As we all know, Apple is good in hiring brilliant employees to work for them, especially coming from the jailbreak community. Peter Hajas, the developer of a very popular jailbreak tweak called MobileNotifier, was hired by Apple earlier last May probably to work for push notifications on the coming iOS 5. After a month, George Hotz, the first person to unlock the original iPhone way back in the year 2007 was hired by Facebook presumably to work on social networking site’s mobile efforts.

Now, Nicholas Allegra, better known as Comex, has announced in his Twitter account that he will be working in Apple as an intern in the coming week. It’s just very funny how a company which he used to love hacking its devices has hired him. Comex’s most popular jailbreak which was released last July known as JailbreakME 3.0 hits more than 2 million devices jailbroken in just 2 weeks. Probably this caught the attention of Apple which made them released ahead of time an iOS update to iOS 4.3.4 and later on to 4.3.5.

He didn’t talk what he will be working in Apple but we will not be surprised that he will be helping Apple to prevent hackers making use of the exploits he used in JailbreakME and Spirit. This also marks that he will be working with security vulnerabilities which may give hackers a hard time jailbreaking the next iOS versions.

A quick view of Comex; Forbes uncovered him as Nicholas Allegra, a 19-year student of Brown University who lives with his parents from Chappaqua, New York. He began programming at the age of 9 by reading online tutorials using Visual Basic which made him ahead of his peers in his Computer Science classes in high school.

He was truly a brilliant teenager who has now a bright future with Apple. In fact, Charlie Miller, a former network exploitation analyst of NSA said about Comex:

“I didn’t think anyone would be able to do what he’s done for years.”

“Now it’s been done by some kid we had never even heard of. He’s totally blown me away.”

SBSettings is one of the best reasons why a person would want to jailbreak their iPhone (or other Apple devices). This is because with SBSettings, you can take control of your iPhone with just a few taps of your fingers. What else you can do about SBSettings? Shortcut toggle switches to turn ON and OFF your WiFi, Bluetooth, Data, 3G or Airplane Mode; you can do a lot more with some features that are not usually used by the iPhone users. I assumed you have SBSettings in your iPhone so you can try the features I am going to discuss.

First of all, you can hide icons in your springboard by the use of SBSettings. For example you have an adult content app or a violent game which should not be exposed to children who may want to borrow your iPhone, this feature will easily lets you hide that app. To hide apps using SBSettings, launch SBSettings by swiping your status bar from left to right and tap “more”. A menu will be presented and you can see “Hide Icons”. After tapping the “Hide Icons” menu, you will be brought to the list of apps installed in your iPhone. Turn OFF the apps you want to hide and it will immediately take effect.

Next thing I recently tried is the “Fast Note” feature of SBSettings. This allows users who are in a hurry to jot things up to input important information rather than opening your Notes in the default iPhone utilities which saved you more time. Just make sure to enable Fast Note in SBSettings by setting it “ON” in “Set Toggles”.

The last thing I want to share is that SBSettings has a default battery percentage feature wherein you can see the actual percentage your battery have. I know some of you may find this ridiculous that just now I knew this is available in SBSettings, but the reason I am sharing this feature is because more people didn’t know this feature is built-in with SBSettings. To turn ON your numberic battery, navigate from SBSettings to more, and clicking on “System Options”. You can then see the toggle switch to turn ON and OFF your battery percentage.

There are more features in SBSettings that will help you enjoy your iPhone and I want to live it up to you to discover.

Many people are confused about how jailbreaking differs from unlocking, especially the new users of iPhones. While many of the jailbreaking community knew the difference, this article is highly dedicated to people who have doubts on how jailbreaking differs from unlocking.

What is jailbreaking?

Jailbreaking is the process which modifies your iOS firmware which then allows unsigned code to run and gain access to files in your iPhone which was previously prevented by Apple. After the jailbreak is successful in your iPhone (also for other iDevices), an unofficial application installer called “Cydia” will now be added in your springboard which will allow users to install cracked apps from the App Store and third-party applications which are not available in the official App Store.

To install cracked App Store apps for free, you need to download first Installous through Cydia. I do not recommend this but it’s worth telling it to everyone. After all, your iPhone is yours. Cydia also provides non-App Store apps that enhance your iPhone called “tweaks” like customization of the themes, lockscreen, ringtones and many more.

