‘iPhoneSimFree’ iPhone? - 1.1.2 is now do-able…

Your friendly army of hacking unlockers have now figured out how to easily get your unlocked 1.1.1 iPhone up to the latest release - 1.1.2. Here’s a quick review of the process…

Note: As at the time of publishing, this procedure does NOT work with AnySIM-unlocked phones. See here. I used an iPhoneSimFree unlocked phone (yep, the one you have to pay for) - which interestingly has survived firmware updates twice now!

The process involves the following simple steps and should take no longer than 10-15 minutes:

1. In Installer (on your iPhone), go to Tweaks 1.1.1 and install ‘Oktoprep‘.
2. Open iTunes (with your iPhone connected) and hit ‘Update’ in order to install 1.1.2 (note that if you press ‘Restore’ it wont work). This is the longest step.
3. After that is done, download Jailbreak-1.1.2 and proceed with the Jailbreak procedure. (Works for Windows & Mac).
4. Lastly, you should install ‘iWorld’ from Installer after you update (found in Tweaks 1.1.2) in order to fix a known 1.1.2 crash caused with Unsupported Carriers.
5. Re-apply your Voicemail Button setting - *5005*86*phonenumber# and then press ‘call’.

A couple of other things to note…

Firstly, I find it useful to kill the ‘iTunes Helper’ app before you start - this ensures that iTunes only opens when you want it to. I also removed the third-party ‘TIFF Exploit Fix’ just to be sure I would always have a way back in if things went pear-shaped.

Secondly, the firmware update process removes all previously installed third-party apps, but none of the associated application-data. Conveniently, the Jailbreak-1.1.2 program automatically puts Installer back on, so you can simply re-install the ones you want.

What are the benefits of 1.1.2?

Primarily, international support: i.e. you can now change the display language to French, German or Italian and change the keyboard layout to English (UK), French, German and Italian. Other smaller changes include: the phone’s battery charge now shows up in iTunes; and ringtones are now sorted into “Custom” and “Standard” if you have added additional ones. Of course, the 1.1.1 TIFF exploit is also fixed - which is why ‘Oktoprep’ must be installed FIRST under 1.1.1 to allow the 1.1.2 firmware to be jailbroken.

I have also noticed the following improvements:

1. I now get Voicemail notifications from Vodafone! This never worked previously.
2. After running ‘iWorld’ and selecting New Zealand, I now get better (although not perfect) phone number formatting i.e. not the default US format which was so annoying.

What’s still broken?

The only thing that still doesn’t seem to work properly for me is incoming number recognition. For example, if a friend (who is in my contacts with the standard GSM international prefix on their number i.e. +64 21 1234567) sends me text, their name shows up correctly. But if they call me, only the local number shows (021 1234567). Every other phone I have owned has been able to figure this out… So far, the only workaround I have found is to add the local-number formatted version as a second phone number in the contact.

If anyone knows a solution to this… please let me know. Otherwise, these successive firmware updates seem to be bringing definite improvements… albeit incrementally.

Update: To date, iPhoneSimFree can NOT yet unlock newly purchased 1.1.2 iPhones with the new Bootloader installed. You can usually detect whether or not your phone has the new bootloader by looking at the serial number. If the week is 45 or later (week is the 4th & 5th digits in serial number), you will likely have the new bootloader. Hopefully, you won’t have to wait too long for a solution…

Update 2 - Dec 5, 2007: Thanks to King Tan (for pointing me in the right direction), and Piksel’s patching of the ‘AppSupport’ file (located in this directory on your iPhone: /System/Library/Frameworks/AppSupport.framework/), my CallerID problems have all been fixed! Previously when I ran the ‘iWorld’ App on my phone, it wrote to my AppSupport file (along with creating just over 1000 simlinks to the unknowncarrier.plist file). This is what it added for NZ:
nz 64 00 0 1 8
nz 64 40 0 1 8
nz 64 50 0 1 8
nz 64 70 0 1 8
nz 64 90 0 1 8

Piksel’s patched ‘AppSupport’ file is corrected to:
nz 64 00 0 1 7
nz 64 00 0 2 6
nz 64 00 0 2 7
nz 64 00 0 3 6
nz 64 00 0 3 7

If you use your iPhone on the Vodafone Network in New Zealand, Piksel’s patched ‘AppSupport’ (for 1.1.2 only) can be downloaded here. You will need to copy it back to the /System/Library/Frameworks/AppSupport.framework/ directory on you phone, replacing the original.

NOTE: Be VERY CAREFUL if you decide to do this - make sure you know what you’re doing. AppSupport is a critical System file and if you stuff it up, you will have to restore phone! You have been warned.