So yesterday I decided I had all the information I needed and that it was time to get the IP to unlocked it. Let me first go back two days to explain something.
I decided to join the #ziphone channel to try to get some answers for questions that remained unanswered. I got luck enough to meet CLP. He was kind enough to talk to me for some minutes and nailed all the answers to my questions.
Thanks to that I was able to create an item list with the theoretical steps of the activation/jb/unlock process:
1. Get the firmware version of you OTB IP from itunes 2. If 1.1.3 skip 3 3. If 1.1.2 + plug the IP + fire up iTunes + download fir mare 1.1.3 + press Option/ALT-key to restore firmware 1.1.3 NOTE: repeat the process if you get a 1015 error 4. Close iTunes 5. Start ziphone and select activate + jailbreak + unlock. Click start. 6. Wait for ziphone to do its job. It should take 2' 30''. 7. You are done
That was what I expected the process was going to be. It wasn't exactly like that. But it was close enough.
First of all, currently ziphone doesn't unlock 1.1.4. Ordering online wasn't an option since the likelihood of getting a 1.1.4 was pretty high. I decided to go the apple store so the chances to get a 1.1.2 or a 1.1.3 would be higher. I entered the AS with my credit card (:)) and I asked the guy: "What do I have to do here to get an IP?" The girl was: umm.. not sure if still have.. bummer! I thought. She went check and she came back saying: "yes, we have only 8G". Excellent that is what I needed. I decided to try to get some information about the firmware. That was probably stupid since they are aware people gets IP to unlock them. She said I wasn't going to know what Firmware I had on my IP until using it with my computer. Ok, I knew that already :). So I left the store thinking, would my IP be 1.1.4? If that was the case I should had to wait for zibri to release ziphone 2.5.
Once at home, first problem: Once you fire itunes you are stucked in the activation process. I started thinking.. and I remembered I downloaded Independence some days ago and for some reason I knew the interface had some info about your firmware version, baseband version and so on... Nice, 1.1.3! The perfect scenario. First problem solved.
I closed iTunes. The crucial moment was here. I fired up ziphone and selected all the options and clicked start. Luckily, I checked some youtube videos and I read the documentation so I knew what the process was going to be: First the software puts the IP in recovery mode and then it warns you is going to take 2' 30'' to finish the process. During that period, ziphone changes the screen resolution and starts vomiting mem addresses and info about the process status. Everything looked as expected. The IP rebooted with the classical slide to unlock screen. It was done. I changed the sim card, put a tmobile one, reset the configuration and... wait for it... yes T-mobile signal. I stared trying all the phone basics. Everything was working. Yes!
Then I looked the output of ziphone and i saw the textarea with the log had a very disturbing error messages saying: "Error code 1". Damn it I thought. I googled the error and it seems some people got the same despite everything was fully functional. So far everything has worked perfectly.
One thing I wasn't sure about was the jailbreak process. Did I had to install something after the unlock was done? No! The unlock process installs installer.app (plus the nice Zibri blog app). From there you can install everything: in my case I started with the openssh server. I configured some rsa keys, and I sshed from my laptop to the phone. Nice! it is a full macosx. Or at least it seems so.
I think I should had gotten one of this before. I don't like the apple + ATT deal. I don't like to have to pay 90US or 75US or whatever when i can pay 40US or less. And I definitely don't like the 2 year contract deal. But the iphone is an amazing machine.
That's all so far. Thanks again to CLP.
posted at: 09:21 | path: /apple | permanent link to this entry