If you accidentally updated your iPhone 3G/3GS to the latest iPhone OS 3.1/3.1.2, then you’re also stuck with baseband version 05.11. If you recently bought a factory fresh iPhone 3GS with OS 3.1 or 3.1.2 already loaded, then you’re in the same boat. That used to be a bad thing, because baseband 05.11 couldn’t be unlocked to work with unofficial SIM cards. Today’s release of “blacksn0w” changes all that. The blacksn0w software unlock utility is now available to unlock any iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS running the latest iPhone OS 3.1.2 and baseband 05.11!
Yes, that includes brand new, out-of-the-box, iPhone 3GS’s.
If you’re running an older version of the baseband (04.26), simply jailbreak your iPhone and run Ultrasn0w. You can find your baseband firmware version by navigating to Settings>General>About>Modem Version on your iPhone. We have jailbreak (PwnageTool) directions here and unlock (ultrasn0w) directions here.
For the rest of you in the “baseband 05.11″ boat, keep reading for a step-by-step tutorial to unlock your iPhone…
The iPhone’s big 3.5-inch display is great for watching videos and viewing photos. It’s also great for boring your friends with photos from your Napa Valley vacation (trust us, that vineyard was way more impressive in person). Here’s a quick tip to keep your photos locked in a particular orientation:
Simply rotate your iPhone into the orientation you’d like, then tap-and-hold on the photo. A little “Copy” bubble will appear, effectively locking the photo in place.
The tap-and-hold method isn’t elegant or optimal, but it sure is convenient. Give it a try next time you’re sharing photos with friends!
In-line auto-completion can be a godsend when you’re tapping out a long-winded email. Unfortunately for all you HTC Touch Pro2 owners, HTC decided to disable the feature in favor of you using the trick slide-and-tilt QWERTY keyboard. Auto-completion is still available through the Touch Pro2’s Windows Mobile Professional OS, but it takes a little fiddling to get it back up and running. According to XDA user k99w, all it takes is a couple registry changes to re-enable auto-completion.
First off, be aware that editing your Windows Mobile registry can potentially leave you with an expensive paperweight. That’s the worst-case scenario. Second, always make sure to backup your data – you never know what could happen. Third, you do this at your own risk.
Here’s how:
You’ll need a Windows Mobile registry editor. PHM Registry Editor is a good editor – especially since it’s free.
Search your registry for “HKLM\Software\Tegic\eT9\XT9SupportMSSi” and make sure it has a value of 0
Search for “HKLM\system\currentcontrolset\control\layouts\e0010409″ and change:
Ime File: \windows\et9ime.dll to Ime File: \windows\compime.dll
There are iPhone apps that allow you to record phone conversations for blackmail your personal records (SpoofApp and Recorder 10 are good examples), but they apparently weren’t up to snuff for DIY gadget hacker Adam Byers. The currently available iPhone apps require that you jailbreak your iPhone, pay by the minute for call recordings and can only record calls originating from the iPhone [credit to Adam for the clarification]. That just wasn’t going to cut it. Instead, Byers took it upon himself to craft his own hardware solution to the iPhone call recording problem. The end result is a big black box that obviously puts function over form, but allows you to record both sides of an iPhone conversation relatively easily.
The only catch here is that you have to make your own iPhone call recording “Black Box” yourself. If you don’t know your way around a wiring diagram and a soldering iron, we’d suggest you stay away from this mod. Those of you with some electrical engineering experience will probably still find this mod to be too much of a hassle (jailbreaking your iPhone is soo much easier). The five remaining DIY hackers out there can find instructions for making an iPhone hardware call recorder here.
Just remember, recording phone conversations isn’t exactly 100% legal everywhere. Make sure you keep that in mind before recording a phone conversation.
Fancy yourself playing with the HTC Sense UI, but can’t bear to part with your iPhone? Well, you’re in luck. The Sense UI is now available on the iPhone as a custom-made theme!
While the likes of T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) myTouch 3G users will probably never get to use the widget-friendly Sense UI (licensing restrictions being what they are), the unlikeliest of smartphones has been blessed with this year’s most intriguing UI. To be fair, though, the Sense UI hasn’t been ported to the iPhone per se. Instead, the iPhone OS homescreen can be modified to look and work just like HTC’s own Android interface.
In order to get the Sense-like theme onto your iPhone, you’ll have to jailbreak the handset and install a few apps through Cydia. Redmond Pie’s tutorial will guide you through a step-by-step process for getting the Androidy Sense UI onto your iPhone.
Check out the video below, if you like what you see, head on over to Redmond Pie for the DIY guide.
Unless you’re the type that won’t settle for anything less than a high-end magnetically-shielded speaker, you’re probably familiar with the dreaded cellphone speaker “buzz.” All those electromagnetic radio waves streaming to and from your mobile phone can sometimes cause interference with unshielded speakers – the result is an annoying buzzing through your speakers. One DIY (Do-It-Yourself) solution is to extract a magnetic bead from a USB cable and jury-rig it onto your speaker cables. But, that method requires some cutting and a bit of elbow grease. Why not just use an everyday anti-static bag?
