I don’t know about you but I’m not a fan of the plastic back to the current model iPhones. When the iPhone 3G was released, Apple went with the plastic back, over the stronger and better looking, in my opinion, aluminium backing that the original iPhone wielded due to radio issues. I’ve often thought whether it would be possible to replace the backing of the iPhone 3GS with something a little more hardy and slick looking. Well now, despite some nay-sayers, an Austrian man with a passion for perfection has proved that it is possible, if a little costly to do.

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Another week in Tech has flown by as we head into December and the inevitable Christmas rush. This week we’ve had the good, the bad and the down-right ugly rear their heads in the world of consumer technology.

In a break from tradition we’ll start with the bad. Virgin Media announced this week that it would be  snooping into 40% of it’s customers traffic using a technology called CView, which conducts Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) in an effort to determine the rate of music piracy across it’s network. Yes that’s right, Virgin is going to examine everything that goes to and from your computer if you happen to be in the lucky 40%. What does this really mean? Well if you’re pirating music across an unencrypted network like BitTorrent, VM will know and what they’ll do about it is unknown. Virgin are set to launch a music service in conjunction with Universal and their official line is that they want to gauge piracy levels. I don’t know about you, but piracy or not, I don’t want people snooping at everything I do or send across the Internet including email, IM, Waves and surfing. Maybe it’s time to protect yourself by changing providers or using a SSL tunnel to a proxy you trust.

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The iPhone Dev-Team have just unleashed their latest update to the custom firmware creation tool for Pwnage Tool 3.1.4. It’s now compatible with iPhone 3.1.2 and supports iPhone 2G/3G/3Gs as well as iPod touch 1G/2G but unfortunately not 3G for all you lucky enough to have the newest touch in your claws. Pwnage Tool is however Mac only and that’s the way it’s going to stay according to the Dev Team, but for all those on Windows boxes there’s always Blackra1n or a mate to help you out.

From the team:

SUMMARY:

The iPhone 3GS is now supported out of the box in PwnageTool 3.1.4 (or if you have upgraded to 3.1.x in iTunes)

The iPod 2G is still supported in PwnageTool 3.1.4 but you must already be jailbroken (we’ll update this if there’s a big demand from non-jailbroken ipt2G owners)

The iPod touch 3G is NOT supported

DETAILS:

GOLDEN RULE: If you are using a iPhone 3G or iPhone 3G(S) with ultrasn0w and rely on ultrasn0w to obtain cellular service then you should only update your device with an .ipsw that is made with the new PwnageTool. There are no second chances with this. You need to remember that PwnageTool will provide an upgrade path to newer versions of the iPhone software in the future.

Please read all parts of this post before downloading and using these tools.

Read items 1, 2 and 3 again and again.

At the bottom of this post are the bittorrent files for the 3.1.4 capable version of PwnageTool.

PwnageTool will work for the iPhone 3GS

PwnageTool will work for the iPod touch 2G

PwnageTool WILL work for Original iPhone (1st Generation), the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G(S) and the iPod touch (1st Generation and 2nd Generation) but NOT the iPod touch 3rd generation.

For 3G and 3G(S) users who are Pwned, PwnageTool is your key to updating in the future, just remember to never install an update directly from Apple, always use an .ipsw that has been created with PwnageTool.

There is no Windows version of PwnageTool it is a Mac OS X tool only, we are not developing a Windows version of PwnageTool.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over to the iPhone Dev-Team and go get your jailbreak/updating on.

Block the Haxor!

The patch to solve the SMS vulnerability of the iPhone firmware up to 3.0 is live and available in iTunes. So get on and download the patch (some 280Mb!) before some joker hijacks your phone. Currently Redsn0w is not able to jailbreak it but it seems like just a verification error. Hopefully we’ll get an update for that soon, till now, update to protect yourself or run the risk (although pretty minor) that someone might hi-jack your phone.

According to Mobile Today, Orange and T-mobile are in the running for sales of the iPhone 3G in the UK as early as September. Apple originally signed a two year exclusivity deal with O2 which will run out in September this year, it’s important to note that this is just the iPhone 3G and not the 3GS, however O2 has been criticised for relatively high pricing on it’s iPhone plans which could be undercut by other network operators.

O2 was described as ‘furious’ about the news and it may well be, with Ofcom threatening (but not having the teeth to) remove O2’s 3G licence due to it’s poor coverage of the UK, news that both T-mobile and Orange could soon stock the 3G will could really hurt O2’s share price. T-Mobile’s call centres are reported to have already started telling customers it may stock the iPhone. Of course Orange and T-mobile both sell the iPhone in different countries and have the potential to really undercut O2 with ‘budget’ iPhone pricing. From a consumer’s point of view this is great news in the UK (enviable if it turns out to be true for other countries, sorry US) and could mark the beginning of the end for exclusivity of the iPhone in the UK and elsewhere as well as putting sever price pressure on O2. From O2’s point of view this could turn out a disaster for sales with many people still  buying the iPhone 3G due to the lower price and perceived little difference from the 3GS.

The iPhone 3GS will soon be broken in just like it’s older siblings. Less than a week after the 3GS launched the 24Kpwn exploit that was originally used to get access to the iPod touch 2G was confirmed to still be useable. This to the uninitiated means that the current technique built into the redsn0w tool will be adaptable for the 3GS. According to the Dev-team blog, Apple finalised the Bootrom in the 3GS in about August last year meaning that it wasn’t touched till release. Lucky for us, not so fortunate for Apple.

Another piece of good news for unlockers is that ultrasn0w will work just fine on the 3GS without any modification. So for all those AT&T haters, there’s not long to wait! Of note however is that although the exploit is still there, Apple has made inroads to make it more difficult to get to showing Apple hasn’t given up on the cat and mouse game of jailbreak.

Personally I’m most excited by the prospect of the new 3GS hardware powering some decent emulators. By recent developements I think that’s a really promising area compared to the 3G. Now will someone knockup a N64 emulator so I can get my Mario Kart on whilst on the go?

Hit the jump for some PSX emu action.

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