Once should not be afraid in jailbreaking their iPhone since the process can be easily reversed by restoring in iTunes in case things may not work as you expected. But trust me, once you have tried jailbreaking your iPhone, you’ll always want to have it jailbroken.

What is iPhone unlocking?

iPhone unlocking is the modification of your device’s modem which allows you to use any carrier SIM cards. The most common method of unlocking is through the use of software but is only limited to some basebands. Some software also requires you to jailbreak first before you can unlock like the UltraSn0w which was developed by the Dev Team.

Gevey SIM is also another process of unlocking your iPhone. You can read more about the details in my previous post.

SBSettings is one of the best jailbreak tweaks that every iPhone users should have. For me, this is one of the reasons why I really need to jailbreak my iPhone. For other who doesn’t know so much about this tweak, you can check our previous post.

With SBSettings, you can access easily your Settings app almost in any app as long as you can see the status bar. The default theme for SBSettings is not so very attractive that is why more developers are introducing themes to add color to your iPhone. These themes are available through Cydia which you can download for free.

Steps in changing themes for SBSettings

Note: You need to have a jailbroken iPhone to install SBSettings. This procedure is also applicable to iPod Touch and iPad.

1. Assuming you already have SBSettings installed in your iPhone, launch Cydia and wait to reload the data.
2. Tap on Sections. Scroll down to see “Themes (SBSettings)”. Look for the themes that you like and you can tap to install.
3. To activate the theme that you had just recently installed, open up SBSettings by swiping your status bar from left to right.
4. Tap on “More” and naviagate to “SBSettings Themes” section to see the list of available themes including the one you recently downloaded.
5. You can preview a particular theme by tapping on the arrow beside its name. Tap the theme if you want to activate it.
6. Exit SBSettings and your iPhone will automatically respring. Your newly installed theme for SBSettings should now be activated.

For more themes, just browse Cydia. Enjoy your jailbroken iPhone with helpful tweaks like SBSettings.

Since Apple doesn’t allow iOS device’s users to downgrade into an older version of firmware, the jailbreak community had made a solution on how to do it. Basically, in order to open up the possibility of downgrading into a previous version, you must have a jailbroken iPhone and you have to make sure you saved your SHSH blob. For more information about SHSH blobs and its role in downgrading your iPhone, please visit this page. Always remember that downgrading an iPhone into a previous version of iOS is only possible if you have saved your device’s SHSH blob.

If you have tried restoring your iPhone in the past, perhaps you have seen the message “verifying restore with Apple” before it will fully proceed.

Steps in downgrading your iOS version in iPhone (For Windows and Mac users only):

1. Download the iOS version you wish to downgrade to and save it in your desktop.

2. For Windows, navigate to C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc

For Mac, open your Terminal App and enter:

sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts

If you have done it correctly, a text pad should open.

3. At the bottom of the notepad just below the last line that reads: #127.0.0.1 gs.apple.com, add the following line: 74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com. Save the notepad and exit.

4. Connect your iPhone in your computer and put in DFU mode. You are familiar on how to do this if you have been jailbreaking for a while. TO do this, hold the Power button and Home button simultaneously for 10 seconds, then let go of the Power button while still holding the Home button for 10 seconds. If you have done it correctly, iTunes will auto-launch and ask you to restore your iPhone.

5. Press and hold SHIFT key (for Windows) or OPTION key (for Mac) and click restore. Locate the iOS firmware which you had downloaded earlier and select it.

6. Simply click “OK” if there are error messages that iTunes will show. This is just normal. Your iPhone will now be in recovery mode. Download the Fix Recovery and run the .exe file. Your iPhone will then reboot. iTunes will continue restoring your iPhone and it should be fully restored or downgraded to the previous iOS version.

It’s a great thing to have Cydia in our jailbroken iDevices. For people who are used in using jailbreak tweaks, for example SBSettings, you will find it hard to use non-jailbroken iPhones. Trust me, I have many experiences whenever somebody asks me to check his/her iPhone, I would swipe the status bar from left to right and smile since nothing comes out from it.

While we may find Cydia very helpful in our iPhones, we sometimes encounter problems that are common to everyone. When this will happen to you, just relax and bear in mind that your iPhone will be fine. After all, when things get really messed up, you can easily restore your iPhone back to factory settings through iTunes.

Because you want to jailbreak your iPhone, you also decide to install Cydia with it. But sometimes, it just crashes or makes your iPhone hang and reboots to Safe Mode. You’re not doing anything wrong but the jailbreak tool that you used, whether you are using JailbreakME 3.0 or RedSn0w.

