Jailbreaking my iPod Touch running iOS4

Google Fodder: Tonight I tried to jailbreak my iPod Touch which has been running stock iOS4 for a few weeks now. I was disappointed by iOS4 as the only visible thing it brings to an iPod Touch is folders. No multi-tasking. No wallpapers. No ability to customise anything. I was better off on v3.1.2 jailbroken.

So time to do the nasty to iOS4. Steve Jobs, I need more.

I tried the www.jailbreakme.com web-based jailbreak several times and it failed repeatedly, stuck on the purple background and displaying no error messages.

The only way I know it failed was a message saying the installer had crashed and I should try again. To see that message I had to power off the iPod Touch off and power it back on, then go into Safari and reload the jailbreak.com page.

As it is a web-based solution, I thought it may be something wrong in Safari's settings. So I tried a few things and they didn't work until I did it this way. The pop-up setting may be irrelevant, but the rest seemed to make the difference,as well as powering off and back on BEFORE attempting to jailbreak again.

1. Go into Settings -> Safari
2. Under Accept Cookies set it to "Always"
3. I set Block Pop-ups to OFF
4. I cleared History, Cache and Cookies.
5. Press Home and then power the iPod Touch off. 
6. Power it back on and go into Safari
7. Go to www.jailbreakme.com and "Slide to Jailbreak"

At the point, a "Downloading" window came up and the jailbreak process began and completed successfully. Now I'm working on what I need to download and install to get multi-tasking going and allow me to customise the look of this ugly thing.  I've grown used to Android's built-in ability to customise the user interface or replace it completely....as it's just another app.

My iPod's an iPad

I've had my iPod Touch 8GB for over a year and I have used it a lot. But I have never had a reason to jailbreak it. I did try once, just for fun, but the instructions were not very good and it didn't work....and I couldn't be bothered.

But the launch of the Apple iPad changed that. I looked at the list of features and they are virtually identical to my iPod Touch 8GB. Ok, the Touch doesn't have 3G data, but my Android phone does and I frequently Wi-Fi tether my iPod Touch to the phone for Internet access from anywhere.

Today, I saw this video showing anyone how to convert their iPod Touch / iPhone into an iPad.



I was entranced. What a cool idea! But I would have to jail break the iPod Touch to install the apps that would enable me to make the needed cosmetic changes. Even better - I get multi-tasking, too, thanks to ProSwitcher and a couple of other apps ....and multi-tasking is something the iPad can't do.

First I downloaded, George Hotz's "BlackRa1n" (RC3) which enables a one-click jailbreak of iPhone OS 3.1.2 and several previous versions.

Blackra1n didn't work the first few times as the instructions erroneously told me to run the app in WinXP compatibility mode on Windows Vista. Each time I tried, it put the iPod Touch into recovery mode...and wiped it....and that was that. Each time that happened, I had to start iTunes and restore the firmware, then restore my iPod Touch from the latest backup. No harm done. Just time wasted.

In the end, these instructions, from here, worked perfectly:

Chilos

# 12 Oct 2009 Monday 1:07 pm

IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS CHECK THIS IT WORKS FOR ME:

1- copy Blackra1n to your hard drive. Run it WITHOUT compability mode, and instead "Run as Administrator".

2- kill iTunesHelper using Task Manager

3- turn off your Iphone / iPod

4- open Blackra1n as administrator (Vista or Win 7) and click "Make it Rain".

5- push HOME button and POWER same time until apple logo appear.- then release power button (actually - connecting the iPod to the USB cable will turn it on). 

6- keep push home button until george's face appears

This worked perfectly for me and Blackra1n did its thing. It took about 3 minutes to do the deed and re-boot.

Once the iPod re-booted at the end of the process, I touched the "Blackra1n" icon on the Springboard and away I went, installing the "Cydia" alternative app market onto the iPod Touch. .

After that, I followed the instructions in the video to make the iPod Touch look like an iPad. I did have to buy one app - Shrink - for US$0.99 and paid for via my PayPal account.


Here are a photo and a screenshot of my new mini-"iPad". Click on either or both to see them full size. They aren't identical as they were taken about 2 hours apart.