Also known as electrostatic bags, anti-static bags are those shiny metallic-coated bags that your graphics cards, RAM sticks and hard drives come packaged in. You’ve probably thrown away more of these electrostatic bags than you know. But, you probably didn’t know that anti-static bag could finally eliminate that speaker buzz!
Simply sitting your mobile phone in top of an anti-static bag will squash all magnetic interference. The next time your speakers start buzzing because your homies are blowin’ up the cellie, just find that shiny silver bag and place it over the cellphone.
The video below shows the electrostatic bag in action!
The Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre’s success is only being held back by Sprint (NYSE: S)’s exclusivity deal on the WebOS-powered smartphone. Both Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless and AT&T (NYSE: T) have made it known that the Palm Pre is most certainly on their radar (although, Sprint isn’t shy about reaffirming their own exclusivity deal), but we’ve yet to even see either carrier officially embracing the smartphone. Thankfully, no lack of carrier support could stop Pre-hacker Cleanser from porting his once Sprint-locked Palm Pre to the Verizon Wireless network. With a little ingenuity and some elbow-grease, Cleanser has managed to create a Verizon Wireless Palm Pre of sorts.
The Pre’s CDMA radio hardware is already compatible with Verizon’s CDMA network, so it makes sense that someone could get the Pre roaming Big Red’s US network. But, it’s most definitely a hack and isn’t going to be a viable option for the average Palm Pre customer.
Voice calls and SMS text messages are a go, but wireless data is still in in the works. With a little luck, Cleanser will have the Palm Pre fully functional on Verizon Wireless in due time.
The original iPhone hacker has returned to work his magic on the iPhone 3GS and its iPhone 3.0 OS. Thanks to George Hotz, the iPhone 3GS is now officially jailbroken and ready to take full advantage of its faster processor and boosted RAM stores! That also means the iPhone 3GS can now be unlocked to work with any GSM network in the world (more on that below).
While the iPhone Dev Team has elected to withhold the iPhone 3GS jailbreak until Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) releases the impending iPhone 3.1 OS update, iPhone hacker George “Geohot” Hotz has just released his own iPhone 3GS jailbreak solution, dubbed “purplera1n.”
Continuing the tradition of oddly-named iPhone hacking utilities, purplera1n can successfully jailbreak any and all iPhone 3GS’s running the latest iPhone 3.0 OS (which comes pre-installed from the factory). The iPhone 3.0 OS has been jailbroken for some time, but only for iPhone or iPhone 3G hardware. With Geohot’s purplera1n utility, iPhone 3GS owners can now install unofficial third-party iPhone apps like “backgrounder” (allows you to multi-task your iPhone apps). Once jailbroken, any iPhone 3GS can be software unlocked using ultrasn0w.
The purplera1n jailbreak is still very much in beta, so use it at your own risk. The jailbreak works fine, but you might have to repeat the process more than once to get it to take. If you’re more comfortable with the iPhone Dev Team’s official jailbreak releases, you can just wait for them to release their PwnageTool update (it shouldn’t be too much of a wait). You can download the iPhone Dev Team’s redsn0w jailbreak utility for all iPhone hardware running iPhone 3.0 OS. Ultrasn0w can still be used to unlock your iPhone 3GS after jailbreaking with redsn0w. Otherwise, iPhone 3GS jailbreak guide after the break…
The dedicated do-it-yourselfers out there will probably have already slapped together an iPhone tripod using some spare toothpicks and a fork, or two. The rest of us haven’t even considered making a DIY iPhone tripod. For those of you in that second category, iPhone-modder Scott Patrick has posted a DIY video that explains how to make an iPhone tripod using a Contour Case and a few hardware knick-knacks.
Contour Case used for this DIY is the most expensive component you’ll need. It’s $30 and you can grab one here.
One of iPhone OS 3.0s most anticipated features is its support for MMS, sometimes called pictures messages. Unfortunately, the original iPhone crowd was left out of the party. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) only enabled MMS support for iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 3GSs running the latest iPhone 3.0 OS. Today, a new jailbreak application has been released, allowing the original iPhone (2G) to rock the default MMS service!
The newly released ActivateMMS2G has been published on the Cydia jailbreak applications store. To enable native support for MMS on your iPhone 2G, simply jailbreak and install the ActivateMMS2G app. You need to add “http://cydia.alpden.com/” to your Cydia Sources.
The iPhone’s big 3.5-inch display is great for watching videos and viewing photos. It’s also great for boring your friends with photos from your Napa Valley vacation (trust us, that vineyard was way more impressive in person). Here’s a quick tip to keep your photos locked in a particular orientation:
In-line auto-completion can be a godsend when you’re tapping out a long-winded email. Unfortunately for all you HTC Touch Pro2 owners, HTC decided to disable the feature in favor of you using the trick slide-and-tilt QWERTY keyboard. Auto-completion is still available through the Touch Pro2’s Windows Mobile Professional OS, but it takes a little fiddling to get it back up and running. According to 
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