News for Monday 13th October

VideoLAN updated to 0.9.4
The cross-platform free and open source video player is updated. Versions available for a wide range of operating systems.

The story behind Cydia on the iPhone
A brief article on the iPhone and iPod’s main jailbroken software installer.

Running Leopard on a Netbook
Nice article about installing Leopard on a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook.

First T-Mobile G1 user review
Lots of questions answered and a mixed bag of pro’s and con’s.

Smartphone showdown: BlackBerry Storm vs. iPhone
Macworld does the head to head that everyone wants to see.

ASUS plans touchscreen, dual-core Eee PCs
Wondering what’s next for the Eee PC? read the article for the details.

iPhone/iPod Themes

A while back I featured some of my favourite themes available to install through Cydia. It’s been several weeks since and those talented artists are still turning in some fine work, so here are the themes I’ve been using recently.

Vector by Jayden. Colourful and reminds me of the cell shaded style of several games. This one works well with unthemed icons as it sticks to the standard shape.

QuickPwn tested, screenshots

The iPhone Dev Team today released an update to their beta QuickPwn tool complete with GUI by poorlad. It’s now compatible with iPhone and iPod 2.0.2 firmware, so for those brave enough to try beta software and running Windows it’s great. This is a bit of a turnaround to previous tools the Dev Team have released which always seemed to see Mac versions first. Fortunately I have a hard drive with Windows installed in my hackintosh for occasions such as this.

iPhone stuck wallpaper fix

The issue I had with my iPod touch having the wallpaper stuck and unchangeable was traced to the file

/private/var/mobile/Library/LockBackground.jpg

It’s permissions were set to 644, changing this to 664 fixed the problem. I used Fetch (SFTP) to access the iPod’s filesystem, after Jailbreaking it and using Cydia to install OpenSSH.

Themes for the iPhone and iPod

One of my favourite apps on the iPod Touch before installing firmware 2 was Summerboard. Adding themes to this was a great way of easily changing the appearance of the iPod or iPhone’s interface. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a version of Summerboard for firmware 2, but a new app called Winterboard has stepped in to fill the void.

Installer 4 beta screenshots and first impressions

Installer 4 beta is included with the PwnageTool 2.0.2 install, so for those looking to take the plunge here are some screenshots of it in action. I encountered a lot of error message while browsing the available packages (I think this is caused by an icon not being available) so that’s one bug that needs fixing. There aren’t a lot of packages available at the moment so Installer is lagging Cydia for now.

PwnageTool 2.0.2 released with Installer 4 beta

Version 2.0.2 with support for firmware 2.0.1 is now out, and the iPhone Dev Team has a couple of other sources on their blog to help the struggling upgrade servers. I’ve updated my iPod Touch using PwnageTool 2.0.2 and everything appears to be working well. Cydia and Installer are both installed by default, which seems to me like a strange idea. No disrespect to the people writing these apps, but what’s the difference? Do we really need two apps for installing software?

Here’s a gallery of screenshots from PwnageTool 2.0.2

iPhone/iPod Firmware 2.0.1 released

Available now through iTunes, the iPhone and iPod Touch 2.0.1 Firmware lists ‘bug fixes’ as its only improvement over the 2.0 initial release. Early reviews say the new firmware feels slightly more responsive. Upgrading a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch will at the very least remove access to the apps installed either manually or through Cydia. The new software is also reported to update the iPhone 3G baseband, which makes things more complicated for those waiting for a 3G unlock.

I’ve only recently got access again to my favourite iPod ebook reader, textReader, so I’m not willing to upgrade and lose it again. Hopefully the iPhone Dev Team will have their PwnageTool updated soon to cope with 2.0.1.

PwnageTool 2.0.1 released

In an amazingly fast update, PwnageTool has been bumped to version 2.0.1. No iPhone 3G unlocking yet, this release concentrates on some of the issues early adopters have found.

I’ve just tested the new release and the previous problem with PwnageTool not getting the iPod Touch into DFU mode appears fixed. The install went smoothly with no errors, Cydia is working fine and has installed the latest package updates. I had the same issue with iPhoto not seeing the iTouch screenshots but as before a reboot fixed that.

Cydia on iPod Touch V2 screenshots

There was a problem getting screenshots off my iTouch in the previous article but this was fixed by a reboot of the hackintosh and iTouch. As promised here are some grabs of Cydia running on the jailbroken iTouch with version 2 firmware. There still seem to be some kinks to iron out of the version 2 PwnageTool so I’ll wait and see how it progresses before attempting the jailbreak again.