Internet.
It's got a couple nice features, like a bookmarklet that simplifies the creation of a QLNK, and an API that's compatible with TinyURL's API.
And of course, since I coded it, I can bend it to my will by adding features whenever the fancy strikes me. So make with the requests. If I like your request I will add it to QLNK.net.
So finally Apple released the 1.1.3 iPhone firmware - and surprise! It's exactly, 100%, bit-for-bit, identical to the leaked firmware that was demoed on Gear Live.
This means the home screen rearrangement crashing bugs will still happen.
It also means the info I released about the leaked firmware holds true. To reiterate:
If you upgrade to 1.1.3 with an anySIM-unlocked phone, your upgrade will fail, and a restore to 1.1.2 or a lower firmware will let you use your phone again.
If you upgrade to 1.1.3 with a never-unlocked phone (this includes jailbroken phones) your upgrade will succeed. You will ONLY (as of yet) be able to activate if you have a valid AT&T SIM card and service (aka the "normal" way to activate).
Once you upgrade to 1.1.3 on a normal phone, there's no downgrading. The new baseband firmware (which you cannot downgrade yet) will reject your SIM card on any earlier firmware versions.
If you'd like to download the new iPhone firmware manually, here is the link:
Also, I just launched a bare-bones TinyURL-like service at http://qlnk.net - it uses subdomains instead of URL paths, so links with it looks like "re.qlnk.net" and you can add anything after the domain that you want, like http://re.qlnk.net/obviously/a/long/descriptive/path .