My iPod Touch and a real iPad aren't quite the same, of course.

Mine can multi-task.  ;-)

Apple or Android? You don't have to choose. You can have both.

You don't have to choose between Apple and Android. Android's open-ness makes it possible for you to have both at the same time. A relatively cheap iPod Touch 8GB, combined with an Android phone on a data plan acting as your WiFi access point, is a cheap way to have simultaneous access to the best both Apple and Android have to offer wherever you go.

I got my Apple iPod Touch (2nd gen) last December and very quickly saw iPod Touch / iPhone  would change the face of not just mobile telephony but also personal computing. I got right into it - installing loads of apps (free and paid), buying a few songs, and generally replacing most of the functions I used to use my laptop for.

But, as I have already blogged, iTunes annoyed me. I can't even delete a song or video without without using iTunes. In the end, Apple's restrictions were enough to make me think twice, three (and the rest) times about "upgrading" to an iPhone.  That isn't to say Apple doesn't offer a lot that is good and useful and fun.

At the same time, I had been watching the progress of Google's Android OS for mobile phones. It looked to me like Android's more open platform had the potential to give me most, if not all, the advantages of the Apple-verse while avoiding the annoyances implicit in using iTunes. Maybe I would even have the ability to actually use my iPod Touch together with an Android phone. Something Apple would never allow in reverse.

If such a thing were possible, then I would not have to choose at all. I could use both side-by-side.

With this in mind, I bought my android-based HTC Magic from Vodafone NZ back in July....and today I finally made it.

Yesterday, I rooted my 'spare' HTC Magic phone (I have two), loaded Cyanogen android, and then installed tetherWiFi. This app only works if you have gained root access to your phone.

I now have my  Apple iPod Touch talking to the Internet, tethered via WiFi to my Android phone, sharing the phone's 3G connection. My HTC Magic is now an ad hoc WiFi access point, protected by MAC filtering so only those systems / devices I choose to allow to connect are able to.

It took me a few months to collect the pieces together. Once I had them (iPod Touch and spare "sandobx" HTC Magic phone) in hand, within 2 days I was able to set this up. It was worth the wait. Now I've done it once, I realise how easy it is, thanks to guys like Steve Kondin / "Cyanogen".

HTC Magic, Android and the Sony DR-BT21G stereo bluetooth headphones.

Google fodder: Last week, I bought the Sony DR-BT21G stereo headset to use with my HTC Magic  because the phone uses the same port for the wired headphones and USB data connection and power adaptor. I could either listen to the phone or charge the battery, but not both. A Bluetooth media (as opposed to just the phone) headset seemed the obvious solution.

No matter what I did, I couldn't get the headphones to play any music. They worked fine with the phone, but that was it.

So instead, as of yesterday, I decided to use them to listen to music on my iPod Touch because v3.0 of the iPhone / iPod Touch OS added support for stereo bluetooth. They worked fine. The main difference was the Apple device asked for the "0000" PIN number, while the HTC Magic / android had not.

That got me thinking and I wonder if....having been initialised at least once....the headset might now work with my HTC Magic. So I tried it this morning.

Yes. They work perfectly.

Even better, though the default music app doesn't respect the AVRCP remote controls on the headset, the "Meridian" media player app does, provided it is in the foreground. I can either skip to the next song, the previous song or job the centre and then FF or REW the current song.

If you're looking for a stereo Bluetooth headset to use with the HTC Magic, the Sony DR-BT21G is a great choice. Just be aware you may have to use them the first time on some other device before they will work with the HTC Magic.

Apple-verse vs HTC Magic - Android phone

I've been looking at various smart phone options for almost a year. I'd pretty much narrowed the choice down to either an Apple iPhone 3G S or a phone based on Google's version of Linux, known as "Android". I considered the Palm Pre to be a wild card worthy of investigation. Blackberry's are too boringly business-oriented for the lone-wolf mobile phone user like me.