Here are some important reminders when using Cydia:

• Whenever you face difficulties in Cydia or any iOS related preoblems, reboot your iPhone.
• Update Cydia regularly by opening it so that core updates will be installed automatically.
• Check for any updates of the packages you have installed. This can be done by tapping “Changes” at the bottom once you open Cydia App and checking for “Available Upgrades”.

If Cydia crashes, your iPhone is wise enough to respring your Springboard (the graphical environment manager of your iPhone) and goes back to your lockscreen as if it was rebooted. You can also manually respring your iPhone by using SBSettings or GPower Pro.

There are also cases when Cydia will not be able to load in your iPhone. When this happens, make sure you have iFile or any tweak that will SSH your iPhone and do the following:

1. SSH your iPhone and navigate to /private/var/lib/apt/lists.
2. Remove or delete all files except the directory named “partial.”
3. Reboot and try to launch Cydia.

If the above procedure will not work, try to:

1. SSH your iPhone and navigate to /private/var/lib/dpkg/updates.
2. Remove all contents of that folder.
3. Reboot your iPhone and attempt to launch Cydia.

As I have said, restore your iPhone and jailbreak it again if the methods above didn’t work.

After JailbreakME 3.0 was released, the number of jailbroken iPhones and other iDevices including the iPad 2 has risen to more than 2 million in just 2 weeks. But then Apple had also released new updates to patch the hole for iOS and Safari that were used to jailbreak iOS 4.3.3. With the release of 4.3.4 and 4.3.5, Apple had introduced some “legitimate” fixes that improve the security of Safari. But if you want to preserve your jailbreak (4.3.3), you will not benefit with these updates since you are not going to upgrade to higher version aside from 4.3.3.

Just earlier, iSSLfix was released in Cydia. This tweak will fix all the security related issues that Apple introduced in iOS 4.3.5 without letting you to update to the latest firmware. Since Apple’s main reason for releasing the iOS 4.3.4 and 4.3.5 was to eliminate the use of JailbreakME 3.0, perhaps their aim also includes security concerns. iSSLfix patches vulnerability known as CVE-2011-0228 and is now available for free in Cydia by BigBoss repo. This will then provide you the same protection as having an iOS 4.3.5.

To know if your iPhone is well protected from this vulnerability, just visit https://issl.recurity.com/ on your iDevice and observe the results. If you will see a warning message with the option “Continue” (just like the image below), your iPhone is safe otherwise if you will see an image, that means your iPhone is prone to vulnerability and needs to install iSSLfix if you don’t want to upgrade with the latest firmware.

To install iSSLfix, search for it through Cydia and install the package. Once again, if you are on iOS 4.3.5, you don’t need this. This is very much intended for jailbreak users who are stuck on iOS 4.3.3 in order to preserve the untethered jailbreak.

While there are more jailbreak tweaks coming up every day, I want to make a review for old tweaks yet some people didn’t know about it. ‘EZDecline’ and GPower Pro’ are available in Cydia for quite some time but its functions remain to be useful for your iPhone. Let’s take a look in these $1 tweaks and let me know what you think about them.

EZDecline

Isn’t it frustrating to see that your iPhone (being a smartphone) is not smart enough to put a decline button when somebody is calling you? This happens a lot when somebody is calling you at a bad time. Well, Thanks to the jailbreak developers who provided EZDecline jailbreak tweak which allows you to have an option “Decline” aside from the usual “Slide to Answer” option only. This works with all iPhones and optimized perfectly for Retina Display of the iPhone 4. Available for $0.99 in the BIgBoss repo via Cydia.

GPower Pro

From the developer of Locktopus, comes GPower Pro which modifies the options displayed when you press and hold the power button on your iPhone, iPod or iPad. Aside from the only “Slide to Power Off” option, you will now have the ability to “reboot” abd “respring” your iDevice in the same manner. A simple tweak yet useful when you sometimes find your iPhone hanging or freezes. Designed to work on all iOS versions for all iDevices, GPower Pro is available also for $0.99 in the BigBoss repo.

If you have friends who are not really familiar with using apps in their iPhone, sometimes they may turn on you for some advices and recommendations on what to install. Then you’ll see your apps or browse for categories in App Store and share this apps or games to your friends by sending the URL. Since thousands of apps are available in the App Store, recommendation is very important to save time and effort you will spend.

