Apple Has Stopped iOS Downgrading 207
An anonymous reader noted a forum post seems to confirmApple will be
fighting downgrading in iOS 5. Quoting:
"This will only affect restores starting at iOS5 and onward, and Apple will be able to flip that switch off and on at will (by opening or closing the APTicket signing window for that firmware, like they do for the BBTicket)."
Officially they never enabled it anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
I have faith the Dev Team or someone will figure out some sort of work around. Otherwise, it has never been officially enabled anyway which is just a crazy setup. It's nonsensical to not allow people to change versions of iOS. Lots of iphone 3G people I am sure wish they could switch back to iOS v3 after finding v4 too slow. I understand security holes plugged might be part of the reason they do this, but since Apple stops supporting some of the devices (iphone 3G and iphone 1) anyway, it can't be why they don't allow downgrading...
Re:I found... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple has this way of forcing you to upgrade your hardware by making it useless via forcing you to upgrade your software. This guarantees that you'll always be out buying the newest hardware so that you can continue to be a loyal customer to them.
Forcing you to upgrade your software? Offering features that sound good isn't exactly FORCING you to upgrade.
Actually, this is a very good point and one of the glaring problems that Apple iPhone and Apps Store has: No user-oriented software version control. (The vendor-oriented software version controls seems to work fine.)
Yes, you can upgrade wholesale but you cannot really manage your software with their version control.
Want to skip a version? Fuck you.
Want to roll back to a better, older, previously paid-for version? Fuck you.
Have to do a restore but like the older version? Fuck you.
iPhone users have little of the control that Mac OS X users are accustomed to. Really sucks and one reason I'm worried as Apple transmutes Mac OS X into a iOS clone.
Re:Desert without walls... (Score:3, Interesting)
There are levels of "pwning" a phone.
A HTC phone that is rooted, re-rommed (Cyanogen, etc), and S/OFF-ed is all yours completely. You can do what you want with it. There are sites that actually let you build your own custom ROM, including/excluding stuff as you see fit.
I'd probably say the levels are:
1: ADB access.
2: Ability to sideload.
3: Temporary root (until reboot).
4: Permanent root.
5: Carrier unlock.
6: Custom ROMs doable via kexec(), but kernel signed. This is how all Motorola phone but the Droid get custom ROMs.
7: Custom ROMs that do not need to do the kexec() gymnastics. New Android version? Go for it. Custom Linux kernel? Rock it.
8: Fastboot unlocked.
iPhones are different. At most, you can get to level 4 (which is roughly equivalent [1].) Having a completely customized IPSW is almost impossible to do, and there is no such thing as custom ROMs for the iPhone. You might be able to use Winterboard or other relatively minor modifications, but rebuilding the OS from the ground up isn't going to happen.
You can rule your phone completely with Android. You can customize an iPhone, but the device is still pretty much tightly controlled by Apple.
[1]: A true jailbreak takes a lot more work on an iPhone than a "#" sign on Android. A jailbreak requires a load of essentially the whole userlevel UNIX land (basic commands, Mobile Substrate, etc.) This is why the Dev Team is conservative on releases, because it is a very exacting process and one move can either force a DFU restore or if messing around with BB, a true bricking.