Worth it to downgrade iPhone?

October 23, 2007 9:20 AM

So downgrading my iPhone's firmware to 1.0.2... worth the risk?

I know how to do it but I don't know what unforeseen consequences are going to arise. Will I lose all of my contacts? Will I be able to make the phone normal again when February rolls around and the SDK is released? What else should I be looking for? I'm itching to get more out of the phone especially because I know what it is capable of... February is too far away.

posted by pwally to technology (12 comments total)

Are you looking to unlock or jailbreak your phone? As far as I know, you can easily jailbreak 1.1.1 now. What this means in february, it's anybody's guess.

Check out tuaw.com or the digg.com apple section for complete details (where just this morning, this was posted.)
posted by milarepa at 9:28 AM on October 23, 2007

I wanted to jailbreak it and get the appinstaller, I'm a windows user so iFuntastic won't work for me milarepa.
posted by pwally at 9:30 AM on October 23, 2007

You can jailbreak, sim-unlock and install ringtones on your 1.1.1 iPhone. The latest version of AppTapp (Installer.app) even recommends you use 1.1.1.
posted by mrunderhill at 9:31 AM on October 23, 2007

I'm pretty sure if the mac tools for jailbreak+apps have caught up to 1.1.1, the Windows tools can't be far behind. At this point, I'd just recommend waiting a little while longer till parity is reached once again.
posted by sparkletone at 9:33 AM on October 23, 2007

I am pretty sure there are windows versions out there. I just don't know of any because I have no use for them. If it exists TUAW would have posted it. Check back through a few weeks of posts there.
posted by milarepa at 9:42 AM on October 23, 2007

Oh, and your final option is to wait another couple months, as an official iPhone/THE TOUCH SDK is coming.

Surely, once that hits, jailbreaking for app usage will be less desirable (... Maybe. Depending on how it ends up working.)
posted by sparkletone at 10:15 AM on October 23, 2007

Downgrading is entirely unnecessary. The only difficulty you might have with Installer.app is that you might have to install the old version first, then use it to upgrade itself to the new version. But the way things are changing, that might already be resolved, allowing you to install the newest version directly.
posted by fedward at 10:20 AM on October 23, 2007

On the Installer.app website they say that downgrading is entirely necessary, so what gives? Where are you guys seeing this info that says downgrading is unnecessary?
posted by pwally at 10:41 AM on October 23, 2007

I'd only bother doing all this if you want to sim unlock the phone. The 3rd party applications are kind of cool, but I haven't used anything that I couldn't live without.
posted by chunking express at 11:01 AM on October 23, 2007

And if you just jailbreak the phone, you can always undo whatever changes you make just by restoring the phone.
posted by chunking express at 11:05 AM on October 23, 2007

You will absolutely lose everything on your phone (contacts, calendar, etc) but the next resync with iTunes will restore them all.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:14 AM on October 23, 2007

i agree with chunking express... unless there is something you absolutely have to have and can't live without, or need to unlock it for another carrier, i wouldn't bother.

i had my phone unlocked and i installed a bunch of apps on it. it was cool for the first week. then i realized A.) i didn't use any of the apps i had installed, i just showed friends and family what a 'hacked' iphone was like and B.) while im sure the developers of these apps put a lot of time into them, they lack 'polish'... you can definitely feel a difference when using one of the apple apps and one of the 3rd party apps. some of them come close to flat out ruining the experience of the phone.

in your original post, you said you want to get more out of the phone... what exactly do you want out of it?


.//chris
posted by hummercash at 11:35 AM on October 23, 2007