iPhone 4 and OS 4.X Catch All

There are definite benchmark releases where upgrading makes sense over holding out further.

The iPhone 4 was that for me. I had no interest in previous iPhones. The iP4 is when the device moved to kick-ass status to me, based mostly on:

a) Hardware powerful enough to rock its OS and apps, not just putz along like so many smart phones. Too many smart phones are just barely powerful enough to run what they're loaded with
b) 300+ dpi screen, making reading text on a small screen a completely different experience

You can always dawdle and say that better stuff will come later, but not all upgrades are the same. Recognize the big jumps and upgrade to those. It's easier with Apple products than most thanks to their lean product lines and relatively predictable release schedule.

Just got a free AT&T 3G Microcell for the house today after I started the process of switching from ATT to Verizon. I'm pretty happy with it. My house went from 0-1 bar to 5 bars. AT&T gets to keep me as a customer for a little while longer it seems.

Apollo0507 wrote:

I don't know if this should be its own topic, but I'm a current Verizon customer who is eligible for an upgrade and I am trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on a iPhone 4 pre-order tomorrow or whether to wait until the summer.

It would be bad for business for Apple to release a new Verizon phone just a few months after releasing their first Verizon phone. Everyone who bought the first phone would want to exchange their phone for the newer version, and Apple would either lose a ton of money by letting them do so, or generate a ton of bad press by not.

complexmath wrote:
Apollo0507 wrote:

I don't know if this should be its own topic, but I'm a current Verizon customer who is eligible for an upgrade and I am trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on a iPhone 4 pre-order tomorrow or whether to wait until the summer.

It would be bad for business for Apple to release a new Verizon phone just a few months after releasing their first Verizon phone. Everyone who bought the first phone would want to exchange their phone for the newer version, and Apple would either lose a ton of money by letting them do so, or generate a ton of bad press by not.

But I have read that a new iPhone is coming out this summer, a complete redesign in fact. Perhaps they will delay the release of the Verizon version.

Ballotechnic wrote:
complexmath wrote:
Apollo0507 wrote:

I don't know if this should be its own topic, but I'm a current Verizon customer who is eligible for an upgrade and I am trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on a iPhone 4 pre-order tomorrow or whether to wait until the summer.

It would be bad for business for Apple to release a new Verizon phone just a few months after releasing their first Verizon phone. Everyone who bought the first phone would want to exchange their phone for the newer version, and Apple would either lose a ton of money by letting them do so, or generate a ton of bad press by not.

But I have read that a new iPhone is coming out this summer, a complete redesign in fact. Perhaps they will delay the release of the Verizon version.

It's conceivable that AT&T would have a 6 month head-start over Verizon. Perhaps that was the condition that allowed them to carry it? Seems kind of stupid, though, if they don't come out at the same time.

lol http://blogs.twincities.com/yourtech...
The video is the best part

Now I own an iPhone 4 from ATT... dont get me wrong I like it a lot, but this is hilarious...

PAR

As I said in the ipad thread, I'm getting a refurb 16gb ipad. I've been warned, by someone from GWJ, not to upgrade to IOS 4.3. I've also read that it is causing issues on some ipads.

Just wondered if it was worth me installing 4.3 or not. I believe it makes browsing snappier, plus I've read one forum post from a guy who has the same WiFi router as me and says 4.3 helped his connection issues.

I've no idea about this stuff, so advice is appreciated. I assume it would be better for me to upgrade the OS right away, so that the ipad doesn't have any apps etc. on it; update fresh out of the box.

The only update that's really critical is to have your iPad on 4.2 or better. The iPad originally came with 3.2. You want the multitasking and folders and all that.

Really, for iOS in general, the big upgrade was 4.0, and everything beyond that has been minor. 4.2 just happens to be the first 4.x that included the iPad. It was the great unification of the firmwares, which were previously separate.

That said, I will be upgrading to 4.3. Next week. Once the untethered jailbreak is released.

Thanks for the comment. If it's shipped with 4.2, I'll stick to that. I hope I don't have any WiFi issues.

ALso, is there some kind of race going on by the community to release jailbreak versions and Apple to outdo them? I had assumed that jailbreaking was a somewhat niche activity (given that it's a large niche). Is it actually quite common?

