Do you find yourself resenting your iPhone for its complexity? Do you wish you could do away with pesky text messages and confusing navigation applications and all that augmented reality? Though it's currently only available through the Cydia store, with iClassic and a little tinkering can dumb your iPhone down into the iPod you never had. Or the one you once had and replaced with your iPhone. [MobilitySite]

It kind of sux that even a monitoring app got banned. But, according to Apple:

…this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store.

So no torrent apps, at all, period. Right then.

Instructions on how to install µMonitor on a Jailbroken iPhone can be found here: [µMonitor via TorrentFreak]

The iPhone Dev Team put up a post detailing instructions on how to use the current versions of redsn0w and ultrasn0w on 3.0.1, and it's pretty easy: Jailbreaking with redsn0w only requires you select the IPSW file for OS 3.0, and then you can use Cydia to install ultrasn0w and everything will be perfect in the land of semi-approved iPhone tinkering. Phew! [iPhone Dev Blog]

GV Mobile should show up in Cydia, the grey market iPhone app store, starting sometime in the next 24 hours. Seriously though, if this is how it's going to be it won't be long before we all get fed up enough to jailbreak. [Lifehacker]

• If you already have your iPhone jailbroken and unlocked, don't try to update your smartypanties phone to iPhone OS 3.0. PwnageTool won't unlock your iPhone. You have to wait until Ultrasnow is available for this.

• If you don't need the unlock but want to upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0, go ahead. After upgrading, jailbreak your iPhone with PwnageTool 3.0, and keep using Cydia and your non-official iPhone apps.

• If you have an iPhone 3GS, this won't work for you, so don't even try it.

And like always, use it at your own risk. Update: I downloaded and tried it. It works. [Torrent file]

The short story is that Cydia—the other non-official iPhone app installer—won the battle against Installer. Installer was the first pretty application installer to appear for the iPhone, but Cydia became more popular over the last few months. Ripdev—which was involved in the project since version 3—says that the Installer repositories will be available until July 1st, 2009.

But fear not, my young apprentices, because we still have Cydia and Icy, which is an iPhone app installer that plugs into Cydia directories—made by Ripdev. [Ripdev—Thanks John Gregorio]

• How To: Fake the iPhone 3.0 OS On Your iPhone Today
What everyone can do is check out our directory of iPhone apps—both legit App Store apps and unofficial jailbreak software—that already provide the iPhone 3.0 OS's major feature additions. Copy and paste, tethering, running apps in the background—we've got almost all of it covered.

• How To: Install Unofficial Apps on Your iPhone 3G or iPod Touch, Easily and Safely
But first, you'll want to jailbreak your phone. And thankfully, we have a detailed guide for that too. Jailbreaking unlocks the wide world of Cydia, where you'll find most of the iPhone 3.0-related features covered.

• How To: Enable 3G Tethering in Your iPhone 3.0 Now
And finally, if you've cozied up to a dev and gotten them to register your iPhone's ID as a beta tester, here's how to test out iPhone 3.0's built-in, official tethering solution to use your 3G connection on a laptop.

Happy iPhone hacking everyone, and have a great weekend!

Since many of iPhone 3.0's features were deliberately blocked by restrictions in the official SDK, for several of these apps, you'll have to jailbreak. But don't you just love that we already have the definitive tutorial on jailbreaking your phone to hold your hand through the process? That said, a lot of these features are available via free and paid apps in the App Store too.

So start with jailbreaking, then get yourself downloading these apps to get that fresh 3.0 experience before the software even drops.

Cut and Paste: Clippy (Cydia, Free while in Beta)
Apple's ridiculously delayed cut and paste solution looks slick. Slicker than Clippy, the best unofficial C+P solution, which still gets the job done though. One limitation is that you can only reliably copy and paste where you have access to the keyboard (so grabbing web snippets other than URLs is tough), but if you're staying in the main text-input apps, it works. Copying text from web pages is technically possible now, but it's extremely buggy and crashes Safari.

GPS Turn-by-Turn: xGPS (Cydia, Free)
iPhone 3.0 is totally fine with turn-by-turn GPS apps, as long as you bring your own maps to the table (Google's can't be used due to licensing issues). xGPS does use Google's Maps, and does turn-by-turn brilliantly with active GPS tracking.

Tethering: iPhoneModem/PDANet (Cydia, Free)
We've got you covered with another detailed tutorial on tethering your iPhone to your Mac (with iPhoneModem) or Windows machine (with PDANet). Keep in mind, the iPhone has always supported tethering—iPhone 3.0 simply brings an official software tool to do it, but it's still up to the network carriers to enable the feature (and set the pricing). Tethering via these jailbreak solutions works in the meantime, but be careful with how much data you use to not raise any eyebrows at the Death Star.