How about if you have a jailbroken iPhone? You can still copy and share the links for your favorite Cydia apps or tweaks to your friends. Since there are more great features added once you jailbreak your iPhone, this is also the only way to get access with Cydia.

Here are the steps to find and share Cydia tweaks:

1. Launch Cydia and navigate to MANAGE and PACKAGES.

2. Tap on the package you want to share to see the details screen. Below the package name is an option “Change Package Settings”. Tap and hold this option and a menu will pop up for you to choose whether “Open” or “Copy”. Select “Copy.”

3. You can now then send the direct link of the package to your friends through email or messages.

Just make sure that the recipient you are sending the link should have the source added to their Cydia so that the package will be located. Like in the screenshot I included, Custom Lock is from BigBoss repository so when you share the link, the recipient should also have the BigBoss repo in their Sources.

Install PDF Patcher 2

This procedure is only applicable when you used JailbreakMe 3.0. Since the easiest and fastest way to jailbreak your iPhone running iOS 4.3.3 is to visit www.jailbreakme.com from your Safari, you need to close (or patch) the hole made by the exploit by installing PDF Patcher 2 through Cydia.

Open Cydia and search for PDF Patcher 2. Tap install and Confirm to start installation. Reboot your iPhone after installing.

Save your SHSH blob

What is exactly an SHSH blob? I wrote about those topics in my previous post including the steps on how to save your SHSH blob. Once again, if you have jailbroken your iPhone, it is very important to save your SHSH blob so you can still downgrade your iOS if you accidentally updated to a higher version which has no tethered jailbreak available. So before downloading your favorite apps after jailbreak, make sure to save your SHSH blob.

Do not update to newer iOS Firmware

If you now possess an untethered jailbreak right now, DO NOT update your iPhone to newer firmware. If you are now running iOS 4.3.3, that is the most stable firmware to be jailbroken. Although Apple has released iOS 4.3.4 and 4.3.5, do not update your iPhone.  If you want to try it, make sure to save your SHSH blob.

Change the root password

If you have installed OpenSSH in your jailbroken iPhone, it is highly recommended to change the root password. The default root password for operating system with UNIX components has been widely known. So, there is a possibility some hackers may hijack your iPhone if you didn’t change yet.

Install Cydelete

While you are new with using a jailbroken iPhone, you may sometimes find your iPhone sluggish after installing some tweaks. With Cydelete, you can remove Cydia packages right from the springboard just like some other apps. To delete, hold the app until it starts wiggling and tap the X at the upper left of the icon. This saves time in deleting Cydia tweaks.

What’s next? After you are done jailbreaking your iPhone with JailbreakME 3.0, RedSn0w or any other methods, what will you do now? If you have done it successfully, then Cydia is now present in your iPhone’s springboard.

What is Cydia?

Cydia is an independent third-party software application for iOS that enables users to install software packages, including apps, interface customization and system extensions if your iDevice is jailbroken. Obviously, you cannot have Cydia if your iPhone is not jailbroken. This is the alternative source if you want to get non-iTunes applications.

How to install Cydia?

If you will jailbreak your iPhone, Cydia will be installed automatically during the process.

How does Cydia works?

Cydia provides GUI (Graphical User Interface) to iOS users using repositories to install software not available on the App Store. The repos come from different trusted “Sources”. These software packages can be downloaded directly to the same directory of Apple in your iOS device (/Applications directory). With this ability, iOS users can still buy apps to Apple’s official App Store.

Now that you know about Cydia and how it works, you can download INSTALLOUS through Cydia. Just follow my step-by-step procedure in installing Installous.  This will be your first app to install to enjoy your jailbroken iDevice. The feature of Installous is almost the same with the App Store but you can find cracked apps in there. With Installous, you can download your favorite games and applications for free so you can save money buying in the App Store.

iCloud is a cloud computing service from Apple which enables users to store music, photos, apps, calendars, documents and more  for download to multiple iDevices such as iPhones, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac or PC. It will soon replace the current MobileMe program from Apple which syncs data for email, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, notes, to-do lists and other data.

It is like you are having a hard drive in the sky (virtual storage) but more than that; it is the easiest way to access everything on all your iDevices. Now, you can access all your data almost anywhere.

