iPhone OS 3.1.3 Update on 3Gs
OK… I started out writing about my experiences on 3.1.2 and how I loved the ease of jail breaking and unlocking using black weather apps, but my intention of this post is to share my experience with 3.1.3 update (supposedly a trivial update) before I forget like everything else. So read on…
A brief history… I have a 3Gs running jail broken 3.1.2 and was also unlocked using blacksn0w.. it was great in most part and I loved the ability to unlock the tethering (which was my most import jail broken feature) and also love the Backgrounder along with Pro Switcher, but one thing was really getting on my nerves… the phone keeps dropping calls like it’s no one’s business.. I had made multiple calls to troubleshoot the issue and was asked to restore the phone (which I did, to no avail) and even tried to not jailbreak the phone for a while which didn’t seem to make any difference. I also used to see that strange battery life problem a couple of times where it jumps from a healthy 60% to a red 18% in no time, but would keep working for almost a hour (if not more) at 5% battery life.
So, the other day, apple released this new point update to the OS.. the iPhone OS 3.1.3, which according to the original release notes would fix that strange battery phenomenon I described above (no big deal for me). But to the jailbreaking community, this was apple’s ploy to flush out any new holes so they can fix them for the big 4.0 update. That really could be the reason, but the tech support told me that the update was specifically designed to fix the dropping calls on 3Gs devices.. hard to believe, I know, but I wanted to give it a try so bad, but didn’t want to loose my jailbreak in the process. So after careful analysis, I figured that the new Pwnage tool (v 3.15) would help me, even though I have the 5.11.07 version of base band since my iboot is still the old 359.3. So, I went ahead and bit the update using the above mentioned pwnage tool and here are some of my experiences which could help others out there…
- Pwnage tool stuck in never ending “searching for firmware” stage and clicking on “browse for ipsw” doesn’t do anything.
Solution: This apparently is a known bug (a bug in Mac OS ?). Demount any non mac volumes (specifically NTFS volumes) and try again. - After you are done with Pwnage tool, it instructs you to put your phone in DFU mode and restore the patched rom from iTunes, but iTunes fails to restore with an error 1016?
Solution: I just had to restore in normal mode. Get your phone out of DFU mode by pressing and holding Home and Power buttoms until you see the apple logo (or pineapple logo) again, wait till the phone boots and restore from iTunes
A few words of advice/warning…
- The Pwnage tool method I mentioned above will not work for newer iPhone 3Gs devices with a later boot rom (iboot) than 359.3 (google for instructions to find it)
- DO NOT update to official 3.1.3 on your iPhone 3Gs if you want to jailbreak it now… that will update your boot rom so you’ll have to sit out until the next exploit is discovered and released
So, it’s been almost a day since I updated my iPhone 3Gs with 3.1.3 and I am yet to experience a dropped call… I started to believe that the 3.1.3 has probably more than what it actually states it does. All in all, I am a happy camper so far, with no dropped calls and my super fast tethering… you know, I sometimes get upwards of 4Mbps speeds on my iPhone when tethered 😀
Also, I have noticed one other improvement in 3.1.3.. the touch screen performance in the bottom area of the screen (closer to the home button) has improved considerably… earlier, when I drew a straight line (in any line drawing app), the line used to taper off toward the center of the phone and this was very evident when playing games like FlightControl, where I had to tap the planes coming from that side of the screen multiple times to get hold of them. So far, not a bad update for me here…