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At some point during the day today, I lost all audio on my iPhone.  The typing noise, lock “switch” sound and most importantly- phone audio ceased working.  A quick Google search revealed a fix at iPhoneAtlas.

“...the problem appears to be that the iPhone “forgets” which mode it is in, erroneously thinking that it should still send audio through the audio jack instead of the earpiece.  Unplug then re-plug headphones or any other compatible device into the iPhone’s audio jack several times.”

This fix did indeed work on mine.  Odd since I hadn’t plugged earphones into the iPhone in at least a week.

I attempted the first Nate True Mac iPhone 1.1.3 jailbreak and found that it failed.  My iPhone rebooted and was stuck on the Apple logo. 

No errors reported from /Volumes/jb113/Run_This, log below.


/Volumes/jb113/Run_This ; exit;
pro:~ dfbills$ /Volumes/jb113/Run_This ; exit;
Let’s start by checking your iPhone. Make sure it’s plugged in and press Enter.

Now, I’m unsuccessfully attempting a restore to 1.1.1.  Looks like I’m going all the way up to 1.1.3 so that my phone will be functional for tomorrow.  Ugh- the bleeding edge!  No MobileScrobbling tomorrow.

A clever developer has posted instructions on how to create an iPhone WebClip icons for your own website: (via MacRumors)

The lowdown:

- Create a 57x57 PNG
- Name it “apple-touch-icon.png”
- Upload to the root level of your website

You can override Safari’s WebClip search behavior just like with favicons:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="myicon.png"/>

As usual, detailed instructions for iPhone web development are posted in Apple’s iPhone Dev Center.

It’s about time.  An iPhone Trojan has been unveiled.  The mastermind- an 11-year-old kid.

But seriously, the first Trojan attack is going by the name of “113 prep.”  Once launched, the app displays “shoes,” then causes damage to or deletes system-critical files in the /bin directory on the iPhone.

Update: Now noted by both F-Secure and Symantec.

Flipping through the iPhone manual, I happened upon this nugget of info.

“For optimal mobile device performance and to be sure that human exposure to RF energy does
not exceed the FCC guidelines, always follow these instructions and precautions: When on a
call using the built-in audio receiver in iPhone, hold iPhone with the 30-pin connector
pointed down toward your shoulder to increase separation from the antenna.”

Translation: Keep you hand off of the plastic antenna cover.

I wondered if anyone had measured changes in signal strength when “holding the iPhone properly” and sure enough Nate True posts “iPhone tip - want better EDGE speeds? Take your hand off the antenna”  He claims that he sees a 50% speed increase.  It seems a bit faster to me, but who knows.

I’ve been wondering why the little “E” on my iPhone sometimes was filled in, appearing as a solid block.  Apple illuminated me today.

At long last, Sam Steele’s MobileScrobbler iPhone app has been released via Installer.app.  This is the first AudioScrobbler / Last.FM social music client.  As you listen to music on your iPhone or iPod Touch, MobileScrobbler sends the title, artist, and album to the Last.fm website. Last.fm uses this information to suggest new music, new friends, concerts, and events based on the music you listen to.

* Automatically submits songs as you listen to them
* Works over EDGE or Wifi
* Queues songs when you’re in an area with no signal
* Runs as a native application, not inside Safari
* Source code available under GNU General Public License version 2

I know I’ve seen mobiletorrent mentioned before, but a BitTorrent Client for iPhone is just crazy.

From the Google Code page:

Warning

The use of BitTorrent is heavily network intensive and may breach the terms of your cellphone contract if used over EDGE, not to mention possibly incurring phenomenal cost if not on an unlimited data plan. Thus, this application (when complete) will not permit Torrents to download if the iPhone is not connected to the internet over Wifi.

So the iPhone 1.1.2 jailbreak indeed works.  Make sure you have 45 minutes or so to complete the current hack. Steps include:

1. Installing the Octohack from Installer.app
2. Updating to 1.1.2 in iTunes
3. Downloading the 1.1.2 jailbreak
4. Installing the readline library
5. Running jailbreak.jar
6. Rebooting!

The only tricky part was installing the readline library.  It isn’t mentioned in any of the instructions and if you don’t do this, the hack fails without any worthwhile error.

Download the zip here.  You need to copy:

libreadline.5.2.dylib

to:

/opt/local/lib

Then, proceed with launching jailbreak.jar.  After some waiting, you will be ready to reboot, reboot and run with it.

It seems odd to me that there has been such a flurry of activity in jailbreaking iPhone 1.1.2 (available since Friday).  I’ve been patiently awaiting a simple jailbreak and once it was released yesterday, I took a look.  The thing is.. Apple hasn’t really released 1.1.2 as far as I can tell.

iTunes doesn’t know about it yet and all the download links posted online presuppose that this is the final software.  I think I’ll wait.