Many of our readers wrote in over the weekend to inform me that my post from Friday, <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/apple_iphone_up.html">"Apple iPhone Update 1.1.1 Has Been Hacked," </a></a>was not completely accurate. The hack at the time only allowed access to file directories on the iPhone, and did not completely open the new upgrade. Well, the hack of 1.1.1 appears to be closer to completion today.

Stephen Wellman, Contributor

October 8, 2007

2 Min Read

Many of our readers wrote in over the weekend to inform me that my post from Friday, "Apple iPhone Update 1.1.1 Has Been Hacked," was not completely accurate. The hack at the time only allowed access to file directories on the iPhone, and did not completely open the new upgrade. Well, the hack of 1.1.1 appears to be closer to completion today.Here is a look at one iPhone 1.1.1 hack in progress from The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

So what does this jailbreak mean?

* Third Party apps run. Kind of. We probably have to recompile many of them for the new frameworks because many of them crash. * Springboard no longer recognizes DisplayOrder.plist. And the list of "whitelisted" apps (that is, the official Applications including Safari, Photos, Calendar, etc) seems to be hard-coded into Springboard.app * The iPhone has been activated via third-party workarounds. * The 1.1.1 binaries barely work with 1.0.2 -- at least not well enough to run the music store without major hacking. * The Mobile Terminal App works on 1.1.1. * The entire bsd suite still works -- as do standard command-line utilities compiled for ARM. * 1.1.1 references both com.apple.mobile.radio and com.apple.mobile.nike. * The jailbreak method is nowhere near ready for prime time. So please be patient.

Well, it sure looks like this hack is moving pretty quickly to completion. According to some of our readers, the hack would take months to complete, while others claimed that the working hacks of 1.1.1 were at an impasse. Well, this seems like a lot of progress to me in just three days.

Again, it looks like hackers are dedicated to opening the iPhone, no matter what Apple tries to do to stop them. Why not just open the iPhone and work this collected enthusiasm instead of trying to fight it?

What do you think? Is the drive to hack 1.1.1 stuck at an impasse or will we see a working, commercially viable hack that opens all iPhones with 1.1.1 in the next few weeks?

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