Since Apple upgraded its firmware from 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 and then to 1.1.3 (last month), I have been resisting the temptation to do so on my own iPhone via hacks. Since January, the iPhone hacker community found ways to get iphones upgraded to 1.1.3, but this was really complicated and really risky and took lots of time. I figured I would wait.
Well the wait was worth it. I upgraded my phone last week from 1.1.1 to 1.1.3 in about 10 minutes.
The description is here, but you have to read it carefully. But essentially,
1) you need to have a Mac running on Leopard
2) download the 1.1.3 restore from Apple's site here. Download the iJailBreak software here.
3) Once it is downloaded, open iTunes, connect your iPhone, and do Option Click on Restore. This will let you select the 1.1.3 package. Do so.
4) Once your phone has been upgraded, turn off iTunes. Unzip the iJailbreak software and activate it. Follow the instructions and within minutes you have a jailbroken, activated iPhone running on 1.1.3.
Suuhhhweeeeet!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Hacked iPhone 1.1.3 upgrade
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Hotels.com Launches iPhone App
This is not new news as the application was first launched on 10th December '08 (see here). But it seems to be getting picked up by hotelmarketing.com and others (and now me!).
It's not big news, but it is at least interesting to me since I have my own hacked iPhone. With the iPhone's browser being the one of the fastest and most popular mobile browsers, this is certainly interesting. It is getting almost 0.1% which is a big deal:
| View Trend Windows XP | 78.37% |
| View Trend Windows Vista | 9.19% |
| View Trend MacIntel | 3.59% |
| View Trend Mac OS | 3.22% |
| View Trend Windows 2000 | 2.97% |
| View Trend Windows 98 | 0.76% |
| View Trend Windows NT | 0.63% |
| View Trend Linux | 0.57% |
| View Trend Windows ME | 0.43% |
| View Trend iPhone | 0.09% |
| View Trend Windows CE | 0.06% |
| View Trend Hiptop | 0.02% |
| View Trend Windows 95 | 0.02% |
| View Trend Web TV | 0.01% |
I tried to access http://www.hotels.com/iphone from my iPhone but I get redirected to an Asian page of hotels.com.... sigh....
Anyhow, mobile access for hotel bookings is a tricky one. I have a proposal from a vendor to take my millenniumhotels.com site and build an interface for mobile. I just can't get an ROI calculation for it. How many bookings do I have to do to get my money back? OR should this be mostly for branding? Would it help for SEO as well?
Well those questions don't have any immediate answers, but at least for now, my investment my iPhone seems to be ok (despite hotels.com not letting me view their iphone app... yet!).
Thursday, September 13, 2007
iPhone Activated and Unlocked!!!!!
OK so this post is not really about hotel or ecommerce, but I am just so siked or is it "psyched".
I am in New York arrived here on Sunday 9th September. I read just before I came that there was a software unlock for the iphone that was coming out on the 10th that would allow you to use the iphone on other carriers besides AT&T. This was done by iphonesimfree.com
The articles are here:
http://www.engadget.com/tag/iphonesimfree
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/09/01/apple.iphone/
....Though neither are necessary very dependable news sources (DOH!).
Well I figured it this was true, I would buy an iPhone and try my worst. So on Monday I bought the iPhone from the flagship Apple Store in the Big Apple:
So for the last 3 nights I have been trying to get it to work!
1st night (Monday): I activated my phone with iActivator (UPDATE: iActivator has been updated with a better software iNdependence. Use this instead.) This is the first step and allows you to modify the software on the iPhone to let the phone turn on. Because when you first get it, the iphone wont let you do anything!!! The iActivator will let you have most functionality except phone and youtube. (ipod, photo, synch, camera, etc are fine.) So far so good.
2nd & 3rd nights (Tues & Wed): The second step is to unlock the SIM software so that you can use a non AT & T SIM card. I used http://www.iphoneworldwideunlock.com/ and paid USD50. There is a free version as well at http://www.freeiphoneunlock.com/unlock/, but I did not want to risk it and it looks more troublesome. Step 2 takes a while as you are trying to figure out the tech stuff. And I had to do mine twice before it worked. Also, the iphoneworldwideunlock takes a few days to activate as they had to load your IMEI into a server.
BUT last night, it happened... I succeeded. Now I own an iPhone running on Singapore's MobileOne network (roaming currently of course)!!!!!
The iPhone is reeaalllly suhhh-wheeet. Have fun hacking.. I dare ya. (PS. Now you know why I haven't posted anything in the last few days. I have been ..um.. very busy.)
UPDATE: After being unlocked for a couple of days, I turned my iPhone off last night. When I powered it on this morning, I could not get any signal. so I searched around trying to understand what's going on. so what happened was that the "Activation" (Step 1 above) was somehow corrupted, but the phone still turned on and had basic functionality. The problem was NOT the "Unlock" (Step 2). so I plugged the phone back in and turned on iNdependence. I then did the same Activation steps (no need to Jailbreak again) and everything was back to normal.
LESSON: do not throw iNdepence away after the first install. Keep it on your Mac as you may need it later for things like this.
ALSO: I upgraded to iTunes 7.4.1 today so the above is compatible with this version.