I already have an Apple iPod Touch 8GB. I have used it daily - hourly! - (minutely?) - since I got it in December. The interface is pretty good, though I grew tired of risking hand cramps from pinching and squeezing web pages constantly trying to make links accessible to my large finger tips. That magnifying glass thing when trying to place the cursor when editing text also annoyed me. The predictive text only offered one word (that I could see) and it wasn't clear how to either select it, or make it go away. The requirement to use the wretched iTunes, combined with Apple's chokehold on the platform itself put me off deepening my investment in the Apple-verse beyond the bare entry-level access the wifi-only iPod Touch affords. For example, what do I now do with the music I have bought via iTunes? It's locked up tight in the Apple-verse. I can't listen to it on anything else.

I wanted freedom.

Last Friday I took delivery of my new Android-based HTC Magic mobile phone. I got it for $519 from Vodafone on a new, two-year Smart 80 plan. I'd always been on prepay. I went for Smart 80 because that roughly matched the amount I have been spending each month on my prepay. Well....it's a 'wee bit' more...but in the zone. The Smart 80 gave me access to 250MB / month and additional 3G data at only 10 cents / MB. A lower plan would have seen additional data costing 25 cents / MB. So with this plan, I can do 500MB / month for $105. That's cheaper than the Smart 130 which gives a lot of minutes and txts I don't use anyway, beyond the time provided with the Smart 80 plan.

Since then, I've been playing with it fairly intensely, working out what it does, what it does well, what it could do better. I have to say, I'm happier than I expected to be. The Magic has some great features that struck me right up front.

I can connect to a PC, mount the phone and copy MP3 files or video files onto the phone and just play them. No iTunes. It also plays happily downloads and plays *.ogg (Ogg-Vorbis) sound files.

When editing text, I can place the cursor where I want it with a simple touch. The predictive text offers me a list of words and I can pick one before I've even finished typing my current word.

When web browsing, the trackball on the Magic allows me to scroll through page links and select the one I want without pinching or spreading my fingers again and again. Easy. The web browser also has a magnifying "square" I can scroll around the page using the trackball and then select the area to be magnified. Good.

The 3.2 megapixel (woohoo!) camera integrates nicely with any new app that can accept a photo or video as input.

The Magic is a nice, handy shape. It's thin and slips easily into any pocket I use. It's light. The 3.2 inch screen is big enough.

The phone is stable. No crashes so far. (My old Vodafone 715 used to crash frequently, especially handling image data.)

Android multitasks. You can have several diverse, 3rd-party apps open in the background doing their basic functions. Twidroid notifies me of new tweets. Earthquake tells me of the latest earthquake anywhere. BuddyMob tells me about new posts. Or I can shut any or all of them them up and check manually. I can move away from Skype for a few minutes and when I come back, I'm stilled logged in. It does time out though. Not sure how much time I have, but it seems to be at least 3 minutes.

The wifi on the Magic is more sensitive than my iPod Touch. Yesterday morning I found myself connected to the wifi at work while on the next street over from the office. By comparison, the iPod Touch would lose the connection if I crossed the street. Similarly, parked at the local shops near the offcie I was on the office wifi, whereas this just isn't possible with the iTouch.

I'm not saying no other device does these things. I'm saying the HTC Magic, running Android, does do them.

The apps for Android aren't as many or diverse as for the Apple-verse, but most of the core apps I want are there and good enough and judging from the Android Market's list of apps, there are new apps every day.

But I still have my iPod Touch. It's not going anywhere. After I turn my HTC Magic into a wireless AP (because I can!), my iTouch will be even more useful than it is now...and I'll have simultaneous access to both the Apple-verse and the growing Android community of applications.

Freedom. Loving it.

[2009-11-24 - Update: I rooted my phone and got wifi tethering running. The tethering part was as easy as installing an app (either "tetherWiFi" or "Tethered wifi for root users"). No tricks or fiddles. I'm now using my Apple iPod Touch anywhere, tethered via wifi to my HTC Magic and sharing its 3G data connection. That happily works in the background thanks to android's multi-tasking ability. I'm currently running Cyanogen Mod 4.2.5 as the android version on my phone. Yay! ]

Apple iPod Touch vs Linksys WAG54G2 Wi-fi DSL modem router

Google Fodder: My Apple iPod Touch could NOT connect to my new Linksys wireless WAG54G2 modem / router.

My other devices worked fine (PC with DLINK DWA-110 USB Wi-fi and an HTC Magic phone - with Android OS).

