pseudoberries random thoughts about life, hacking and open source

iPhone firmware upgrade with VirtualBox

With VirtualBox it's possible to fully access your iPhone with iTunes! As I'm writing this I'm doing a firmware upgrade

You will need the official release of VirtualBox for USB support and configure usbfs for user-level permission. This will enable the otherwise greyed out iPhone device from the USB Devices menu.

Note: When upgrading your firmware through iTunes, the iPhone will switch modes and appear as a new USB device. When iTunes is waiting for the iPhone, make sure to connect the device from the VirtualBox Devices -> USB Devices menu.

Unfortunately the firmware upgrade didn't seem to help with the trouble I'm having with my iPhone: The power button is unresponsive, it won't boot without the power cord (the apple logo flashes endlessly) and other weird behaviour. I might have to take it to the Apple Store for diagnosis :-/ I wonder if that's possible in India...

Free iPhone ringtones: the easy way

Recently I wrote about how iPhone ringtones annoyed me. Adding custom ringtones "the Apple way" costs money. Well, guess what: Yesterday I discovered this article over at iSmashPhone.com:

How to Get Free iPhone Ringtones in Under One Minute

The article introduced me to a wonderful service called audiko. It's basically a website which allows you to upload your favorite song and convert (parts of) it to a ringtone. One you can open with iTunes and transfer to your iPhone! All for free! No jailbreaking required

The site also archives the ringtones people create and lets you browse through a plethora of popular ones!

I wonder how long it takes before Apple / RIAA brings the site down though :-/ I wonder if their Terms of Use holds...

Things that annoy me with the iPhone #1: Ringtones

Custom ringtones. One would think that using a song from iTunes as a ringtone would be a breeze on this sophisticated phone. I doubt there even exists a mobile phone on the market which doesn't support this. But not on the iPhone.

No, there tou have to pay Apple $2 to "convert" an mp3 to a ringtone. Like they're not the same thing. A previous version of iTunes revealed that the only difference between a music file and a ringtone was the file extension - the extension for ringtones is "m4r". That's right - Apple expects you to pay them $2 for renaming a file!

You got too greedy on this one, Apple...

iPhone workee!

Seems the talented guys at NetCom forgot to do what I asked them - twice.

So I tried connecting the phone to iTunes again today - same result.

I call NetCom and complain and I accidentally mention that I tried entering my phone number and IMEI at their unlocking site and got an error message saying the IMEI isn't registered at that phone number. The phone call continued something like this:

NetCom: "Oh, can you give me your IMEI number?"

Me: "It's xxxxblahmeh."

NetCom: "Ok, I'm registering it now."

Me: "Eh, isn't that the same thing you've already done twice for me earlier?"

NetCom: "Nah, we didn't have any IMEI registered"

OH MY GOD. Is it possible to be so stupid? I mean, I already gave them my IMEI number in the previous call. SIGH!

I try their unlock site again and this time I get a message that it works! I connect to iTunes - great success! Hooooray! Finally!

iPhone not workee

Picked up my brand new iPhone 3G at the post office today - oh my it's shiny! However...

Called NetCom (the carrier with iPhone-monopoly here in Norway) and told them I'd like to cancel my subscription to their over-priced "iTalk" subscription. $80/month for 100MB of data traffic? I don't think so.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi, I'd like to cancel my subscription please."

NetCom: "Awww, okay. Why?"

Me: "It stinks, that's why."

NetCom: "We know Ok, just a moment. Dum-de-duu... Okey dokey, you should be able to use your iPhone with any carrier shortly. Just connect the phone to iTunes and click Restore. Oh, and expect a $500 bill in your mailbox shortly! Bye!"

Sounds easy enough, I thought. So I connect the iPhone with the SIM card I'd like to use, but iTunes tells me to shove a certain SIM card up a certain place: "the SIM card is unsupported, sucker". I guess it just takes a couple of minutes before it's unlocked, I thought. I try again an hour later, the same. Another hour, the same. What's taking so long, Apple?

When I connect without a SIM card, however, I'm able to restore the phone. Can this be it? Come on! But no, my SIM card still doesn't work. Meh.

Called them again:

Me: "Hey, it doesn't work, what gives?"

NetCom: "Yeah, it might take a couple of days to take effect. What's your IMEI number?"

Me: "It's <long number>"

NetCom: "Ok, I'll send apple another request. You just have to wait."

Me: "Meh, sharsly?"

NetCom: "Sharsly."

Tried again now (00:22), still the same. It's been 12 hours since I asked them to unlock it. Expensive paperweight.