I'm having issues with 4.3. I have had to reset twice since installing it, and performance is noticeably slower. I've had more apps hang and crash. If I was suspicious, I would say that Appe borked the update to persuade early adopters to get the new model.

The only important function in 4.3 for me was the return of the orientation lock switch, but that can be accomplished on jailbroken 4.2 as well.

Every firmware iteration has needed it's own jailbreak. Apple have pushed one or two out to fix a security hole that led to a jailbreak.

I got the ipad this morning and it's got 4.2 on it, so I'll stick with that.

Also, does anyone else have light-bleed on their ipads? I've got three small points on the side of the screen; I checked when I was in a room with lights off and curtains closed. Doesn't bother me particularly, but thought I'd ask.

I've never had any on mine, which was a day 1 purchase. Enjoy your new toy!

spider_j wrote:

The only important function in 4.3 for me was the return of the orientation lock switch...

Yaaaaay!

The untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3.1 is out on the iphone dev team site. It works for iPad 1 and touches as well, but not iPad 2. If you need the carrier unlock, hold off though. That's not ready yet.

spider_j wrote:

The untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3.1 is out on the iphone dev team site. It works for iPad 1 and touches as well, but not iPad 2. If you need the carrier unlock, hold off though. That's not ready yet.

It took me a bunch of tries, but I got it to work on my iPhone 4. For others trying this: You probably need to restore before you jailbreak, and you'll want to jailbreak AFTER you let iTunes restore your backup. If you do it in the wrong order, your phone get stuck saying "No Service."

VeggiePirate wrote:

For others trying this: You probably need to restore before you jailbreak, and you'll want to jailbreak AFTER you let iTunes restore your backup. If you do it in the wrong order, your phone get stuck saying "No Service."

Yes. Saurik (Cydia guy) was on Reddit saying the same thing:

saurik wrote:

^ everyone, please do this. (Referring to post above him, saying to factory restore instead of just updating and "rejailbreaking"). The first time I heard the term "rejailbreak" a little part of me died inside: no one tests whether their jailbreak mechanism "works over" someone else's, nor really is that even quite a reasonable thing to expect, so if you "rejailbreak" your device you should expect subtle issues.

Hmm. I didn't factory restore my iPad, but I haven't had any problems yet, thankfully. Mind you, I'm not "rejailbreaking" since this the first time that have done the iPad.

I've been playing Super Mario Allstars on SNES HD with my iPhone 4 as a pad. It makes it all worth it! (yes, I have the cart!)

I'm thinking about finally doing an update to my jailbroken iPhone 4 (which currently sits back at 4.1). Saw this on Tipb.com tonight, and it looks like it could be extremely useful:

http://www.tipb.com/2011/04/04/app-d...

Or PKGBackup, which costs money but has some added functionality (syncs to Dropbox, is a bit more automated, etc.)

My jailbreak seemed to work fine, but I lost all my texts. PKGBackup backed them up... somewhere... but I can't get them back.

Warlock wrote:

Or PKGBackup, which costs money but has some added functionality (syncs to Dropbox, is a bit more automated, etc.)

My jailbreak seemed to work fine, but I lost all my texts. PKGBackup backed them up... somewhere... but I can't get them back.

Thanks for the tip about PKGBackup, didn't know about that one!

I bought a digital AV connector for my iPad 1 today. After messing about to see what apps would work with it, I looked into jailbreak options for mirroring. The solution is out there, and works just fine as long as you don't run a load of apps in the background. You'll need openssh from cydia, cyberduck, and the edited file from the site linked above.

Got some questions about unlocking and changing carriers. I just got an iPhone 4 the other day, and my mom has been eyeing my old iPhone 3G for a while, so today I got it unlocked so she can take it to Bell (her carrier). Rogers (my carrier) will unlock iPhones, though the Rogers store I went to today sent me up the street to a computer repair shop for the unlock (seemed shady but whatevs). I had downgraded the 3G to 3.1.3 this morning, but the guy at the shop said it has to be 4.1 to be unlocked—and then it can't be downgraded (or upgraded) without being unlocked again. So he upgraded and unlocked it. But is this true? If the iPhone is activated on Bell, can it then be down-/upgraded? (I downgraded it as a favour for her since she won't miss the features but might appreciate the speed gain.)