Email Multiple Photos: Emailpix (App Store, $3)
There have been several official apps touting multi-photo emailing, but for the most part they've been sloppily implemented. Emailpix does it fairly smoothly, though, and gives you a choice of resolution to send to save time. Granted, it takes a while, and emails are sent from Emailpix's server, so you may not want to use it for your nude self portraits.

Bluetooth File Transfer: iBluetooth (Cydia, Free 15-day trial)
iBluetooth lets you pair with your computer to send and receive files. It's kind of buggy, but does work (try setting up a PIN code if you can't get your phone to pair initially).

Universal Search: Search (Cydia, Free)
It doesn't search your applications or your iTunes music like the 3.0 version, but Search is great for the most valuable searching situation: email. It also searches contacts, notes, SMS and the web. If you have a ton of apps, consider pairing Search with QuickGold, a Quicksilver-like app launcher that can also search your contacts, SMSs and Safari history in addition to apps.

Accelerometer Controls: mCoolPhone (Cydia, Free Trial/$3)
The "shake to shuffle" feature in OS 3.0 is kind of lame, and while mCoolPhones can't touch your iTunes functionality, it lets you assign shake events to various other phone functions, like answering calls.

Notes Sync: iPhoneNotes (Mac-only desktop App, Jailbreak required. Free)
To pull off native notes sync, make sure you have OpenSSH installed on your jailbroken phone and grab iPhoneNotes, which will import all of your notes and also sync back any text file you have on your computer.

Background Apps/Push Notifications: Backgrounder (Cydia, Free)
iPhone 3.0 will attempt to solve the multitasking problem by providing a long-awaited framework for push notifications, which will allow apps to get your attention when they're not running. But it stops short of true background multitasking, which most Cydia apps are capable of (especially services like SSH). You can use Backgrounder to force official App Store apps to keep running even when you switch away to another app. It's great for keeping IM apps open and signed in while you do other things.

Landscape Keyboard: iRealSMS (Cydia, €10) and EasyWriter (App Store, Free)
Ah, the beloved landscape keyboard. In iPhone 3.0 it's coming system-wide (finally), but you've been able to get one in the most important typing apps (email and SMS) for a while. For email, try the free EasyWriter App Store app, and for SMS, there's iRealSMS, which also adds a number of other features for hardcore texters like quick-replying and advanced sorting.

MMS: SwirlyMMS (Cydia, $8) and Get MMS (App Store, $4)
MMS is a major hole, and its implementation via unofficial apps thus far has been shoddy. The best is SwirlyMMS, but even that doesn't work very well with AT&T's MMS provider, which most people will obviously be using. But if you're not on the Death Star, give Swirly a try.

Get MMS, on the other hand, makes receiving MMS messages via AT&T's annoying web interface a little easier. It takes a screengrab of the login and password AT&T sends, and lets you save the attached video or photo.

Voice Memos: Epiphany (App Store, $2)
There are a million and a half voice recorders in the App Store, but we love Epiphany, which buffers its recordings and only goes back in time to grab the important parts when you tell it to. It can't send the clip via MMS like iPhone 3.0 will be able to, but it will easily sync with your computer via wi-fi.

Adding Features Still Missing From iPhone 3.0:

Video Capture: Cycorder (Cydia, Free)
The biggest thing Apple still has yet to add into iPhone 3.0 is video recording. Thankfully, Cycorder is incredibly capable.

Flash: iMobileCinema (Cydia, Free)
iMobileCinema is a deep, deep beta plugin for Safari that supposedly enables Flash videos for a few sites. Its major compatibility claim though, with Google Video and YouTube, is moot because Apple's YouTube app catches these URLs and plays them fine. A good project to keep an eye on though.

So as you can see, the majority of iPhone 3.0's feature additions are already needs that have been addressed by third-party devs. Of course, most of these apps will not be as elegant as Apple's native solution, but it shows that iPhone 3.0 is largely about catching up.

The jailbreak world is big. If you know of any apps not covered here that address any of these features, please let everyone know in the comments. Additional research for this post by Nick Ellenoff

Cydia's founder, 27-year-old Californian grad student Jay Freeman, will apparently charge about the same commission as Apple does to developers wanting to list their apps in the new Cydia Applications. A paid app store will not only reward developers for their efforts but possibly lead to a wider variety of non-Apple-approved apps. Apparently, more illicit app stores are in the works, including an adult-themed one, which we will of course examine at great length.

Check out Jesus's great guide to jailbreaking for more info on jailbreaking and free apps. [Macworld]

What is a jailbreak?

Jailbreaking is the process required to install applications in your iPhone or iPod touch. It is a very easy procedure. It's also safe: There are no risks in this operation*, as you can easily use iTunes to restore your iPhone or iPod touch to the default factory settings. When you do that, the iPhone will be like new.

Why jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch from Apple's iron fist?

