One More Tap » Hacks

iPhone Explorer – Gem of a Tool

xcool — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 03:59:34 +0000

Here’s a tool that I recently used to do some crazy stuff on my iPhone. Now when I say crazy stuff, this means things that Apple would usually not allow you to do, that is if your device is not jailbroken.

Before I continue, I’d like to say that I am not a jailbreak person and that I would never jailbreak my device. Okay, I actually jailbroke my original iPhone 2G so that I can use it outside of AT&T’s network, that’s all.

Apple designed the iPhone to be more interaction, less interruption. You interact more with the phone’s functions and apps that you download from the App Store – you don’t actually need to see what’s under the hood, or how the file system looks like.

Yet, some people love to tinker around with their gadgets, either for fun or to do some basic troubleshooting. iPhone Explorer by Macroplant solves your need to see iOS’ file system. It is a software solution that runs on both the Mac and PC. And it allows you to browse the files and folders on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, as if it were a normal USB pen drive. Files can be added and removed thru iPhone Explorer using drag-and-drop methods.

Recently, I decided to see if I can modify a certain game’s saved state on my iPhone 4 (cheating is okay, sometimes) and since my iPhone 4 is not jailbroken, this would not have been possible using any conventional method. I found iPhone Explorer to be very useful here, I managed to browse my iPhone 4′s file system soon after plugging it in.

As you can see from the screenshot attached here, iPhone Explorer conveniently displays my iPhone 4′s contents separated into two categories: apps and media. The apps folder is self-explanatory, while the media folder holds all your media content such as iBooks, music, photos, podcasts and voice memo recordings.

Before we continue further, I’d like to advice that you take precautions when working with iPhone Explorer. Browsing your device’s file system may be adventurous, but you are also subjecting your device to accidental file removal which may render the device inoperational.

If you browse the apps folder, you will notice names of apps that you have installed on your device. Clicking on the arrow next to the app’s name will reveal even more folders. This is where iOS apps store their working documents, preferences and yes, saved states. And since iOS apps are run in a sandbox environment, an app will usually write their data into one of these folders: Documents or Library. If you are looking to change your game’s saved state, I’d suggest that you look within these folders first. Using iPhone Explorer, you can actually drag the file onto your desktop and open them up using a text editor. Most of the files will appear as garbled characters. However, some apps, especially games may have data files that are written in plain text. These are the files that you can easily edit. I will not go into details here, however.

As for the game that I tried to cheat—I realized that the saved state is in plain text, and it took me less than a minute to complete the task with iPhone Explorer.

Again, I’d like to stress that iPhone Explorer may be a gem of a tool, but it could also render your device inoperable should you choose to remove files that are required. Play safe! iPhone Explorer is compatible with both Mac and PC, and is available from Macroplant here: http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/.

Various iTerms

xcool — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:38:28 +0000

A lot of people seems to be confused with the terms used throughout the iPhone/iPod touch sphere. Terms like unlocked, unlocking, jailbreak can be harder to understand than history lessons.

Here’s a short summary of what each term means:

Unlocked unit means that your iPhone or iPhone 3G will work with any Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) from any service provider in the world. Your phone might either be factory unlocked, carrier unlocked or user unlocked.

Factory unlocked units work as soon as you pop in any SIM from any carrier. This is the best unit to get. Example of carriers/countries that provide factory unlocked iPhone 3Gs are SingTel (Singapore), 3 (Hong Kong), Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) and Vodafone (New Zealand) to name a few.

Carried unlocked iPhones are units that have been unlocked by the carrier thru the process of entering a ‘unlock code’. Once this is done, the locked (originally) iPhones become unlocked and shall now work with any SIM from any carrier. Updating the firmware does not ‘relock’ the iPhone.

User unlocked iPhones are units that have been unlocked using software exploitation to allow operation with various service providers. Google for this term and you shall find more information which I would not cover here.

