August 4, 2007
iPhone Hacks
It looks like the time to hack the iPhone for those of us with know how but little time is now. Here is the current situation. There is a way to mount the file system r/w and drag and drop files right in using MacFuse and an iPhone plugin. There is a way to get a working ssh server up and on the iphone. Lots of tools exist now that make this so easy there is no excuse not to do it. This weekend was supposed to be a C# code-a-thon for me but it turned into break down the latest iphone hacks-a-thon. Which is ok because I’ve been wanting to do some new stuff with the iPhone.
This is my current iPhone screen. This used a few hacks but took me only about 20 minutes from start to finish. Mainly because I’ve been watching what’s going on and keeping mental notes on where to find stuff so later I might be able to muddle my way through this.
For those ready to take the plunge first thing to get is iFuntastic. This little app lets you do what I think most people want to do, simply change out your ringtones. It also walks you through the whole jailbreak process with well written instructions and illustrations on what to do.
The next piece of software you need is MacFuse. This is the file system in userspace project from Google that allows for mounting all kinds of file systems on the Mac including now with iphonedisk, the iphone itself. Install MacFuse using the package from google code. Then download the iphonedisk source from svn. You may need to download and install the svn package first here. Then cd into the iphonedisk directory and run make. Once this is complete you can run ./mount.sh. If you have run the jailbreak from iFuntastic you should now have full access to the iphone file system.
Next you will need a way to remote control the phone via command line so you can chmod files on the filesystem to set executable bits. For this the iphone ssh install for mac comes in handy. With the iphone unmounted and having run through the jailbreak scripts you can simply uncompress iphone_ssh_install_for_mac.zip. Once that is done cd into the directory and run the script ./iPhoneMacSSHInstall.sh. This will run you through installing ssh on the iphone. I had to run through this script twice YMMV once I had it finished I did not feel like going back through it to see if I accidentally didn’t run the jailbreak for this step like I had thought I did.
Once these steps are complete you are able to install third party Apps without a whole lot of effort. The /Applications directory in the iPhone is where Application bundles go. Drag and drop them right in. Once in place you may need to fix permissions by sshing into you iphone cd into the app bundle and chmod +x the executable.
The first app I installed was Terminal. I simply drug the app into the Applications folder sshed into the iphone and typed chmod +x /Applications/Terminal.app/Terminal. Its important to note that in order for these changes to show u you will need to restart the iPhone or click finish in iFuntastic and click jail following the instructions.
The icon for field test mode I got from here. They have an explanation on how to install it that seemed all wrong. I mounted the file system and navigated to Applications. Then I right clicked on FieldTest.app and selected show contents. I drug the file Icon.png into the folder rebooted the iphone and the icon was where I expected it to be without editing plists.