You should jailbreak your iPhone or iPod if you want to install really cool and useful applications that are not in the iTunes App Store. Many of these apps are a complete must for any iPhone user but are not allowed by Apple in their iTunes App Store.

This is what you can do with a phone that has been jailbroken:

• Use your iPhone as a 3G modem with your laptop.
• Record video using Cycorder.
• Unlock your iPhone installing a simple program, so you can use a pre-paid card when you go out on vacation instead of paying outrageous roaming charges.
• Follow speech turn-by-turn directions in a GPS program.
• Copy and paste (yes, copy and paste).
• Play Nintendo Entertainment System games and other emulated classic cames (like Monkey Island!)

In other words: Do it.

*WARNING* Of course, the usual do this at your own risk and we are not responsible caveats still apply, but this process is really fool proof thanks to Apple's iTunes factory reset. If you are looking to unlock your iPhone now or in the future, DON'T USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS or you won't be able to unlock it. You will need a different process, which we will explain in another How To.

Opening the backdoor (Mac Users only)

The first thing you need to do to install free apps in your iPhone or iPod is putting it into DFU mode, or Device Firmware Update mode. Don't worry, this isn't anything weird: It's what your device goes through every time you update the operating system in it. With this step, you will be making the iPhone go into this state.

This is the only long part of this tutorial because—since the 10.5.6 update—Apple has made it difficult to easily connect your Mac to a manually DFU'ed iPhone or iPod. This can be solved by replacing some USB drivers from a previous version of Mac OS X. If you have 10.5.6 installed, follow these instructions:

Step 1. To do this, you need to get yourself a free Apple Developer Connection account. Since you are using iTunes with your device, you are already almost there: Just log in with your Apple ID from here. The form will ask you to answer a couple of questions (just answer whatever you want), and you'll be done as soon as you click the Accept button.

Step 2. Now you need to download and install the drivers. Go to this page and look for this file:

IOUSBFamily-315.4-log.dmg" for Mac OS X10.5.5 Build 9F33

Once it's downloaded, disconnect ALL USB peripherals except for your Apple keyboard and Apple mouse and install the package included in the disk image.

Once you restart after the installation, you will be ready to run QuickPwn, the program that will allow you to install the applications.

Important: Once you complete the jailbreaking process, you have to restore the previous USB drivers. Go to to this page and download IOUSBFamily-327.4.0-log.dmg" for Mac OS X 10.5.6 Build 9G55, then repeat the same operation. Once you restart, Mac OS X 10.5.6 will be restored to its original state.

Freeing your iPhone or iPod touch (all users)

Here's the easiest part: Running QuickPwn. QuickPwn is a program that will easily "jailbreak" your iPhone or iPod touch. Jailbreak, as the name says, just means breaking Apple's limitations on accessing your device, allowing you put anything you want in it. This means installing any application you want, and not only the ones that Apple allows you to install.

Step 1. Download QuickPwn for Mac OS X or Windows from any of the following links:

Windows
• QuickPwn 2.2.5 for Windows: Get the official release via Torrent here.

Unofficial mirrors
• http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/QuickPwn225-2.zip
• http://foskarulla.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://downloads2.touch-mania.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://www.applei.ph/devteam/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://phonenews.com/phones/gsm/apple/QuickPwn225-2.zip
• http://rabstalk.bplaced.net/mirrors/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://www.evil-crew.de/QuickPwn-225-2.zip
• http://daniel14.com/QuickPwn-225-2.zip

Mac OS X
• QuickPwn 2.2.5: Get the official release via Torrent here.

Unofficial mirrors
• http://iphone-dev.fgv6.net/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://iphone.schwarzmetall.cn/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://rabstalk.bplaced.net/mirrors/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://jmcoon.net/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://www.iphone-storage.de/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://downloads2.ipod.backshot.eu/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg
• http://miphone.ca/iphone-dev/QuickPwn_2.2.5.dmg

Step 2. Run QuickPwn and pick the kind of device you have: iPhone, iPhone 3G, or iPod Touch.

Step 3. Follow the instructions on the screen. QuickPwn is completely automated:

• Firstly, it will download all the necessary components from Apple on its own.

• Then the software will build a custom iPhone operating system, which includes Installer and Cydia, the two programs that will allow you to install the iPhone applications outside of the iTunes Apps Store microsystem.

• When QuickPwn asks you to enter your system password, do it. It's not malicious. It just needs this to work.

• Finally, follow the precisely timed instructions on the screen to put your device on DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode. QuickPwn will do the rest.

If something doesn't work, don't worry. Start the process again. If your device gets a bit nutty, restore it to default factory settings using iTunes, and you will be back to square one, no harm done.

Step 4. Be patient as your iPhone restarts. Once it's done, you are done too. It's fun time.