In attempting to get the iPod Touch to connect to the router I tried all the security protocols and changing passcodes. Nothing worked.

THEN, I changed the WAG54G2 router from the default wifi channel of 11 to 9....and the problem was gone.

Immediately.

It looks like the channel 11 on the Linksys WAG54G2 and the channel 11 on my Apple iPod Touch do not align closely enough to get connected. But other channels are sufficiently closely aligned to allow a reliable connection.

This may also be true for other devices. Try another channel if you have trouble connecting to the Linksys WAG54G2.

iPod Touch and Skype

Today I received the Apple iPhone Stereo Headset I ordered on Sunday. I bought it because this headset has a microphone as well as the two earbuds. Google searches had suggested the mic worked fine with an iPod Touch 2nd generation.

Yes! They worked perfectly with Skype, allowing me to use Skype Out to call any landline or cellphone. I was also able to receive a Skype-to-Skype call. The sound was good, though perhaps a little on the quiet side. People I spoke to on their phones said they could not tell I wasn't using a normal phone. None guessed I was using an iPod Touch, Skype and WiFi.

So along with all the other things my iPod Touch can do, it is now also a telephone if I'm in an area with WiFi available.

The only limitation is that Skype can't run in the background as iPod Touch (and iPhone) optimise the user experience by limiting multitasking. Skype must be the foreground program running if you want to receive any calls.

UPDATE 2010-01-18: I now use my iPod Touch anywhere by wifi-tethering it to my HTC Magic android phone. Skype from the iPod actually works over the phone's 3G Internet. This is cool because I don't have to choose between Apple and android. Instead, they work together to make each other better. Android has the freedom to access any file from anywhere and the iPod has access to the Apple Store apps....though that is less important each day as more apps come out for android.

iPhone / iPod Touch v3.0 beta

The other day I saw a tweet from Stephen Fry saying he was enjoying using the iPhone 3.0 beta update with his iPhone. I tweeted in reply asking where I could get it. I got a tweet back from @tapthatapp pointing me to a page that explained the what, where and how of trying out the beta version 3.0. Check out these pages before you start doing anything.

The first thing I discovered was "Rapidshare" is anything but rapid. Unless you pay them at least a per diem charge, you getabout 15kbps....which is a slow go for 250MB of data. So downloaded from the free direct links at about 60kbps. Much better.

To upgrade an iPod Touch or iPhone, you restore the contents of the downloaded IPSW file onto the device via iTunes. This wipes out whatever was there, but don't worry too much, as I'll explain later. In order to ensure the device remains usable with iTunes (and isn't effectively orphaned forever from the Apple eco-system), you must also subscribe - directly or indirectly - to the developers program. The direct cost is US$100. I went instead for the indirect option, offered by Jarrad Hall, of US$5 and provided the UDID of my device and waited.

It took Jarrad just over a day to inform me I was ready to go and that my iPod Touch would be usable with iTunes. My first attempt to restore the update to my iPod Touch didn't work, with iTunes telling me my firmware level was wrong. I asked Jarrad via email if he could help and he quickly replied, saying I should re-download the IPSW from his web page rather than the one at the original link. I think the original link may have had me downloading the iPhone version even though I had clicked on the iPod Touch 2gen link, as the first download had a different name to the second one.

Whatever, the second attempt worked and beta 3.0 IPSW installed flawlessly. On syncing, it also installed all my existing applications and copied over my playlists. My apps, music and videos were quickly as they had been before.

The beta is clearly a beta. I have had some issues, some of them serious but oddly enough, none of them have been reproducable. Here is a short list:

• Power funkiness. A couple of times the iPod Touch has gone into suspend mode - sort of. The icons are still visible, but dimmed. I had to hold the top power-off button for 6 seconds to effectively force a re-boot. I can't reproduce this.
  
