Last week, Apple updated its e-reader app iBooks with several minor new features and one very unwelcome tweak that affected users of jailbroken phones. Jailbreakers who downloaded the update were no longer able to use iBooks on their mobile phone. “Apple deliberately crippled my device,” wrote an angry blogger on Social Apples after realizing what had occurred.
Today, an update to the jailbreaking tool Sn0wbreeze may have addressed this issue, according to reports from mobile bloggers and Twitter.
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According to the Twitter account @iH8sn0w, which is behind the Sn0wbreeze jailbreaking tool, a new update (version 2.2.1) has been released which supposedly fixes the iBooks issue “100%.” It also addresses issues affecting Verizon iPhone jailbreakers on iOS 4.2.6, issues for users of the Windows Classic theme and it adds a drag-and-drop feature for moving IPSW files (the iPhone firmware files used during the jailbreak process).
DRM Breaks iBooks on Jailbroken Phones
The problem with iBooks, in case you missed the news, has to do with e-books protected by FairPlayDRM (digital rights management). When Apple updated iBooks last week, it also introduced code which allowed it to detect jailbroken devices. When a jailbreak is detected, a dialog box appears, reading: “There is a problem with the configuration of your iPhone. Please restore with iTunes and reinstall iBooks.”
Apple introduced this feature (err…bug?) to protect books whose content was locked down using DRM technology. Not all e-books have DRM, so the problem isn’t necessarily affecting all jailbreakers at this point – only those whose library includes DRM-protected titles.
iBooks Fixed?
The update to Sn0wbreeze reportedly fixes the problem, although we cannot verify this here on our end. (Please comment if you’ve tried it!) However, according to some forum postings, there is mixed success in using the new software. One person wrote “all is good,” while another shouted “it doesn’t work!!!!” In other words, proceed with caution, folks.
Sn0wbreeze is a different variation of jailbreaking tool that the others we typically cover (greenpois0n, redsn0w, etc.) as it allows you to create custom, jailbroken firmware files in advance of the hacking attempt and then update your device using that new firmware. For those who also unlock their phones (unlocking, or “SIM unlocking,” lets you use your phone on other carriers’ networks), sn0wbreeze is often the preferred method because it won’t affect the iPhone’s baseband.
Regardless of whether or not Sn0wbreeze is the tool that fixes the issue with iBooks, it’s only a matter of time before the jailbreak community as a whole addresses the problem. Of course, we have a simpler solution ourselves: just don’t use iBooks. Amazon Kindle and a host of others provide reasonable alternatives to Apple’s iBooks e-bookstore and reader app. You can live without it.
Update: A clarification on this. @iH8Sn0w implemented the fix within the app Sn0wbreeze. The fix itself was created by @comex.
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