Verizon iPhone 4 cannot be unlocked

This post will put all of the rumors to rest: you will not see an unlock for the Verizon iPhone. We’re sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the complication involved with the Verizon iPhone unlock is two-fold: it’s completely illegal, and every unlock would require carrier-specific adjustments to succeed. If you were to follow @MuscleNerd and @pytey on Twitter, you too would have come across this information. The conversation started with MuscleNerd tweeting this: An “unlock” of next week’s iPhoneVZW is more than just custom code exec… it involves per-carrier CDMA adjustments. Pytey chimed in right away to explain that this is outright illegal: A non-sanctioned iP4VZ ‘unlock’ would require an ESN/MEID from a donor phone with service. This technique is a US federal crime. That’s not awesome. We don’t assume that everyone will understand that, s0 let us break it down for you. We can unlock AT&T iPhones because they are GSM — they use a SIM card to talk to the carrier. The AT&T SIM card can be removed and replaced with a T-Mobile (or an international carrier’s) SIM card. The current unlock only changes how the phone can communicate with the SIM card… it [...]

Dev Team releases a new and improved Pwnage Tool

The new Pwnage Tool came out this morning right before Apple’s Live event. Obviously, we didn’t have time to cover it… and we won’t be able to cover it fully until we jailbreak our iPhone 4 and Apple TV here at the office. But, we’ll go ahead and get you the pertinent information so you know what you’re getting into. In addition to the slew of already existing iOS devices, the Apple TV is now hackable via the Jailbreak from Pwnage Tool. At this point, it’s not a feature-rich jailbreak. There’s only some command line interaction, but other things will most certainly come soon. This will open up the doors to us running third-party unofficial software that could play Hulu, maybe packages for the individual network streams, so on and so forth. We’ll always count on the Dev Team to be there and do exactly what we’re hoping Apple would do. We’ll probably see an official App Store for the Apple TV soon, but not soon enough. Thanks, Dev Team! All of the other obligatory information: don’t mess with this stuff unless you know what you’re doing. The Dev Team tries their best to make it so easy that anyone [...]

Ultrasn0w for 4.0.1: T minus 48 hours

A tweet from @planetbeing this evening stated that he (and @MuscleNerd) have a working unlock that is ready to go with the iPhone 4 on iOS 4.0.1. They’ve been testing it privately and — after today’s jailbreak — are testing it in an exclusive beta for the next 48 hours. After that point, as long as they don’t run into anything glaring, we should see Ultrasn0w for every iOS device running firmware version 4.0.1. Please keep in mind that the unlock is not yet supported for iOS 4.1. In fact, Apple will probably shut down the exploits necessary to jailbreak and unlock before they release iOS 4.1. The jailbreak/unlock game has been cat and mouse since the first software unlock back in 2007. We would have actually put money on a bet that said the Dev-Team would wait to jailbreak/unlock until 4.1 was released. We’re hoping to see a lot of fixes with iOS 4.1… so here’s hoping that the Dev-Team has found something good that will keep us going for a while. iOS 4.1 is already in Beta 2 so it won’t be long before Apple sends it to their update servers. In the days of iOS 3, the Dev-Team [...]

iPhone firmware updated to 3.1.3

Apple let loose the 3.1.3 firmware update this morning. Here’s what it includes: Improved accuracy of reported battery levels on the iPhone 3GS. Fixed an issue with some third-party applications that wouldn’t launch. Fixed a bug that caused some applications to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard. If you are running Apple’s unmodified iPhone OS, then feel free to press the update button. The iPhone Dev-Team is strongly encouraging people who are Jailbroken and Unlocked to stay away from this update until they have had time to work with it. So far, some anxious Dev-Team followers are reporting that redsn0w 0.9.2 still works by using the 3.1.2 firmware with the iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and the iPod touch 1G. If you have an iPhone 3GS or a 2nd generation iPod touch… don’t mess with this; it will only cause you pain and frustration. A general rule of thumb for the Jailbreakers in the audience: always check with CTA or the Dev-Team before updating your firmware. At this point, the Dev-Team is unsure of what this means for the Unlockers out there. New firmware typically means modem updates, thus more work for the Dev-Team (or in some instances Geohot) and [...]

