No WinPwn for iPhone OS 2.1 yet - but promised soon

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 15 September 2008 09:32

Your IT - Mobility

iPhone 2G and 3G “jailbreak” addicts keen to move to Apple’s iPhone OS 2.1 can already do so on the Mac, but Windows users are patiently awaiting a new version of WinPwn to do so. While it’s not yet available, its author promises delivery “soon”.

If you’ve been desperate to upgrade your iPhone 2G or 3G to the latest iPhone OS 2.1, well, you’ve been able to do that since last Friday.

But iPhone 3G owners who want to jailbreak their phones to run unauthorised third-party programs, and iPhone 2G owners who want to do the same, but also unlock their iPhones, can only do so currently with easy-to-use software if they’ve got access to a Mac.

Now, given that most consumers around the world use Windows PCs (for better or worse), there’s a huge number of iPhone owners who can’t take advantage of the iPhone Dev Team’s PwnageTool 2.1 software to get the job done.

Windows users have either had to download an already made “custom firmware” that has had the PwnageTool hacks applied, usually uploaded to BitTorrent sites (or sites such as RapidShare) or have also used the WinPwn software to customise Apple’s iPhone OS 2.1 firmware and pwn it themselves.

Although I haven’t personally heard of custom hacked firmwares for download being somehow “fiddled” with to install malicious software, the possibility always exists, and thus PwnageTool-ing or Winpwn-ing your own firmware (downloaded direct from Apple’s site) is the safer course of action.

So, all those Windows using iPhone owners have been waiting for an iPhone OS 2.1 compatible version of WinPwn to appear, and an info update has been posted to the WinPwn site.

The update states: “It's been very busy for me recently at work and I haven't had much time to spend on WinPwn. But i'm hoping that planet/squpid and I can get the latest version out soon. I will keep you updated!”

So, is it possible to go to iPhone OS 2.1 as an iPhone 2G user, and still retain an “unlocked” status, allowing me to use any SIM card that I want? Yes... the simple answer is on page 2.