Hack the iPhone

Downgrade and/or repair the baseband

(intel / PPC Mac)

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The only reason I can think of to downgrade the baseband would be to fix a corrupted IMEI. In this case the IMEI would change to 004999010640000.

Repairing the baseband (which can be performed independently from downgrading), is only done when you used anySIM prior to version 1.1, or iUnlock or the hardware unlock method to unlock your iPhone. When you repair the baseband you must be on 1.0.2 firmware. This is done just before updating to the newer firmware that you want.

The process of downgrading and repairing has become much easier now that all the necessary tools have been compiled into self-contained applications. The downgrading programs I offer on my Installer repository are:

• Downgrading firmware 1.1.2 (04.02.13_G) baseband to firmware 1.0.2 (03.14.08_G) baseband.
• Downgrading firmware 1.1.1 (04.01.13_G) baseband to firmware 1.0.2 (03.14.08_G) baseband.

Make sure you are downloading the correct one. It's not a good idea to have both programs installed at the same time as they will conflict with each other since they both use a binary with the same name!

Step 1. (downgrading)

First you need to downgrade your firmware to 1.0.2 using iTunes. If you don't already have the firmware, you can download it here. Do not decompress this file, or allow your browser to decompress it. Save it wherever you'd like.

Step 2.

In my case the iPhone is not activated yet, so I have to put it into DFU mode. If yours is activated already you don't have to do this.

Restore the iPhone to 1.0.2 firmware by putting the iPhone into DFU mode. Do this by pressing and holding the Home button, and the Sleep/Wake button.




Hold the buttons 10 seconds and the screen will go black. Let go of the Sleep/Wake button. Continue holding the Home button for another 10 seconds and iTunes will detect that the iPhone is in recovery mode.




Press Option then click the Restore button.




A file browser will open. Navigate to where you downloaded your 1.0.2 firmware file. Select it and click Open.




Various messages will appear while the process continues.




You will then get an error 1013 message. Click OK. The recovery mode graphic will appear again, click OK.




Eject the iPhone from iTunes and close iTunes.

Step 3.

Download iNdependence 1.3 Beta 2 here. Launch iNdependence. It will get the iPhone out of recovery mode (displaying this message with a spinning wheel initially), and send it to the activate iPhone screen.




Go to the 1.0.2 firmware file you downloaded earlier and unzip the file. Back in iNdependence click the Activate Phone button. A file browser will open, navigate to where you unzipped the 1.0.2 firmware file and click Open.




You'll see Waiting for jail break...




This screen will appear. Press the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds to get the red slider arrow to appear to shut down the iPhone. Press Sleep/Wake again to turn it on.




When you get the success message, click "OK".




Click the "SSH" tab and click the "Install SSH/SFTP/SCP" button.




This screen will appear. Hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few second to get the red slider arrow to appear to shut down the iPhone. Press Sleep/Wake again to turn it on.




A similar screen will appear. Do it all over again.




Click "OK" at the success pop up. Close iNdependence.

Step 4.

Press the Home button on the iPhone, then Settings, General, Auto-Lock then Never.




Go back to the Settings screen, press Wi-Fi, select your network name, then enter your password and press Join. Now press the blue arrow next to your network name to get your iPhone's IP address.

Step 5.

Download the Installer program (version 3.0) here. Decompress the download and you'll be left with this file. Place it anywhere you'd like on your computer.