[Taken from (my) secretmrx's guide iSeminar: A Beginner's Guide to the iPhone]

Over time things change, and the iPhone is no exception. Back in the 1.0.x days, unlocking was an ugly process, and jailbreaking was a manual process. Flashy tools were not available that did it all in one click, tasks were performed in iPHUC and Terminal/DOS Command Line environments.

When 1.1.1 came along, the iPhone DevTeam (much smaller than they are now) released a manual way of upgrading that involved leaving a symlink to the root partition in the media partition, then doing an “update.” Later on, an exploit was discovered in MobileSafari which allowed code to be run when MobileSafari thought it was opening a .TIFF image. This was truly one-click, and no computer was required to do it. Simply put, you visited jailbreakme.com in your browser, clicked on the link and MobileSafari crashed, sending you back to the “Slide for Emergency” screen. iPhone then rebooted, and woke up fully activated and jailbroken (with Installer.app added).

Now it is a lot different, Apple have patched a lot of bugs, and significant exploits have been discovered. One of those significant exploits was the discovery of the Pwnage Exploit that allowed a patched iBoot to be flashed over, opening up hundreds of doors to users and developers alike. Along with the Pwnage exploit came BootNeuter, the ultimate unlocking tool for first gen iPhones. BootNeuter was great news for everyone, now Bootloader versions do not matter.

How are we doing now?  As of the time of writing, the iPhone 3G has just been unlocked, with the Second Generation iPod Touch to be looked at in the 2008/2009 New Year.  No device is overlooked - iPhone owners, developers and hackers are a determined and hard working group of people.  The Dev Team can be attributed to millions of iPhone sales, for in firmware 1.x, iPhone OS was one of the most boring platforms out there.  Opening it up to the owners of the devices was a great sales incentive, and Apple should never forget this.

• Write them a song

Everybody loves music, but it’s that little bit better when you have composed a piece especially for them. Pull out your iPhone, tap on Band and compose away. You’ll be amazed at how amusing they will find the experience.

Don’t forget the crash cymbal to finish.

• Show your artistic side
  

Art is something that has been used for millions of years to show people stuff. Now, your finger is the pen. Open up Sketches and draw something. Make sure you show them the “Shake to Erase” feature, it’s something that makes people all excited. You could even take a picture of their head and draw genitals on it.

• Control your computer from your phone

Tap into Mocha VNC Lite, get into your Boss’ computer and look up some of the old porn. In fact, you might as well navigate through his whole computer and inbox while you’re at it. Unless, of course, it’s your Boss that you are doing this little demo to.

• Show them your hot new friends

Using Fake Call, hide your screen and program it in for Jessica Alba to call you, very coincidentally, right in the middle of a forced conversation. They will never figure it out, after all, you are demoing an iPhone to them for the first time. This would go great with tip number 10.

• Let iPhone tell them what song is playing

How many times have your mates asked you if you knew the song playing on the radio? Well, now you don’t need to guess. Discreetly open Shazam and hold your phone to the source of the music. Within 15 seconds, your phone will tell you absolutely everything about the song, including album and cover art.

• Take them for a ride in your private jet

With iPhone 2.0 being the complete business solution, needs for a real jet are completely eliminated. Thanks to X-Plane, you can now fly yourself anywhere you want to go. And the best thing? You can crash as many times as you want. Oh, and don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt.

• Go for a spin in Monkey Ball

You know those big ball things that people go in on game shows and roll down hills? Well now you can be a monkey in one of those. Thanks to Sega’s Super Monkey Ball, you can put your monkey in there and drive them round by tilting your device. But, be warned, this game takes lots of practise to perfect. This game has to be one of the favourites for newbies, with it’s colourful interface and accelerometer based controls. Just make sure they don’t drop your shiny iPhone. They will not claim any responsibility.

• Show off your 1337 h4×0r skills

If you’re jailbroken, download and install MobileTerminal. Run through some cool commands, like”ls,” “cd” and “ping.” You will look like a pretty extreme guy after being through all that. It doesn’t stop there. Start telling them about how to pwn a firmware file, they will think you’re one of those Matrix people.

• Get on the piss with iPint

Nothing beats a few beers with your mates. The next time they ask you if you want one, simply say you brought your own and bring out iPint. Oh, and the good thing is, you have unlimited refills + unlimited thirst.

• Reboot your phone and show them that sexy Apple logo

Hold down the power + home and slide the red slider. Then, press and hold the power button. Sit and stare at that yummy and lickable Apple logo. While you’re at it, you might as well show them a restore, too, with that never-ending spinning progress indicator.

