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New Firmware Fixes Previously Bricked iPhones
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Jan 18, 2008 05:20 PM
from the house-that-iphone-built-comes-crumbling-down dept.
from the house-that-iphone-built-comes-crumbling-down dept.
drcagn writes "Ars Technica reports that Apple's new 1.1.3 firmware update unbricks iPhones damaged from unlocking and updating the firmware months ago. In September, users who hacked their iPhone's firmware to unlock it found their iPhone bricked when they updated to new firmware, creating a massive upset and internet furor. Although Apple claimed this was not an intended effect of the update, it held the stance that it is not their responsibility to ensure that updates work with users' warranty-voiding hacks, and many cried foul. This update, which provides new features Jobs showed off at Macworld, while not officially unbricking the iPhone, has restored iPhones from Gizmodo and a reader of the Unofficial Apple Weblog."
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Hardware: Upcoming Firmware Will Brick Unlocked iPhones 605 comments
iCry writes "It was rumored last week, and Apple has now confirmed it: 'Apple said today that a firmware update to the iPhone due to be released later this week "will likely result" in SIM-unlocked iPhones turning into very expensive bricks... So what are users of SIM-unlocked iPhones to do? Not run the latest software update, that's for sure. Users can instead pray to the hacking deities — the famed iPhone Dev Team that released the free software unlock, and iPhoneSIMfree, which released a commercial software unlock — to write applications that will undo the unlocks, as it were, if those users want to run the latest iPhone software.'"
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Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Confused (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't listen to him folks, they're all still expensive coasters, that's right.
Re:Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Same as if you screwed up a BIOS update on your motherboard. Do it again, correctly and you'll be fine.
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That's a rather bad analogy, since if you screw up a BIOS update on a motherboard and
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Note to readers: When flashing BIOS firmware, pay careful attention to the *ENTIRE* revision string of your motherboard. An
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Of course, back in the late 90s, there were a few times when all that got screwed up was the MBR, which in modern parlance would be (for the average user) the equivalent of b
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Re:Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Informative)
Bricked is when you need to take out the soldering iron and connect up a JTAG cable. If you can still communicate with the firmware loader over USB, it isn't bricked.
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"I'm not dead yet!"
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Re:Confused (Score:5, Funny)
Correct. Welcome to the new age of blogger journalism where something is called bricked the moment even a single feature or other stops working.
My wireless keyboard is on the verge of being bricked, excuse me...
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http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsafe&video=iphone [willitblend.com]
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Software can't unbrick (Score:5, Insightful)
Flashed with a messed up firmware, or a bad flash, sure, but not bricked.
If you have to use a boot wait feature to load a new firmware over a network, it isn't bricked either because it was able to access a network and run a tftp server.
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If you can recover a device to a full operational state without opening its case or attaching a jTag cable, it wasn't bricked.
Informing the Slashdot community on what "bricked" means is futile. Most Slashdot folks are wannabee computer experts who claim that they are god's gift to computer science and/or information technology.
I think you should just blindly agree with the statement that "iPhones are often bricked when pursuing your constitutional rights due to Job's stupidity and/or evilness" and move directly onto the viability of flying cars and the IP issues of the Crackberry.
They are right (Score:5, Insightful)
They shouldn't be held liable. You buy a product and modify it the manufacture can't, and shouldn't, be held responsible for the results.
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They shouldn't be held liable. You buy a product and modify it the manufacture can't, and shouldn't, be held responsible for the results.
No, Apple shouldn't be held liable, but they *should* be strongly condemned for locking it down in the first place and forcing people to resort to these measure so as to have true ownership of THEIR (not Steve's) hardware.
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What freaks me out is the attitude that first we go out and change undocumented things on the iPhone, and second we go for the Apple-supplied firmware update. Either choice sounds reasonable to me, but both at once is foolhardy.
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well, since the bricked phones weren't modified skillfully by there owners, I guess they weren't hacked.
It doesn't unbrick all iPhones (Score:2, Informative)
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ABout brick (Score:5, Insightful)
Like 'Hacker'. You can't stop it, just sigh and go on, otherwise your just screaming into the wind.