• Safari sometimes won't rotate the page to landscape. If I Home-button out of safari and go back in, it will them rotate the loaded page. I can't make this happen on demand, but this is how I get out of it when it occurs.
• Twitellater 2.0 couldn't open any web links on one occasion - either directly in Twitellater or externally in Safari (a settable option). Powering off the iPod Touch appeared to sor this out. I can't reproduce the behaviour.
• The worst problem by far occured last evening when I tried to copy / paste a URL from Safari into Twitellator. The paste didn't happen, but after the attempt almost every app started crashed immediately. Only a handful would run (Contacts, App Store and a couple of others). Powering off and on repeatedly made no difference. Everything else just went splat immediately. The device was all but unusable. After 90 minutes of playing around trying to get it to work properly - and failing - I thought I was going to have to restore back to v2.2.1. In preparing for that, I sync'd the iPod Touch with iTunes. Happily, following the sync, the iPod Touch resumed normal function. Everything worked again. I tried to reproduce the event by doing the same copy / paste operation and could not reproduce it. Copy / paste worked fine. The only difference may have been the use of the app Free Memory the first time around, several minutes before I attempted the copy / paste. Free Memory may no longer be compatible with v3.0. That would be no real surprise. I probably shouldn't have tried using it in the first place.
  

Other than these mostly minor issues, the past two days on the v3.0 beta have been pretty good. I'm looking forward to the final version when it comes out in a few months. Function without funkiness will be much appreciated.

Update: 10 minutes after posting the article above. I pulled my iPod Touch out of my pocket and it is lights-out. Dark and unresponsive. For the moment.....dead. I'll see if I can revive it.

Update 2: Googled and found this site explaining how to re-boot a frozen iPod Touch. Following these instructions, my iPod Touch re-booted after holding both buttons for about 45 ....long.... seconds.

Update 3: After almost 3 weeks on the 3.0 beta, I went back to using v2.2.1. The added function of the beta wasn't worth the continued instability of the beta and the failure of many or my apps to run at all.......sometimes. I couldn't work out how to make most of the bug repeatable, either, so work-arounds weren't possible as the behaviour was unpredictable. I suspect lots of memory leaks, which would be fatal in a device with 128MB of system RAM and no ability to swap to virtual memory when the real thing runs out. I'll wait for the final release of v3.0.

"The Cloud" and Ten reasons why Linux will triumph over Windows

Jack Whalen, of TechRepublic, blogs 10 reasons why Linux will triumph over Windows. Most of them are pretty good in my humble opinion, but I'm left wondering what the nature of the 'triumph" will be.

I ponder that point because more and more I find myself computing in "the cloud". My first choice for word processing and spreadshets is now Google Docs. I use Gmail for all my Internet email. My video comes mainly from YouTube and conventional shows are often via bittorrent rather than wait a year or three (if!) to see them where I live. For work, over the past 18 months, Google has more than proven itself to me through two campaigns involving dispersed teams of volunters. Google Docs doesn't care what your OS is as long as you have an adequate web browser.

My Apple iPod Touch is now my favourite portable computing device. Waaay sub-netbook! It provides ready, easy access to all the most important stuff the Cloud has to offer, either as-delivered or via downloadable applications that extend its function and capability. If it could cut and paste it would be perfect...and even there, there are work-arounds already. I think that soon there will be many such devices running a variety of operating systems: Linux, Android...whatever.  

It probably won't matter.

Absolutely there will still be a big market for conventional  PCs in roles like gaming and multimedia and as application and data servers, and for systems in environments where poor connectivity renders the Cloud too diffcult to employ for large amounts of data.

But the computing world is steadily creeping toward the kind of system that fits easily in your shirt or hip pocket....and the OS that devices run won't be of much concern to anyone. Most of the OSes will be open platforms in order to build the kind of ecology that will deliver choice, innovation and quality.

In that sense, the Cloud will likely be based on Open Source software of one ind or another....so in that sense, yeah, linux will be kicking kick ass, in spirit, as the greatest forerunner of the re-assertion of community and sharing for the benefit of all people in a given community....like human society usually was (technologically) for millenia prior to the stifling confinement  - even ownership - of knowledge in 'closed' sysems of all kinds from single vendors. If your neighbour made a better bone fish hook, he probably showed his family and his neighbours how to make it, too. That is how it should be. Thanks to Open Source.....that is how it is becoming once again - at least in the world of the Cloud.

'Linux beats Windows' is a metaphor for community trumping monopoly.