My notes, things I have learned, and documentation I have created.

To put a iPhone 8 or 8 Plus into recovery mode is a little different than in past models.

Have your phone plugged into iTunes and turned off.

The following steps should be be done quickly:

1) Press and release the Volume Up button.

2) Press and release the Volume Down button.

3) Press and hold the Power button on the side of the phone. Keep holding it until to iTunes tell you the phone is in recovery mode.

OS: MacOS Mavericks
iPhone 5s

Voicemail messages are stored in the backup, and saved as one file per message. Nice. Backups are stored in:

~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

Within the Backup directory, there directories of backups for all your iDevices. I made it easy on myself by performing a backup just prior to saving the my voicemails.

Launch Terminal.

Go to the backup directory:

$ cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

List the files/directories and sort by date:

$ ls -trl

The last directory, in my case, was the one with the most recent backup I had just completed.

Make a copy of this directory to mess around with:

$ cp -rp 44e1c7c3d719bd24e3b9dd1aa87eb924c9153ff5 /Users/jgz/TestBackup

Change directories to the where you made your copy:

In my case:

$ cd /Users/jgz/TestBackup

Then, identify the voicemail files using the file command:

$ file * | grep “Adaptive Multi-Rate Codec”

This will list all of the voice mail messages in the backed up.

Rename the files with an .amr file extension, and play them in QuickTime. Once, you find the ones you want to keep, export them as Audio only files (m4a) to keep.

A couple things I discovered when attempting to remove the jailbreak from my iPhone 4s:

1) You cannot just delete the Cydia icon. When you press down on the icon and all the icons start wiggling, you have no option to press the “x” to delete the icon.

2) If you try to reset the phone by going to Settings/General/Erase All Content and Setting, this process will either never start or never finish. You end having to hold Power+Home to restart the phone.

So I tried to restore the phone. I was running 5.0.1 and wanted to keep it that way. Now, the simplest way to do it would have been to put the phone in DFU mode and download and restore the latest version of IOS from Apple. However, as I stated I wanted to try to keep the same version of IOS, 5.0.1 in my case. I downloaded the latest version of redsn0w , unzipped it and ran it. With the phone in DFU mode, I chose Extras/Even More/Identify. This verified that my phone was in DFU mode. Next, I went into Extras/Even More/Restore, and clicked ISPW and browsed to the version of IOS I wanted to restore. At this point, you are prompted to browse to the most current version of IOS (5.1.1 in my case). This is required to upgrade the baseband. If you do NOT want upgrade the baseband, DO NOT DO THIS! Once the latest version of IOS has been identified, you need to tell redsn0w where to find your shsh blobs. I chose remote to pull them from the Cydia servers, Once that is done, click Next and the baseband is upgraded and IOS 5.0.1 is restored. If you want to preserve your baseband, then you need to go the Extras/Custom IPSW route.

This is the process I used to upgrade an iPhone 3Gs running IOS 4.1 baseband 06.15.00 to IOS 5.0.1 while preserving the baseband and the carrier unlock.

Software installed/downloaded:

OS: MacOS Lion 10.7.2
iTunes: 10.5.2
redsn0w_mac_0.9.10b1.zip
iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw

I plugged the phone into my computer and backed up from iTunes by right mouse clicking on the phone and selecting “Backup”.

I downloaded the redsn0w application and the IOS install into a folder called JB.

I unzipped the redsn0w_mac_0.9.10b1.zip and executed redsn0w.app from the redsn0w_mac_0.9.10b1 folder.

Clicked Extras.

Clicked Custom IPSW and browsed to the JB folder where I downloaded the iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw from Apple.

Since I had an original 3Gs, I selected “No” on the “Will this custom IPSW be used on a newer (fixed) version of the iPhone3GS?”.

This created a custom NO_BB_OLDROM_iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw file that will not attempt to update the baseband when IOS 5.0.1 is restored.

Once created, I needed to put the phone in DFU mode. For some reason, I had trouble using the method I had used before. This is what I did this time:

With device powered on,unlocked and connected via the USB cable with iTunes running:
Hold the Power and Home buttons.
When the screen goes black, count to 2.
Then, release the Power button, and hold the Home button for 10 – 15 seconds.
iTunes came up and displayed that it was in recover mode. I tried restoring my custom IPSW from here but I kept getting a 1600 error. So, once I had in recover mode, I fired up Redsn0w again and went into Extras and clicked on “Pwned DFU”.
This put it in DFU mode quickly.

Then, I was able to hold “alt/option” and click the “Restore” button in iTunes.

This allowed me to browse to the custom IPSW: NO_BB_OLDROM_iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw.

This installed IOS 5.0.1 on the phone and preserved the baseband (06.15.00) with the applications and settings restored.

Once up, the phone still needed to be jailbroken and unlocked.

I closed iTunes, and brought up Redsn0w again. I needed to point redsn0w to the unchanged iPhone2,1_5.0.1_9A405_Restore.ipsw file. This time, I chose Jailbreak. The only option that I had selected was “Install Cydia”.

After rebooting and verifying the Cydia icon is installed, I needed to unlock the phone.

