One of the most common problems after Apple releases its the latest firmware update for the iPhone is that some users who have jailbroken their iPhone end up accidentally upgrading it.
So when Apple released iPhone firmware 2.2 on Thursday night, quite a few readers ended up accidentally upgrading their iPhones to the latest firmware.
The problem is that they ended up losing the jailbreak and all the unofficial iPhone apps. They are left with two options: 1. Either wait for the iPhone Dev Team to release the latest hacking tools which should be soon or 2. Downgrade to iPhone firmware 2.1.
One of our readers, Jason, has tried the second option and successfully downgraded his iPhone to iPhone firmware 2.1.
Update:
Jason has also shared the steps he had followed to downgrade to iPhone firmware 2.1, so we have based this step-by-step guide mostly on it.
Before we start with the guide, you need to first download iPhone firmware 2.1 (for 1st iPhone, use this download link and for iPhone 3G, use this download link).
You can then follow these steps to downgrade from iPhone firmware 2.2 to firmware 2.1:
- Connect your iPhone to your Mac or PC and select your iPhone from the
list of devices in iTunes. If things had gone horribly wrong while
hacking your iPhone and iTunes does not detect your iPhone then you
will need to put it in DFU (Device Firmware Upgrade) mode.
- You can follow these steps to put your iPhone in DFU mode (this is required only if iTunes does not recognize your iPhone):
- Connect your iPhone to your computer.
- Turn iPhone off.
- Hold power and home together for 10 seconds (exactly).
- Release power but keep holding home until the computers beeps (observed on a PC) as a USB device is recognized.
- A few seconds later iTunes should detect your iPhone.
- In the Summary Tab, Hold down Option and press the "Restore" button. If you are using Windows hold down Shift and press the Restore button. (This is an important step as just pressing the "Restore" button will result in restoring your iPhone with the latest firmware which is firmware 2.2 currently, by holding down Option in case of Mac or Shift in case of Windows, allows you choose the firmware file that you want to downgrade to.)
- You should be able to see all the older iPhone firmware files you had
downloaded so far, select iPhone firmware 2.1 file (iPhone1,1_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw) to restore your
iPhone or browse to the folder where you have downloaded it and select it.
- You might get the any of the following errors: 1011, 1013, 1015, you
can ignore them. However, if you get errors such as: 1601, 1602, 1600
or anything else then try putting the iPhone into DFU mode and try
again.
- Your iPhone should now be restored to iPhone firmware 2.1 (Settings -> General -> About). You can then jailbreak and unlock your 1st gen iPhone or jailbreak iPhone 3G using QuickPwn v2.1 by following this step-by-step guide.
We haven’t tried this yet on the iPhone 3G as we haven’t upgraded to iPhone firmware 2.2 after the warning from the iPhone Dev Team but have tried this out on an iPod Touch (after upgrading it to iPhone firmware 2.2) and it works without any problem. James who had tipped us about this method has tried this out and confirms that it works.
Based on the information that iPhone Dev team had shared about firmware 2.2, we are assuming that this does not downgrade the baseband firmware in case of iPhone 3G which also gets upgraded with the iPhone firmware 2.2 update. So we are not sure if iPhone 3G users who accidentally upgraded to iPhone firmware 2.2 will be able to unlock their iPhones when iPhone Dev Team release their software method to unlock iPhone 3G.
But by downgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1 they should be able to at least jailbreak their iPhone 3G so they can install the unofficial iPhone apps (which was the condition when they upgrade to the latest firmware).
In case of the 1st gen iPhone, since the baseband firmware does not get upgraded, by downgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1, 1st gen iPhone users should be able to jailbreak and unlock their iPhones.
Please remember that hacking your iPhone could result in voiding your warranty so please proceed with caution.
Please let us know how it goes in case you decide to give this a shot.
Thanks a ton James for the feedback and your step-by-step guide.
Update 1:
Readers Mark, Jack, webterractive, Ronny and Greyhame have reported problems downgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1 from firmware 2.2 in the comments. We will keep you posted if we find any trick to resolve the issue.
Update 2:
Update 3:
iPhone 3G users who had problems using Turbo SIM, reader, Love my iPhone, has just commented:
"Just want to share this: if you use turbosim to unlock your iphone 3G, you can update your phone to v2.2 using pwnagetool custom ipsw. By doing this, you have preserved baseband version which will not effect the way your trubosim works, otherwise you have either to update the firmware of your turbosim (if it is available) or buy a new one which supports v2.2 in the near future. I have personally tested it. I have updated my iPhone 3G to v2.2 using pwnagetool and my turbosim is still working."
Thanks Love my iPhone for sharing your experience.
Update 4:
Apple Breaks Hardware Method to Unlock iPhone 3G with Firmware 2.2
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