iPhone 2.0 firmware hacked

The iPhone Dev Team just released their Pwnage tool for the 2.0 firmware (Mac only at this point). You may also need some bootloaders to create the customized restore file you’ll need in order to get your 1st gen iPhone onto the new firmware.

The updated 2.0 firmware will give your old iPhone all the features of the 3G model except for the GPS and 3G data speed. The big thing is you get access to the App Store and all it’s application goodness.

The process I went through to upgrade my wife’s iPhone (hence the pink case) from 1.1.3 was this:
iPhone 2.0 Pwned

  1. do a sync on the iPhone before doing anything which will backup all the settings, contacts, photos, etc.
  2. you’ll need to download the 2.0 restore firmware from Apple. Do this by launching iTunes with the iPhone connected and it should offer a software update for 2.0 – choose download only and it will download the correct version to your /user/library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates folder.
  3. get the bootloaders linked above (3.9 + 4.6)
  4. run the Pwnage tool and select the iPhone (non-3G) option
  5. follow the onscreen instructions…if it doesn’t find the correct *.ipsw file, it should offer to switch to expert mode to allow you to browse for it – the same applies for the bootloaders
  6. let it create the custom restore firmware which it should drop onto your desktop
  7. the Pwnage tool then failed for me – probably because I used Zphone previously to unlock the phone – don’t worry…
  8. close Pwnage and go back to iTunes
  9. with the iPhone connected, command+click the Restore option in iTunes which will allow you to browse to a specific firmware version to restore from – choose the custom one you created with the Pwnage tool
  10. It should take awhile to restore and verify the firmware….you may see a pineapple on the iPhone instead of the Apple logo
  11. it should then upgrade the baseband and bootloader like in the photo
  12. the iPhone will reboot and you should be unlocked with the 2.0 firmware installed including the App Store icon and Cyndia which seems to be an update/alternate to Installer

If you run into any problems, check the comments on the Dev Team’s post.

One last point – I noticed that when I upgraded the iPhone to 2.0 (both the 1st gen and my new 3G), the carrier name is still what it was set to previously via Make it Mine which is cool. It must be stored in the backup file iTunes uses.

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9 Comments

  1. Just did mine too, complete success. Yeah!

    A couple of random things:

    – I was previously on 1.1.3 unlocked with ZiPhone

    – unlike your experience, there was no Pwnage failure, it all worked as promised. I suspect you did it before update #3 to their blog post though, as I made sure to create that directory before I started.

    – I still don’t get why the bootloader images were needed; I got them they were in the same directory as the Pwnage app, but I was never prompted to use them.

    – Really? I have to put up with a Pineapple logo on reboot now? Lame.

  2. And I just noticed that the tabs I had open in Safari are still there, despite the complete restore. That’s some powerful backup-fu, Apple. Nice.

  3. Dave: yup that looks like the issue I had….one of the downsides of being an early adopter. Creating that directory probably would have avoided the problem but it worked out in the end.

    Been playing with Cyndia and some customization app/patches still work too…my wife now has a pink version of the notes app to match her case…I’m sure more will pop up very soon as a result of today’s release….maybe even a pineapple remover.

  4. I just completed the upgrade, here is how my experience went:

    – Like Dave S, I was also going from 1.1.3 – Also like Dave, I was not prompted to browse for the bootloaders
    – I use iTunes on Windows to sync the iPhone, and had not yet botherered to upgrade to 7.7. When I connected the iPhone to the PC for restore, I was forced to upgrade because the older iTunes version couldn’t communicate with the 2.0 firmware. No big surprise there, I guess.
    – Install of iTunes 7.7 on Windows required 2 reboots! Took twice as long to upgrade iTunes as it did to apply the firmware.
    – Just noticed that mail.app was broken. Turns out it was a permissions problem with the Mail directory. SSHed to the phone and: chown -R mobile:mobile /var/mobile/Library/Mail

  5. One more thing.. just noticed that I now have properly-threaded SMS conversations.. maybe that came back with 1.1.4.. but I’m glad to have it!

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