Installing the applications

This is where the fun starts. You will notice two new icons in your iPhone or iPod touch's springboard: One says "Installer" and the other says "Cydia". These are the two competing systems for installation of software. It doesn't really matter what you use to install your software. Most applications can be installed from both—there are exceptions, like xGPS, which can only be installed on Cydia—and both allow you to browse and install software from a a variety of sources.

• Browsing the catalogs. Whatever system you choose, installing applications is as easy as going through the available catalogs and picking the application you want.

• Manually adding applications. There will be times in which you will discover applications on the web which are not in the default catalogs in Cydia or Installer. Fortunately, you can add these by just entering the URL provided by the developer in the web page, a process that is referred to as "Adding a source". Here's how to do it:

In Cydia

• Click on "Manage."
• Click on "Sources."
• Click on "Edit" and then "Add."
• Enter the address in the dialog field.
• Click on "Add source."

In Installer

• Click on "Sources."
• Click on "Edit" and then "Add."
• Enter the address in the field.
• Click "Done" and get back to sources by clicking on "Sources."

And that's it. Now you can install any application you want using either program. Have fun!

Converting Cydia into a proper application store won't be complicated, and more or less amounts to Freeman adding a centralized payment service to the software. His competitive ambitions, though, aren't so subtle: He told the WSJ that "the overworking goal is to provide choice" and that he plans on match or beat Apple's commission for downloaded apps.

Paid apps are currently available in Cydia, but purchase has to be arranged on an app-by-app basis, usually through unwieldy product key schemes or PayPal. While a centralized Cydia payment system would make purchasing apps such as Snapture and PDAnet simpler and could breed innovation for potentially useful nonsanctioned apps, but it also provides a single, unified target for Apple should they decide to start hurling lawyers at the jailbreak scene. Though the company hasn't specifically responded to this announcement, it'd be naive to think they won't: in effect, Freeman, who has already hired a lawyer, has just announced that he plans on making money on a process that Apple claimed to be totally illegal just a few weeks ago. Good luck? [WSJ via Cult of Mac]

xGPS uses Google's map data and driving directions, adding a real-time navigation readout and a voice engine. You can also select a map area to download ahead of time, just in case you expect to lose your data connection during the drive. As you can see in ModMyi's video above, the app also supports a number of external GPS units, so 1st-gen iPhone and iPod Touch users can get in on the monotone fun too.

The project has been gestating for a few months now, but many vital features, including the voice engine, weren't implemented until this release. xGPS 1.2 is now will soon be available in Cydia. UPDATE: An older version without vocalization in current available in the repositories, but the newest version is expected to be publicly available within the week. [xGPS via ModMyi—Thanks, Aleksey!]

Here we can see the iControlPad wrapped around an iPhone, playing Quake. It works! But a few things stand out. First, there' a discernible lag. This is probably a software issue, as I can't imagine where along this short line of hardware connections that kind of latency could crop up. The developers say they'll have bits of source code ready for developers who want to include controls in their apps, so I hope it's a little more optimized by the time that's seeded.

Unfortunately, it's clear that "developers", means homebrew developers, as there's no indication that ZodTTD is going to get Apple's blessing on this device any time soon—something that they'd need if they wanted to see integration with App Store games. In others words, this'll only work on Jailbroken games, at least for now. That means no Brothers in Arms with a proper controller, but at least we'll be able to play our emulators properly now. [ZodTTD via NoWhereElse]

After your phone restarts, head to Settings>Wi-Fi and hit the arrow next to your home Wi-Fi server. Write down the IP address you see. Then pop back to general settings and set auto-lock to never. On your computer, download this replacement hosts.php file.

Then, using an FTP client like FileZilla or Cyberduck with SFTP (secure SSH connection over FTP), open an SFTP connection with your iPhone's IP address as the host. U/P is root and alpine. The connection will take a bit, and might fail a few times, but say yes to any prompts and keep trying.

At your iPhone's root, navigate to the /etc folder and move the hosts.php file there somewhere on your computer for safe-keeping (don't lose it!). Then replace it with the one you downloaded and restart your iPhone. Now you'll start seeing glorious blank spots or compressed frames wherever ads used to be. It'll nuke ads at most sites serving them through a third-party server. That wasn't so bad was it? One word of caution: Changing the hosts file can play hell with some apps, so watch out there.

The method will work on iPod touches too. Let us know how it goes. [James Is Bored via Lifehacker]

As seen in the video, controlling Mario is fairly natural, though quick turns and exact jumps are difficult to execute (playing Mario with the stock controls is often worse, though). Bomberman sort of works, but in that case—and many others—the old touch control overlay is much easier. Obviously none of these games were designed with tilt control in mind, but a surprising number are at least playable. Add this to the pile of reasons we still want an active app black market. NES.app 2.3.0 with tilt control is available now in Cydia. [NES.app]