iPhone 4.1 Lock Screen ByPass

I love the simple bugs in life, you know, the ones that don't require any creativity, the ones that require someone to only notice something odd is going on... Well this is what the latest iOS 4.1 bug is. I've tried it on my phone, and while it doesn't allow someone in to my apps, it does allow someone into my dialer and my contact list (a strict no no). Anyway what you do is this:

1) Turn on the passcode for your iPhone (if it isn't already on)
2) At the passcode screen press the button to make an "Emergency call"
3) Press "***" and then as soon as you press dial, press the lock button on the top of your iPhone.

The result should be your contact list or phone dialer. Yikes.... Here's a good video that I pulled off of YouTube that shows just how it's done....



I'm sort of impressed with how often iOS is hacked, the only real scary hack I've seen is the one in 4.0 exploiting a security hole with a PDF, this allowed essentially any website to hack your phone. Apple came out with a fix for that, but the group with the current 4.1 jailbreak of the phone refused to issue their latest jailbreak for the fix, knowing that Apple was going to issue 4.1 in a few weeks. Their logic was that they didn't see why they should be beta testing for Apple, when iOS 4.1 came out, the jailbreak came out the same day.

I've switched terms I see, to "jailbreak" an iPhone is to release it from the bonds of Apple, phones with a jailbreak installed can install apps from anywhere. This is good and bad. Basically if Apple gave up control of the appstore, there would be no need to jailbreak, but while they have this control, the jailbreakers will continue unlocking phones. To counter this move Apple could "brick" the phones, meaning issuing a command that any phone that isn't carrying a valid copy of iOS be turned into what is probably less useful than a brick, though I would imagine that if they did this, the first person needing to make an emergency call would sue Apple.

Anyway iOS 4.2 is rumored to be out in November, along with it will be an iPad update also.