I had to buy a new iPhone OTB 1.1.2 with modem firmware 04.02_13G (week 52) to test a clean update to 1.1.3 . I have used a MacBook, OTB 1.1.2 iPhone, Cingular SIM(no iPhone contract), iTunes 7.6, iNdependence 1.3.2b and lot of enthusiasm!! I have heard about different reports and I wanted to check them out. Indeed it was one smooth upgrade to 1.1.3, thanks to Nate for his decision 😉

As stated, we need to start off with a Jailbroken 1.1.2 / 1.1.1 iPhone. OTB 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 iPhones are just fine for the purpose whereas 1.1.3 OTBs are yet to be seen anywhere in the wild so far. If you have upgraded to 1.1.3 just for the heck of it, follow this guide to downgrade it :

Step 1 : I downgraded from OTB 1.1.2 to 1.1.1 by the regular ‘Option’ key iTunes restore. Just hold the ‘Option key’ (Mac) / ‘Shift key’ (Windows) in iTunes 7.6 and point towards 1.1.1 iPhone firmware. Don’t panic if you see 1015 error, just hit ‘ok’ and follow this simple online Jailbreakme.com procedure.

Step 2 : Now we meet Nate’s conditions for 1.1.3 Jailbreak. Make sure you have the required 1.1.3 ipsw before you proceed. Save yourself some time from upgrading to 1.1.2! Download ‘Windows Jailbreak 1.1.3‘ or ‘Mac Jailbreak 1.1.3‘. Run the exe (Windows) or Run_This (Mac) and make sure you follow the instructions. They are pretty straight forward. Check the snapshot below for clarity! The entire process is pretty snappy 🙂 ( The respective softwares upload a 300 MB 1.1.3 file in this step).

Step 3 : Now is the time for lil’ patience! It is the time to launch installer.app and do a 1.1.3 soft upgrade. You don’t see 1.1.3 Soft Upgrade file? Well, click on sources and then refresh your sources. It should appear under Recent packages. It took a while just to see this file. No wonder many people complained that they couldn’t see the ‘1.1.3 Soft Upgrade’ file. It is quite common. Just install it and enjoy fresh air while iPhone does some major changes in the firmware! It should take less than 10 minutes. It should also reboot once it is done. There you go, you now see the flashy 1.1.3!

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Step 4 : Now, go to installer.app and install ‘1.1.3 soft upgrade cleaner’ available in ‘Recent Packages’ to claim a potential 300 MB (the file iBrickr downloaded to your iPhone saving iTunes some work 😉 . You actually have to uninstall both ‘1.1.3 soft upgrade’ and ‘1.1.3 soft ugrade cleaner’ to really claim your 300 MB back!

Step 5 : Install revised BSD Subsystem 2.0 followed by installation of Term-vt100. Yeah, it is recommended. Now launch Terminal on your iPhone and type the following commands as shown in the image below. var/mobile is changed to var/root in the process thereby minimizing the risk of breaking non-1.1.3 apps.

Step 6 : Now that we are being lil’ too clever so far, lets be clever and prevent the apps from occupying space by adding BossTool. To do that, click on sources and then ‘Edit’ followed by ‘Add’ source http://sleepers.net/iphonerepo . Click ‘Ok’ and click refresh. Now install ‘BossTool’ from utilities under categories in installer.app . Launch the BossTool app and click on ‘Relocate Wallpaper, Ringtones and Apps.’

Step 7 : There you go! You now have the best important tools for your iPhone. To quickly try if it works just fine, install ‘iPhysics’ followed by ‘iPinball’ from games section in installer.app . I am yet to face any issues with 1.1.3 Jailbreak. Also install ‘Dock’ app from System folder for quick launch of apps and to take the best screenshots!

iSteamy.net, iPhysiscs, MobileFinder and the like just work fine. Please report any irregularities in 1.1.3 operation.

Simple FAQs that are worth answering!!

Do screenshots work? Yep they do using ‘Dock’ app. Mak sure you take atleast one picture using your camera before screenshots start showing in the photo roll.

Do custom ringtones work? Well, yeah garageband tones work just fine. There is a 1.1.3 Ringtone fix in Recent Packages (installer.app). You have to use BossTools for it to appear.

Google Maps work as virtual GPS? Interestingly enough, as soon as I got 1.1.3 patched, I launched Google Maps and I saw my exact location without even the active SIM present. Later when I tried, the bottom left corner icon animates and no location is shown. All other features work though!!
Update : Interestingly enough, Locate Me app wrongly reports my location (probably a cache feature) and followed by launching Google Maps, it pinpoints my exact location!! I can live with this (Locate Me + Google Maps). Hence, need not perform the ever complicated baseband upgrade process…

Is 1.1.3 unlock-able yet? Already unlocked iPhones (1.1.1 / 1.1.2) remain unlocked even after upgrading to 1.1.3 ! Cingular / ATT prepaid/postpaid sims are readily activated as always. So no contracts!!

Is there any performance improvements? Yep I should say yes. It is a lot snappier than before!

p.s : These are just my observations. Feel free to discuss any differences 🙂 Watch out for more updates!