Jailbroke my touch

The 1.1.2 firmware version for iPod touch just came out, but no significant updates (unless you count the possibility to add calendar events to your calendar). There should be a number of bugfixes, but I couldn't find anything really worth the upgrade. Oh, and since 1.1.2 AFAIK is not possible to hack unless you downgrade to 1.1.1 first you miss out on a ton of stuff.

So I decided to hack (AKA jailbreaking in iPhone/iPod touch lingo) my touch and go to 1.1.2 if the hack failed. It was a pretty simple process:

• Start the Safari browser
• Navigate to jailbreakme.com
• Follow the link to jailbreak the touch (this exploits a buffer overflow bug in the TIFF viewer)
  

Done. After that I had a new application on my start screen: Installer. With this I could now go on and install a bunch of other applications for the touch. First I added a fix for adding calendar events which got me on par with 1.1.2 functionality wise. I then went on to install:

• Mines, a version of the traditional Windows game Minesweeper
  
• Lights off, new puzzle game I haven't tried before
  
• Labyrinth, which works by tilting the touch - really cool
• MusicQuiz, the old iPod game
• Summerboard, a replacement for Springboard (the launcher application that handles the home screen), with support for themes - and a couple of themes as well
  
• MobileCast, supports podcast downloading over wifi without synching

Next I wanted a couple of the original iPhone applications. First you need to find a friend with the iPhone binaries. The install process was then somewhat trickier but still pretty straightforward:

• Install BSD utils, OpenSSH and Services (which allows you to turn on and off OpenSSH) on the touch (using the now familiar Installer app)
• Download and install WinSCP on your windows machine
• Connect your touch to WiFi, check its IP address in Settings
  
• Start WinSCP and connect to your Touch
• Transfer the applications you want and set execute flag (I couldn't do this for an entire directory, needed to select the specific application binary in the .app directory instead)

Done.

I now have an iPod touch with a couple of nice extra applications. Nothing essential, but good fun.

I'm still wondering what kind of bugs the 1.1.2 firmware fixed though - I still don't like the fact that playing music and browsing large web pages does not work in 1.1.1.