I launched Cydia and clicked on Manage and then Sources.

Then, I added the Ultrasn0w repository by clicking “Edit” and “Add”. Then, I added the repository: http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com. Note: this took me quite a few attempts on the 27th, due to server load some where along the line. Eventually, I was able to get the repository added.

Once added, I was able to search for and install Ultrasn0w.

I rebooted and the phone was updated, jailbroken and unlocked.

I was unable to view a Google calender that was shared with me on my iPhone. I came across the following link where I was able to simply check the shared calender to have it display on my iPhone. I have no idea how to navigate to the link. It sure is not obvious.

www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

Furthermore, you can configure notifications for the shared calender after you validate your phone (not iPhone specific now), which you can get to from Google Calender, Settings, and Mobile Setup.

Once your phone has been validated, you can configure your notifications to send you email, pop-ups, or SMS notifications.

Now, I am curious to see how it works with the shared calender on my Galaxy Tab, since I did not have notifications setup for the shared calender. I hope it does not need to configured as a mobile device too, because I did not see an option to verify a second mobile device.

Update: Ok. I got this figured out now. Notifications for shared calenders are not propagated to any device. You can set up notifications on my iPhone and my Galaxy Tab or you can manage the notifications from your Google Calender account. The later would be the best way to deal with more that one device. You just set up the reminders, and choose a number of options, including email, SMS or pop-up. You can even set up default notifications for a calender shared to you in the calender settings. However, this does not apply to entries already shared to you.

I used the following procedures to jailbreak my iPhone 4.2.1 with 03.10.01 baseband.

First some prep work. Backup your phone. From iTunes, right mouse click your phone and choose Backup.

Then, you need greenpois0n from greenpois0n.com. I used version rc5.2.

Next, you need to get you phone into DFU mode. Below, I have outlined the steps that have consistently worked for me.

How to get your iPhone into DFU mode:

With device powered on and unlocked:
Hold the Power and Home buttons.
When the screen goes black, count to 2.
Then, release the Power button, and hold the Home button for 10 – 15 seconds.
You know you are in DFU mode, if the screen stays black.

Now, you need to launch greenpois0n from the Terminal application. Below is the command line I used:

sudo Desktop/JailBreak/GreenPois0n/greenpois0n-osx_rc5_2/greenpois0n.app/Contents/MacOS/greenpois0n

In my case, the Loader application did not install Cydia. I needed to use redsn0w_mac_0.9.7b6 along with 4.2.1 download from Apple. The only option I chose was to install Cydia.

After the restart, my phone was jailbroken and I had a Cydia icon installed.

To put your iPhone in field test mode, so that you can see the actual signal strength numerically:

Open the phone application.

Enter the following from the keypad: *3001#12345#*

Press call.

This will put in field test mode, and will replace your bar signal strength with the numerical representation.

Evidently, this has been blocked in a recent version of IOS. I did this from a jailbroken IOS version 4.1 (8B117) with baseband 01.59.00.

You need to pass your UDID onto iPhone developers, if you want to beta test their software. To access your UDID, plug iPhone into your computer and bring up iTunes. Then, click on your iPhone under devices. Next, click the serial number, and the UDID will be displayed. From here, you can copy using Command + C or Control + C. I tested this MacOS, but not Windows. However, I am pretty sure it would be the same procedure. I would suspect that the same procedure applies to iPod touches too, but I do not know for sure.

Recently, I was up in the heart of San Francisco. As somebody who lives about 15 miles north of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles and gets ok AT&T/iPhone service, I have to say that I think that people that are complaining in the Bay Area are a bunch of spoiled, whining babies. From every corner of the city, I was amazed by the great service I was getting compared to what I get at home. Just goes to show you, it is all relative. Come to Santa Clarita Valley and then you guys might have something to complain about.

To create a custom SMS tone for a jailbroken iPhone on MacOS from iTunes:

1.) Start iTunes.
2.) Go to Preferences/General.
3.) Click “Import Settings” next to “Ask To Import CD.”
4.) Change “Import Using” from “Mp3 Encoder” or other to “Aiff Encoder.”
5.) Right click on the song you want to convert and go to “Get Info.”
6.) Click on the Options tab and go to “Start Time” and “Stop Time.”
7.) Enter the desired time range that you want and click “Ok.”. It should be less than 30 seconds in duration.
8.) Right click the clip and click “Create AIFF Version.”
9.) Rename the resulting .aif file to sms-received[1-6].cap.
For example: Rename myfile.aif to sms-received1.cap.
10.) Ensure that ssh is installed on your jailborken iPhone.
11.) Replace one of the sms-received[1-6].caf files in /System/Library/Audio/UISounds with your newly created sms-received[1-6].cap file. I used FileZilla to transfer the file from my Mac to the iPhone, but you can use any sftp/scp client or the command line from Terminal.
12.) Now, on your iPhone, you can find your newly create sound in Settings/Sounds/”New Text Message.” The selection names do not change, but you can select each one to hear the sample to find your custom SMS/MMS text sound.
13.) Remember to switch back to Import Settings in iTunes.