New iPhone Owner.. Confused!... Help Please?

[MrPresident]

Hi everyone!

I've just purchased two unlocked iPhones from eBay this evening for myself and my gf. I have heard about iPhone hacking/modding but don't really understand why people do it? I can't find any newbie guides?

My questions...

• Why do people hack/mod iPhones?
• Is there a way to totally block your iPhone for good?
• Do you guys run different OS on your iPhones?
• Are there any useful newbie guides which will explain things?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Kyle Matthews]

People hack for a couple main reasons - 1) to get access to the hundreds of 3rd party applications available for the iPhone, and 2) to install new themes and skins.

I don't know what totally block your iPhone means. If you mean brick, yes, but you have to be doing some pretty high-end modding to make that happen.

Nope, not yet.

Sure, click guides.

[cscho0415]

http://www.modmyi.com/wiki/index.php...e_Guide_PWN_It use this guide

[MrPresident]

So what is it that people hack? Do you change the operating system on the iPhone?

If i did manage to brick the iPhone, could it be reversed or totally unusable?

[cscho0415]

we open it to allow programs (apps) that are fun and usefull

it is called jailbreaking - the opening up to 3rd party apps

[questioncom]

i highly doubt you will brick your phone if you follow the directions. and you cant install another OS (well not yet)

[addybgrilla]

I've not come accross anyone when reading through lots of forums etc who has managed to totally "brick" their iPhone ( make it unusable ) unless it had some kind of hardware fault.

If you look on this forum there are loads of "help! i've got X wrong with my phone" - and if you look at this kind of thread you will see that normally the problems can be solved by re-installing the firmware of the phone through itunes.

We don't change the operating system of the iphone ( not yet anyway but it is possible I guess in the future ) we just modify what is already there.

Hope this helps.

You may start reading about "Jailbreaking" and there is looooooads of information out there on it. You may be better off however by just looking for "pwnage" instead. This is a new technique which may be a lot easier for a new person to work with. Read up on it while you wait for your phones to arrive from ebay

[zsuns]

Well hacking, also known as jailbreaking, the iPhone is used to access third party applications(games,applications). A third party application is something that runs nativley(straight from) your iPhone, meaning you don't have to use web applications. People also jailbreak thier iPhone because Apple deosnt allow third party software on the iPhone nativley, unless youve payed 99 bucks for the sdk(software development kit). People, once thier iPhone is jailbroken, install applications from installer.app, which is a third-party app itself, that allows distribution of other developers apps.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "block" though.

No, we don't run different OS on our iPhones.

Their are plenty of guides for newbies located under the "guides" section on the top-left corner of the page.

[iamcanadian_242]

i have just recently got an iphone, and before I upgraded to 1.1.3 I would get my txt msg's in the proper order. Now that I have upgraded it comes in all over, is there a way to fix this? I have tried playing with the time settings and setting it for Toronto time, and automatic but they both give me the same problem.... also I have not been able to setup custom ring tones, I have tried google'ing the solution but with no luck. Any help would be much appreciated