Last but not least is the term jailbreaking. Apple only allows signed code to run on the iPhone and iPod touch. There are many reasons behind this, such as ensuring that your iPhone only runs applications that are certified not to be harmful. However, there are various third-party software out there, which would not receive approval from Apple. Jailbreaking your iPhone/iPod touch would allow these apps to run as if there were signed code.

Check out this link if you’d like more explanation on other terms used.

iPhone TV-Out Proof of Concept

xcool — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:38:33 +0000

Here’s something not from a geek’s basement development studio. *grin*

We all know the iPhone and iPod touch can already display video on a TV via a TV-out cable. However, Apple limits that only to the iTunes application. Enter Ars Techinca, who uncovered an undocumented class in the latest iPhone SDK that allows applications to send visuals to an external monitor instead of the screen. I am sure developers would love to use this feature for… games!

However, here’s the catch. The feature is categorised as undocumented. Which means, everyone other than Google is allowed to use it, literally.

Legality aside, Ars Technica managed to convince Freeverse, famed developers of tiles like Moto Chaser to come out with a version of their game modified to utilize this hidden TV-out function. A demo was done within hours.

Now, the only thing we need next is for Apple to give the green light and recategorise this as a feature within the SDK before we start to see applications with TV-out features appearing on the App Store shelves.

iPhone Tethering Coming “Quite” Soon

xcool — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:38:10 +0000

A post over at MobileCrunch reveals that AT&T Mobility’s CEO, Ralph De La Vega has confirmed that an official way to tether the iPhone will be offered very “soon”. No dates or pricing information were specified. In fact, knowing AT&T, it is assumed that tethering would not be part of the standard iPhone package and will be charged separately.

Tethering is the process of creating a connection from a non-mobile device (e.g. desktop or laptop computers) to another mobile device (e.g. your iPhone), for the purpose of accessing wireless internet by the non-mobile device.

I have done tethering using my previous devices like the Treo smartphones and I generally liked this idea. For mobile warriors, the ability to carry only one device (in this case, the iPhone) that also acts as a modem is a blessing to say the least.

There are quite a number of tethering solutions available for the iPhone. Amongst them, a third-party application called NetShare, which appeared briefly on the iTunes AppStore before it was removed by Apple. If you could recall, that incident generated quite a lot of news in the Apple circle. Other solutions like PdaNet which turns the iPhone into a “true Wi-Fi router”, targets the jailbreaking community. Instructions to use the software is outlined at PdaNet’s website.

I’d love to see a Wi-Fi adapter tethering option. We know that both the iPhone and iPod touch comes with Wi-Fi built-in. Now, wouldn’t it be great if I could switch from tethering using my iPhone’s 3G/EDGE connection to tethering using a Wi-Fi connection when one is available? It would be useful for those whose laptops are not Wi-Fi enabled.

Also, what about those unlocked iPhones? It is said that firmware 2.2 would bring tethering into reality. Does that mean that my unlocked iPhone shall finally be able to do the same too?

iPhone Gets Key-Modded

xcool — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:18:43 +0000

Some people like the idea of a touchscreen keyboard, while others prefer to have the touchy feeling of typing on a built-in keyboard. You can now have both.

Well, some electrical engineering whiz-kid has just modded his iPhone (other sites are reporting it as the iPhone 3G, I don’t think so) together and fixed an external keyboard which looked like it came from those one of those Psion devices. Add in another little bit of programming whiz, and the results looked quite promising, if your device is jailbroken, that is. More pictures and a video after the break.

Isn’t that great? Now, if only Apple would allow us Bluetooth on the iPhone. And I wonder if it will work on the iPod touch. Let’s hope this develops further. I’d love to see what are the key ‘ingredients’ to get this working. Who knows someday we’ll see this being sold at every Apple accessories store? Or am I dreaming?

More pictures below.

via Engadget

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iPhone Explorer – Gem of a Tool

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