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The brick it gracelessly (Score:5, Funny)
I bricked about this happening to "meme" [slashdot.org] a couple years ago, then bricked the solution, [slashdot.org] so I'd like to brick some words of encouragement to anyone who feels bricked by the loss: brick your vengeance. If you can't brick "brick," then nobody can.
Heretofore, "to brick" can brick anything. You can brick a beer; you can brick a pizza. You can brick a computer; and you can brick your girlfriend. You can brick your hat, except in Soviet Russia, where hat bricks you.
Go brick something, and then brick somebody about it in the hopes that they'll brick someone else. Brick the word, so the whole world will brick that they bricked "brick." Hopefully after that, maybe they will have bricked that some words are better off left unbricked.
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The common use definition has changed. You can be the biggest ass you want, but it still won't stop the common use of 'Brick' use in this context.
You want to get pendantic? it's not bricked at all.
a brick is:
a block of clay hardened by drying in the sun or burning in a kiln,
bricked is:
1. To construct, line, or pave with bricks.
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-Ted
Hackers Did This Months Ago (Score:4, Informative)
This is the link to the Ars Technica story (Score:5, Informative)
Trivia about this unbricking (Score:2)
I also hear through Chicago Sun Times writer Andy Ihnatko [cwob.com] that he's been able to unbrick a phone.
Responsible or not (Score:3, Interesting)
a small number of non-hacked phones which got bricked as well?
Crap! (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Cue the bitching (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the iPod touch is an iPod, and not a PDA, and since those features were not there to begin with and everybody who bought one knew that if they bothered to to do any research first, isn't $20 a small price to pay to add those features if you want them? Are you forced to spend the $20? Did Apple claim those features were there to begin with and then charge people $20 to get them?
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What happens when you buy a computer with Windows XP and then Vista comes out and you want the computer to have that instead? You have to pay to upgrade it, that's what. Even if its the same hardware... costing the SAME price (or less).
Yes, it'd be very cool if manufacturers just doled out free software/feature updates for everyone in perpetuity... but that
Re:stop saying "BRICKED!!!" (Score:4, Insightful)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, nothing indicates that these users updated the firmware by any abnormal method. The phone would be bricked if there were no way to get into recovery mode or whatever lets you update the firmware.
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"irrevocable" is an absolute term, just like "bricked". By very definition, if something is eventually revoked, it wasn't irrevocable.
Please, go back to grade school. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
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They aren't worthless idiots, they are what they are, and Apple treats them exactly how they should be treated.
Fleecing are what sheep are for.
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Apple's continued stance that they know what's best for their customers and that their products are 'perfect' as-is prevents what could be revolutionary products from ever reaching that potential.
Um, WTF are you talking about?
That they disavow any damage a firmware update will do to a modified piece of hardware? If that is the case, I would submit that 99.9% of companies are in the exact same class.
If you are talking about the fact that an SDK is not out yet, wait a month til it is.
If you are just turned off by Steve Jobs, that seems like a personal issue.
but so long as they keep the snotty outlook on the world at large, they're just another tech company. Apple, you need to stop acting like assholes, and stop treating your customers like every last one is a worthless idiot.
What are you *so* bitter about? I really don't understand this somewhat prevalent attitude that because they aren't supporting an unsupported
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They can innovate to extraordinary levels in many ways, but so long as they keep the snotty outlook on the world at large, they're just another tech company. Apple, you need to stop acting like assholes, and stop treating your customers like every last one is a worthless idiot.
Yeah! How dare they release a $20 upgrade to an MP3 player that turns it into a wifi-connected PDA! What jerks those guys are! The nerve of them! To show how big of jerks they are, they even went further and added those features to the new ones, for free! Someone should do something about this!
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And in America... (Score:2)
Re:Ugh. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a really nice product, particularly aesthetically nice, then Apple makes all kinds of shit you might like. But you have to give them MONEY for it.
That software was not advertised as included in the ipod touch. So you didn't get screwed. If you want this version of the software, pay 20$. Of course, a lot of people get it through a different avenue.
If you want a cheap PDA that has a lot of this functionality, you can get one pretty cheap. If $20 is a big deal for you.
Apple is going to always do this. They've found a niche that is profitable, has decent clientele, is fun to manage. I think Apple isn't going to change. They will charge you more for everything, but make good stuff.
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