Now Cydia is on the phone and can't be deleted. Is there any way to remove it? Tangential question: was the phone unlocked or jailbroken—or is there material difference? Further on the tangent: could I have saved myself the $35 and done this at home then?

It was both jail broken and unlocked. You have to do the first to do the second. Every time you upgrade to official firmware, the jailbreak and unlock get wiped. I'm not sure about downgrading, but, again, I would suspect that putting any official firmware on there would kill the unlock.

Yep, you could have done it home really easily and free on iOS 3.1.3!

Regarding the Cydia icon, I don't think that you can permanently remove it without killing the jailbreak and unlock, button can hide it. There are a lot of jailbreak apps on cydia that will do it, but SBSettings in probably the best. It doesn't have an icon itself, you swipe right to left across the status bar at the top of the screen to activate it by default. You could install it from cydia, use it to hide cydia, and then change the gesture used to activate SBSettings to something really obscure.

I don't know man that seems really shady. The whole purpose of the unlock is that you can take it to another carrier and have the phone work as normal.

Well hell. Then that was waste of money. I thought if Rogers offers the service it would have been an on-the-up-and-up process.

If the phone can be carried over to Bell, then at least that's what I wanted in the first place. Or most of what I wanted—I (and my mom) don't care that it can't be upgraded (though there's the principal of that too), but I'd prefer that it had stayed at 3.1.3.

Now I'm wondering if I should call Rogers and clarify what their unlocking service is, and (if it's not "send the customer to a Korean man in a locked office building") argue for getting them to reimburse me for that $35 I paid to said Korean man.

One of the things that keeps people away from jailbreaking/unlocking is the cycle of "Apple releases new firmware/wait for new jailbreak/wait for new unlock/rinse and repeat." I keep up with it because I love precisely 3 apps that add functionality to the phone that Apple are idiots for not adopting, but my phone is still on 4.1 simply because 4.2 and 4.3 and their sub-upgrades add nothing that I need on my phone.

I misread your original post, and thought that you paid $5, not $35! That's shady as hell. There's a guy on the Market near where I work who would do it for a fraction of that. As for saying that it needs to be on 4.1, that's nonsense. If you want, I can look into how to downgrade it and unlock it on 3.1.3 while you try to get your money back.

spider_j wrote:

As for saying that it needs to be on 4.1, that's nonsense. If you want, I can look into how to downgrade it and unlock it on 3.1.3 while you try to get your money back.

Yeah, that'd be great!

Well, that was surprisingly easy to find, if a bit tricky to execute! Just follow this guide and you should be OK.

The bits about SSH blobs in step 3 shouldn't be an issue for you. You'll still need to jailbreak for the unlock; that is unavoidable. The software and firmware you need is all linked from the guide.

Don't worry about the baseband stuff in the last section. Ultrasn0w should work fine for the unlock and jailbreak; that's what I used the one time I did this.

I have been loving iOS on the iPhone 4 and I got an old iPad coming from a relative who is upgrading to the new model. I never thought the Apple operating system were all that different or better than Windows, but I really think iOS has nailed the usability and simplicity that OS's desperately need. It's not perfect, but it has got me excited to see the OS at work on a bigger screen.

spider_j wrote:

Well, that was surprisingly easy to find, if a bit tricky to execute! Just follow this guide and you should be OK.

The bits about SSH blobs in step 3 shouldn't be an issue for you. You'll still need to jailbreak for the unlock; that is unavoidable. The software and firmware you need is all linked from the guide.

Don't worry about the baseband stuff in the last section. Ultrasn0w should work fine for the unlock and jailbreak; that's what I used the one time I did this.

Thanks for the link, spider_j. The downgrade I've already done, so doing it again is no problem (I even held on to the firmware file and RecBoot "just in case"). Jailbreaking and unlocking on a Mac looks a little more complicated, but I can figure it out.

If we take the phone to Bell now and let them activate it, does that effectively re-lock it? I.e., could I just upgrade or downgrade it then? Or is it "once unlocked, always unlocked", and an upgrade/downgrade after getting it on Bell would bork its carrier settings?