Tag Archives: mod

screwgate

Screwgate: Apple Begins Changing Screws on iPhone 4

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Apple has always preferred their products to remain their products even after they have been sold. For example, Apple continues to play the “cat and mouse” game with the iPhone Dev-Team to try to prevent jailbreaking as well as pouncing on companies who sell white iPhone 4 conversion kits. This common behavior in Apple has shown once again as they now replace the common #00 Phillips screws used in many of their products, specifically the iPhone 4, with new 5-pointed tamper-resistant pentalobe screws. These are extremely uncommon and are meant to keep iPhone 4 users out of their phones. Some might argue that it’s their products and that they should use whatever products they feel work best. The problem isn’t necessarily that they are producing new iPhone 4s with these screws, but that when customers bring their iPhone 4s into Apple stores for repairs, they are returned with these new screws in place. Also, if your warranty has expired or had been voided, you will need to perform these upgrades yourself. While in some cases you shouldn’t be tampering with the internals of your iPhone, it’s your phone and if you need to do a repair on it, with these new screws you simply can’t.

If for some reason you need to remove these tamper-resistant screws, the drivers are not only rare but expensive. In response to this, iFixit has created a $9.95 “iPhone 4 Liberation Kit“, which contains a Pentalobular driver to remove the new screws, two #00 Phillips screws to replace them with, and a corresponding Philips driver. The only downside, however, is that removing the Pentalobular screws may cause them to be unusable; but in the end, that’s essentially the whole point of replacing them.

ipod nano 6g hack

How to Hack iPod Nano 6G

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This tutorial enables you to remove application icons from the iPod Nano 6G’s SpringBoard and insert blank spaces into the those locations. The iPod Nano in this tutorial is running the current 1.0 firmware and is Windows-formated. This will not work with a Mac-formatted Nano. It’s fairly basic and simple, but shows that booting with a user modified file is possible and is a nice proof of concept and is the first small ‘hack’ as such for the new iPod Nano. Before doing this, read the iPod Nano hacking primer, which James Whelton, the hacker, wrote here: http://nanohack.me/?p=33

Tutorial (via NanoHack.me)

  1. Make sure “Enable disk use” is ticked in iTunes when the Nano is plugged in.
  2. Go to My Computer and then into the Nano. Enable hidden folders and go into theiPod_Control, then into Device.
  3. Make a backup of IconState.plist (save it to your desktop or something) and then proceed to open the original with Notepad or any text editor, here is what you’ll see this:
  4. For this tutorial I removed the SBPhotos part of the corresponding string and deleted the SBAlbums and SBGenres. (Note: you aren’t actually deleting the apps, simply removing their visibility from the system).
  5. Save this file.
  6. SyncTug it: hold down the minus volume button and lock button at the same time and as soon as it begins to reboot (screen flashes black for a moment),  unplug the iPod cable from it.
  7. Watch it boot and show  that the Photos and Genres app are missing and a space before the Settings app.

Its that simple and the same ‘SyncTug’ technique can be used on the iPodSettings.xml file to change stuff like wallpaper and whatnot (so far just playing, I’ve altered a few setting with it, have not looked greatly into it). Play around with it and post your findings. In the case you muck something up, just connect it your computer and replace the IconState.plistwith the backup one we made earlier and SyncTug. Failing that, simply restore in iTunes. Something to note also is that if you attempt to press down on an icon and move it, the iPod nano will do a quick reset as it can’t understand why the hell theres a blankspace. The iPod will also sync fine in iTunes and retain this hack.

iPod Nano 6G Jailbreak

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The iPod Nano hasn’t been “jailbroken” as some sites claim but it has been hacked. Hacker, James Whelton, claims to not have root access over the device. He did not “install” an app. He figured out how to remove an app and insert a blank space into the springboard.

What he’s also done is figured out a way for the iPod to boot with modified files (i.e. the SpingBoard plist), bypassing the procedure it takes to stop this, he hope this will allow us to figure out a way to jailbreak it. Whelton is primarily focusing on exposing some of the (for now) hidden features of the device.

Next is the discovery in some of the device’s plists of reference to support of Movies, TV Shows, Apps, Games, vCards, Calender events and so on, with a few other cool things like a passcode lock.

Below are some screenshots of the code. Be sure to follow us and our YouTube channel for information and tutorials on this story. If you happen to own an iPod Nano 6G, will you be hacking when it’s available? Let us know by leaving a comment!

ProSwitcher, Multifl0w, & Circuitous Alternative for iOS 4 (ALL DEVICES)

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Video tutorial below.

As we all know, Apple decided to come out with their own version of multitasking in iOS4. The problem is that it’s not “true” multitasking. In this tutorial, I will explain how to use Apple’s multitasking bar with Backgrounder. This disables Apple’s multitasking and replaces it with Backgrounder’s multitasking.

This is great for older iDevices with 128MB RAM (iPod touch 1G, iPod touch 2G, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G) because they don’t support Apple’s multitasking but it will still work perfectly using this method.


Steps:

1. Open Cydia and download Backgrounder
2. Open Backgrounder and go to Global. Make sure “Backgrounder” is checked as ‘Backgrounding Method’ and “Fall Back to Native” is TURNED OFF

3. SSH into the directory: /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app
4. Locate the N72AP.plist (or N82AP.plist)
5. Backup the .plist file. Edit your .plist in any text editing software and add the following key after <dict> and before </dict>:

<key>multitasking</key>
<true/>

6. Copy the newly edited .plist file back to the directory on your iDevice (OR save it if you edited it straight from your SSH client) and REBOOT.
7. Open Cydia and download a package, “Remove Recents”.
8. Respring (or reboot if you don’t know how to respring).

How to SSH on Windows
How to SSH on Mac

How To Hack the Apple TV

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Now I do not have an Apple TV so I can not show you how to do it, but… I have found a great video from a trusted YouTuber called SoldierKnowsBest. And here it is:

I give all rights to SoldierKnowsBest (Mark), I take no ownership to this video. I am just sharing this with our community.

MOD Shell by CaseCrown

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CaseCrown‘s MOD Shell could quite possibly be the best case for the iPod Touch 2G/3G [at an affordable cost - $19.99 ($12.21 as of December 28, 2009)]. The MOD Shell is available in Red/Black and White/Black. It’s design blows other comparative cases out of the water along with it’s affordable price.

The case is made from a premium grade synthetic leather which appeals to a vast majority of animal lovers. The faux leather not only looks like real leather, but it also smells like real leather which many companies cannot seem to be able to do. On the back of the case is a single, thick fiber woven stripe which seems to give the case a sporty design. The only suggestion I could give to make this case the best it can be, would be to make the thread outlining the stripe red on the red/black version. On the white/black version of the case, the thread outlining the white fiber woven stripe is white which accents the stripe beautifully.

The upper part of the left side of the case is left open to expose the volume rockers, the bottom is open to expose the 30-pin dock connector as well as the headphone jack, and the top is, of course, left open so that you can slide your device in and out. What I really enjoy, though, about the case is that the top does not go too high as to make it difficult to press the sleep/power button, contrary to DSstyle’s Twill Series. Finally, the small logo on the front does not take away from the chic design of the case. Many cases have the company’s name/logo printed too large. CaseCrown’s logo on the MOD Shell is just the right size.

The MOD Shell by CaseCrown is by far one of the best cases around and at an affordable price. You can view the MOD Shell for the iPod Touch HERE or the iPhone version HERE.

A Note From the Editors of TechGeec: Though all products and services reviewed by TechGeec are “final,” many companies now make changes to their offerings after publication of our reviews, which may or may not be reflected above.