Hello.

It’s been awhile.

This weekend I spent some time installing iPhone OS 4.  Too impatient to wait for the actual release this summer, I decided to go off the beaten path.  To descend in the vagaries of legal gray areas.  To sell out.

To help you wayfaring strangers accomplish the same,  I am documenting the process.

Step 1:  Get your UDID added to a developer account.

Best way:  Sign up for a developer account and wait for approval.
Fast way:  Find someone willing to add yours to their account.  I chose this method.

There are several ways to find someone.  I ended up paying someone $8.  I found their e-mail address on a popular sharing site with several confirmations of successful transactions.  If driving into the ghetto of the Internet to make a deal on the corner is too scary, there are several users on hackint0sh.org giving them away or selling them.  Probably a safer source of information.

Why do you have to do this?  Your iPhone activates itself on first launch after any restore.  If it doesn’t have your devices Unique Device ID registered, it won’t activate.  You can’t use your phone.

Step 2:  Download iPhone OS4 build.

Best way:  Sign up for a developer account.
Fast way:  Use torrents or other file sharing sites.

I chose the latter option, of course.

The most important thing to  be aware of here is corrupt builds.  I’m not talking about hijacked builds with viruses (though those are possible),  I’m speaking of builds that for whatever aren’t bit for bit identical to the version Apples is distributing.  To arm against this, run whatever file you download through and MD5 checksum utility.  The authentic checksum for the 3GS version is: b7f4501ef6122da7addab344ae5ba58a.

I found several that did not have this checksum.

I ended up using this link to download the file.  It was in 3 parts, but the assembled version had the correct checksum.

http://forum.megasharesvn.com/showthread.php?s=0f2d2b8d7d3d270c5c29e00408596cc0&p=443827#post443827

Also, the MegaUpload links were the fastest.

He recommends using Split&Concat to assemble the parts.  Since I was not on a Mac, I ended up using a tool called NewzToolz.  Horrible name but it did the job.

Step 3: Find a Mac with the latest version of iTunes.

You might foolishly believe that iTunes has a Windows version and that this version would work, but you would be wrong.  What it will do is brick your phone forcing you to restore back to 3.1.3.  The same thing will happen if you use a version of iTunes other than 9.1.

Once you have said Mac and said updated iTunes,  simply Option + Click the Restore button in iTunes and navigate to the ipsw file you downloaded in step 2.

Step 4: Watch it restore, thanking your lucky stars I wrote this guide so you didn’t have to spend 8 hours tinkering.

Seriously, it took me trial and error all day.  It was annoying.  My friends made fun of me.

First impressions.

My very first impression was that this build is a little laggy.  Not unusable.  Not worse than your typical Windows Mobile phone.  The animations and transitions just aren’t quite as buttery smooth as we’re all accustomed to.

I’ve been told this is par for the course in Apple betas.

Other than that, it’s pretty stable.  I have had a few random bugs that I have never seen in 3.x, but nothing too terrible.  The new features are nice.  Here are a few of my favorites:

1. New spell correction.
   
   It’s undeniably awesome.   Words that have spell correction options have a wavy red line beneath them a la Microsoft Office.
2. Multiple Exchange accounts.  I now have both Gmail and my work e-mail account being pushed.
3. Similar to above, the unified inbox enhances the experience.
4. Google suggest in the search box in Safari.
5. Slightly redesigned album view in iPod app with new shuffle button. (I think it’s new)

Those are the things I like most.  I like the multitasking pane, but I can’t really test background applications as there aren’t any at the moment.  It seems to speed up my multitasking in the ease of switching applications arena, but that’s about it.

Annoyances at this point are mainly the occasional instability, laggy animations,  the fact that AT&T hotspot no longer recognize I’m using an iPhone and pass me through without hitting the login page, etc. Nothing huge.

I haven’t really used the game center yet. No thoughts on it.  Nor have I used iBooks.

Anyway, feel free to ask questions.  I might answer them if I feel nice.

My work laptop is a Lenovo T500 equipped with a fingerprint reader.

When I originally installed Windows 7, I downloaded and installed the drivers for the fingerprint reader from Lenovo’s website.   I didn’t realize at the time I was by passing built in Windows functionality.

Don’t get me wrong, the Lenovo software is very functional…never really had any issues, but I prefer Windows native software 90% of the time.

So this morning I set out to fix this.  I first uninstalled the Lenovo fingerprint reader software.   After a reboot I checked “Biometric Devices” under Control Panel and was disappointed to see a message telling me I didn’t have any compatible fingerprint reader devices.   This made little sense as Device Manager clearly showed my Authentec AES2810 and it was properly categorized as a biometric device.

After searching online, I decided to delete the existing driver and let Windows reinstall it.  Doing so was successful.  After reinstalling, the device was listed in Control Panel as expected.  Enrolling fingers launched custom Authentec software (TrueSuite).  I enrolled a few fingers and locked my screen to test it out.

I ran into one problem. “Fingerprint reader is not enabled for domain accounts on this machine.”

A quick Google search revealed this article.   It’s a simple checkbox in Control Panel.

So it’s all working now.  The native reader is a little snappier than the non-native and just barely more consistent with Windows 7 styling.  Other than that, there is probably no real advantage.  Your mileage may vary, of course.