For now, Apple has launched the iCloud Beta (www.icloud.com) on the web. As it turns out, this is only available for developers at the meantime. The new iCloud website features web apps for Mail, Calendar, Contacts and iWork documents. The FindMyiPhone service is also integrated and all your information and iWork content can then be accessed through www.icloud.com if you have an accunt. If you want to try the service, you need to register a developer account for $99 a year and in addition to iCloud, you can also access exclusive development tools and documentation. The iCloud service is said to be launched together with the iOS 5 in the coming months before holidays.

Prices for the iCloud service are the following:

5GB: free

10GB: $20 (15GB total)

20GB: $40 (25GB total)

50GB: $100 (55GB total)

The entire interface of iCloud’s web portal is much likely in an iOS device as you can see. The web apps resemble the icons in your iPhone or iPad which looks easy to use.

How excited are you in the upcoming iCloud service?

For every small detail that someone will need to his iPhone, the jailbreak community has always an answer. Have you ever been bothered because you missed a very important call in your iPhone? By default, iPhone 4’s ringtone is not too loud to be heard from a distance, especially when inside your pocket. Common situations happen when you sometimes think that your heard your iPhone ringing, or was it really ringing. We could not have missed an important call if only the world’s most loved smartphone will ring louder like the other brands. Don’t worry, the jailbreak community has a solution fr that, the PocketMode.

A jailbreak tweak that will increase the ring and SMS volume of your iPhone 4 until you finally notice that somebody is trying to call you. Though PocketMode sounds simple, as some would say, the function is quite complex since it will detect when you’ve removed your iPhone 4 where it was and readjust the volume accordingly. Using your iPhone’s ambient light sensor, PocketMode detects the dark surroundings when your iPhone is inside your pocket or bag.

Maybe somebody will ask, “Will PocketMode gets annoying during the night when I sleep?” Well, the developer also thought about that particular problem. A ‘Night Mode’ option will allow users to set a time frame when the app will disable itself.

PocketMode is worth $1.49 and obviously need a jailbroken iPhone since you will use Cydia to install this.

Since the exploit of JailbreakME 3.0 by Comex, Apple has released 2 iOS updates within 2 weeks. While Apple has been combating the jailbreak community by closing the hole and preventing it from happening again, I am pretty sure that the jailbreak community developers will not stop in uncovering hidden agendas that Apple might have forgotten to close.

My last post was about the Gevey SIM which can be used to unlock iOS 4.3.5. Today, the folks at Tiny Umbrella have updated to its latest version 5.00.77. It desn’t just allow you to save your SHSH blob for the new iOS 4.3.5 firmware but it also gives you the choice of whether or not to update your iPhone 4’s baseband.

This gives the users to pick an option whether or not they want to update their iPhone 4 baseband which will allow mixing and matching a new baseband with an older version of iOS. But this new option comes with very important warnings:

1. The version you want to restore and the version Apple is currently signing must both have the same baseband.
2. You need to realize the by checking the box will update your baseband.

This means that if you have unlocked your iPhone 4 on an earlier baseband, no need to check this option. This is because TinyUmbrella will not save your updated iPhone 4 baseband.

For tutorial on how to save your SHSH blob, check my post regarding this topic.

Since the exploit of JailbreakME 3.0 was released and was used more than 2 million times by iDevices, especially the iPad 2, Apple has released the 2^nd update which is iOS 4.3.5. According to Apple, the release of their recent update for iOS is to fix apparent security vulnerability with certificate validation. The update is now available in iTunes by updating your iDevice upon connecting to your computer.

For anyone who is using an untethered jailbroken iPhone with iOS 4.3.3, obviously DO NOT update to the latest version of iOS or else you will lose your jailbreak. It is also advised to save your SHSH blob to prevent losing your jailbreak in case accidental update may occur.

As expected, the Dev Team has now updated RedSn0w to provide a tethered jailbreak for anyone using iOS 4.3.5 with its latest version. It may be just a tethered one but this could help to anyone who has forgotten to save their SHSH blobs.

Surprisingly, the Gevey SIM also will now unlock iPhones running iOS 4.3.5. It will work perfectly for iOS 4.3.5 (except iPad 2) even if Apple has blocked Gevey SIM in iOS 5 Beta 2. Perhaps the iOS 4.3.5 will now be the last update that Apple will be releasing prior to iOS 5. In the meantime, if you are enjoying your jailbreak iPhone now, just don’t do anything and wait for another tethered jailbreak that may come.