I have written 3 PDFs on the iPhone: iStudy, iSeminar: A Beginner’s Guide To The iPhone and iSeminar Advanced.

iStudy has been discountinued, as it was written specifically for firmware versions 1.0.0-1.1.4.  As of 2.0, the iSeminar series has taken over.

iSeminar: A Beginner’s Guide To The iPhone, assumes no prior knowledge of iPhone hacking.  It focuses on the main thing people want to do to their devices - hack it for their own, personal use.  It goes through that process, outlining WinPwn, PwnageTool and QuickPwn.  It starts off with a Vocabulary section, giving the complete beginner an insight to the words he or she will come accross throughout the guide & on numerous online forums.

iSeminar Advanced is for the more advanced user.  It is designed to be a followup guide to iSeminar: A Beginner’s Guide To The iPhone, so the beginner should be able to confidently start work on iSeminar Advanced with the prior knowledge gained from iSeminar: A Beginner’s Guide To The iPhone.  It too starts off with a vocabulary section, covering some more advanced words.  Section 2 covers some in-depth information, this includes a timeline, lockdownd, outlines the iPhone Restore Procedure and more.

To get a copy of one of these guides, simply click the corresponding image above.

Finally, a flicker of hope has burst from the darkness.  We have seen a few copy and paste methods for the iPhone, some being Safari only, with others that were all-talk before they were prevented by Apple.

This one, it seems, is quite simple; it requires no software installation and is perfectly legal.  The service, Pastebud, uses two bookmarks in Safari to do it’s magic.  One bookmark prepares and loads the page - ready for you to highlight the text you want to copy.  From there, it is sent over to the mail app in a new message, ready to send.  Oh, and this also works within Safari, too.

Steve Jobs

The recent news surrounding Steve Job’s current health has drawn a buzz around the blogging world. Gizmodo was the first to notice how much thinner Steve looked as he entered the stage at WWDC 2008. Recently, Fortune from CNNMoney.com has an interesting take on who could potentially be the next CEO for Apple. The article breaks down the position and responsibilities for each Senior Executive. From Tim Cook, to Jonathon Ive. According to the article, Tim Cook appears to be the most appropriate for the job although it is evident around the Internet that many believe the next CEO will be Jonathan Ive.

You can find the full artice here: After Steve Jobs: Apple’s new CEO

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Much as developers might have hoped that the WWDC Keynote would unveil the final version of the iPhone SDK, but it appears that there’s still more beta coming down the pipes before we’re ready to get fully unleashed here in July. In the meantime, Apple has released another beta version of the iPhone SDK: lucky number seven.

If you’re wondering what what’s so special about beta seven, all I can tell you is that it brings bug fixes and support for the latest iPhone OS—by which we mean the latest version of OS 2.0 that developers have available.

With a month to go before the release of the iPhone 3G, we’ll probably see the release of the 2.0 software and final SDK somewhere around the same time.

[MacWorld.com]

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According to the Whois search conducted, Apple has purchased the domains Me.com and MobileMe.com, the .Mac Mail service had also been down for a while couple of times this week.. What could this mean..? Well, Apple Might be rebranding .Mac to Me.com and its Mobile version to MobileMe.com !

The new 2.0 iPhone might have the Me.com Option in Mail Setup rather than the .Mac !

So, this might one of the announcements at WWDC 08…

Heres what the Mail Setup Screen may look like:

Developers wishing to release software applications for the iPhone and iPod touch for free are being encouraged by Apple to charge a fee instead, AppleInsider has learned.

People familiar with the iPhone Developer Program initiated in March note that companies and individuals approved for the program are being assigned a liaison, or “development partner,” who serves as a resource, offering advice and gathering feedback on plans for applications that will eventually be submitted to upcoming App Store for approval.

Those liaisons, who appear to be evangelists rather than technical contacts, aren’t mandating that developers stick a price tag on their creations immediately. They are, however, suggesting that serious consideration be put into doing so “at some point.”

Along the same lines, Apple will reportedly allow developers to submit more than one version of their application to the App Store, which will ship as part of iPhone Software v2.0. For instance, a full-featured version would be available at cost while a “lite” version would be provided as a free trial download to entice users to purchase the full version.

Apple’s motives for the moves are clear. It will bear the cost of hosting, marketing and running the App Store in exchange for 30 percent of the profits from each application sold through the service; developers get to keep the remaining 70 percent. That said, it had promised to allow developers to give away their applications if they so chose.

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