CTA Presents: The State of the Jailbreak Address

We follow the Jailbreak/Unlock scene very closely here at CTA… not because our iPhones are necessarily running on T-Mobile (we want 3G not EDGE) but because we don’t want to be restricted in the Applications we install on our Apple mobile devices. Unfortunately for us and for you, there hasn’t been any new iPhone unlocking news for nearly three months. This is partially due to the fact that Apple hasn’t released new firmware in that amount of time… one of the longest periods we’ve seen so far. In the remainder of this post, we’ll cover the Cydia Store, the Rock Your Phone app store, the Dev-Team, Geohot, the redsn0w 0.9.2 released just hours ago, and how Jailbreaking could affect the iPad. Check back soon for The Ultimate 2010 Jailbreak Guide brought to you by Cocoa Touch Apps. Saurik (Jay Freeman) has been doing everything possible to make time for his Cydia Store in order to keep it attractive to the Jailbreakers out there. We’re seeing things from Cydia that we never expected and have to give him a tremendous amount of thanks. He’s also devoting some of his efforts to the WebOS (Palm) and Android (Google). For those who don’t [...]

Cocoa Touch Apps on Twitter

We don’t always have time to write out a full-fledged CTA review, but we still want to keep our readers in the loop with all things Cocoa Touch… In an effort to still squeeze a little blogging into our already jam-packed lives, we’ll be doing updates via twitter. We’ve been on twitter for over a month now, but haven’t actually set it up to push live updates to the site until now. iPhone OS 3.0 appears to be working out pretty well – news did come out today about a vulnerability in the SMS program that allows a hacker to enable such things as GPS location, the microphone and other creepy stuff… It appears as though Apple already has a fix in the works… will probably roll out that as well as some hot new features in 3.1 So far you can expect new voice control compatibility with bluetooth connections… finally voice-dailing for people who have expensive cars. (Not me) If you edit a video you took with your 3GS – it won’t kill whatever you cut… it offers to create a new version… Other things of note in 3.1 – the phone vibrates when moving icons… ummm, I’m actually [...]

iPhone OS 3.0 Unlocked and Jailbroken

Quick update here – Not much to it, but if you jailbreak, you’ll like it. Go to blog.iphone-dev.com and download Redsn0w. You have to manually update to 3.0 via iTunes at this point, but if you’re like me, you don’t have a lot of jailbreak apps, just a couple themes that are easy to reapply. After updating to 3.0 – just run Redsn0w on your PC or mac, it’ll do the whole jailbreak thing for you. After jailbreaking, add http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com to your repositories in either Cydia or ICY, sorry ICY – but we still prefer Cydia. Then search for ultrasn0w in the packages and install it. Reboot. You’re now unlocked and jailbroken. I’m selling my 3G to get a 3GS… I’ll let you know what it’s like once I have it. P.S. This will get your phone running on OS 3.0 – but you will have to redo everything in your jailbreak… wait for the dev team to send out an update on that process if you don’t want to lose your hard work. CTA is not responsible for any damage you do to your phone… sure we can fix it for you, but we’re not always cheap. ;)

A quick guide to QuickPwn

Considering that we’re going to be talking about jailbreak apps coming up soon, we thought that it would be a good idea to explain the jailbreak process in extreme haste. A good majority of our posts will be to-the-point and news-related so that we can continue our daily lives while keeping the site up and running. We will, however, provide our old-school style reviews when we get the chance. Continue reading for more information about QuickPwn and jailbreaking your device…

Pwnage Tool & QuickPwn Now 2.1 Compatible (Updated!)

***Update*** Looks like the windows version of quickpwn is out. We did it on our brand new iPhone 3G 16 GB… all we can say is nice! Worked like a charm. Let us know your results in the comments! P.S. Anyone who has news about Customize.app — please share. ***End Update*** Remember what we said about iTunes 8 would need a patch to allow pwange? Well, it seems that we — The Dev Team as well — were wrong but thankfully! iTunes 8 no longer requires a hack to install the custom ipsw that you create with the Pwnage Tool. You can now use the newest versions of QuickPwn and Pwnage Tool to their full capacities with iPhone Software 2.1 — note to early adopters: it is still NOT available for iPod Touch 2nd generation. All iPhones and 1st generation iPod Touches can be pwned. Click here for the full release from the Dev Team. The downloads are available via Torrent infrastructure for now. If you don’t know how to use torrents, just hold off for a bit, they’ll have direct links on their website soon. 

Dev Team Vs. Apple : Fight!

Before you get your panties in a wad… if your device is already pwned, it will continue to function normally and will work totally fine with iTunes 8. If you haven’t pwned your iPod Touch or iPhone yet but are looking into it, then you have some more work to do. It seems as though Apple is still battling the Dev Team’s antics at least somewhat: iTunes 8 no longer allows you to restore an unpwned device with custom firmware, your device must first be pwned or iTunes 8 must be modified. Read more after the jump…