Here’s how to stop this automated process, courtesy of ZeroLogic.

- Quit iTunes.
- Open Terminal.app
- Copy and paste this in, then hit return:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true

Changing ‘true’ to ‘false’ will enable the backup process again, if needed.

3G

How to Jailbreak and activate - Mac

How to Jailbreak and activate - Windows

2G

How to Jailbreak, activate and unlock - Mac

How to Jailbreak, activate and unlock - Windows

Things to note: These guides are for software version 2.0. Guides for version 1.1.4 can be found on the site but you’ll have to look.

If you’re planning on using your phone on it’s original / allowed network after hacking - such as a Pay as you go user on O2 - then make sure you activate through iTunes, otherwise you may find you have No service and end up having to Restore and start again.

Have fun! And remember there’s no easy way of bricking an iPhone, so if it all goes wrong, just restore.

When it came in the post I, like any other geek was very excited. I don’t know why but I was expecting something great when it came to the box - I was disappointed to find out it’s just an iPhone box with ‘3G’ on it.

At first, and still to this day, I think the phone feels lighter and slimmer in your hand. The curved back is a really nice touch and makes the phone look very professional - however I’m still not sure it’s actually any better than the previous iPhone, I’ll talk about that below. Having owned an iPod Touch for a very short time I can say it feels very similar to the Touch. The thin feeling of the device is what gives it that illusion I think. The lighter feel is all an illusion though I’m sure as it’s actually only 2g lighter. The metal volume/power buttons are a nice touch.

Unfortunately the 2.0 software isn’t great. The new features are wonderful -  and the SDK/App Store brings endless exciting opportunities but 2.0 is very sluggish at times and sometimes struggles to do the most simplest of things. 1.1.4 had an interface that felt very instant, and it’s something I’ve got used to. Unfortunately, unlike the first iPhone, you can’t just downgrade to 1.1.4 and wait until 2.1. You’re stuck with 2.0. Seriously Apple; you need to fix this.

Battery life isn’t great. Apple has really annoyed me with this - they claim on their website an extra 50 hours standby time - that’s bollocks. I felt with my first iPhone it only used battery when I was actually using it - and it didn’t use anything in standby. The 3G uses battery like no tomorrow. I used to get up to around 4 days standby & 10 hours or so actual phone usage. I get 1 day standby and 2 hours usage if I’m lucky with the 3G.

You know how when you buy a new laptop, your old laptop feels obsolete and a thing of a past. With the iPhone 3G I really don’t get that feeling. If someone said to me “Hey Jack, if I give you all your money back and say you have to use your iPhone 2G from now on” I’d have to seriously think about it. GPS, faster data transfer & a nicer design really doesn’t match having acceptable battery life.

Here’s a how to to get you going. These are instructions for a Mac running OS X Leopard. It should work fine with Tiger and maybe even older OSs.

Turn on bluetooth and choose to setup a new bluetooth device. When you’re done make sure you add you’re Laptop as an ‘authorised’ device or something similar on your phone. This isn’t essential but just makes things simpler.

Select your device in the Bluetooth window (system preferences) and select the configure menu (next to add and remove) and select edit serial ports. Select Dial Up Networking and choose to add to network connections. Hit apply.

Go to network preferences and you’ll see the new connection device. Enter your username and password. For example O2 is o2wap and password. Click advanced and then choose your phone’s model and then GPRS. Enter the APN for example O2 is wap.o2.co.uk.

Go to the proxies tab and enter 193.113.200.195 for HTTP and 8080 for the port. You can do the same for HTTPS. Click Ok.

Hit connect and you should see the bluetooth icon light up (or something similar) and then the GPRS do the same thing. (EDGE in some cases).

Enjoy browsing!