Four Island

There's been a lot of talk, today, about this thing called a "semi-tether" for iOS 5. What the heck does that mean? Well, if you're jailbroken, you probably know about the two types of jailbreak: tethered and untethered. Untethered is the awesome-acid-trip jailbreak, and tethered means that you have to connect your iPhone to your computer and jailbreak it every time you turn it on. Now, this isn't a huge problem because, really, how often do you ever turn your phone off? The problem lies in the answer to that question: "I don't---it only turns off when I run out of batteries or it crashes." When your phone has an emergency and decides to turn off, chances are that you aren't going to be near your computer, and chances are you won't be able to boot tethered. That's why an untethered jailbreak is awesome.

"Starla," you may be wondering, especially if this is the first time you've read this blog and are seriously considering deleting your history after visiting it, "What are you getting at?" Well, it turns out that I was actually wrong about something. Gasp, I know. So, if you have a tethered jailbroken phone on iOS 5, especially if I was the one who jailbroke your phone, keep reading. Actually, you know what, everyone just keep reading. You heard me.

Now, apparently I thought this was a far less serious problem than everyone else did. I mean, so, your phone unexpectedly turns off due to a crash and you have to boot without a jailbreak. It's annoying, and you can't use Safari or Mail for some reason, but your phone still works, right? It turns out I've been horribly misguided. This morning, when I was reading about this new "semi-tether" thing, I got very excited because I thought it might be a step closer to an untethered jailbreak. However, as I read the article, it seemed to me that the semi-tether didn't offer anything I didn't already have: it claims to allow you to boot your phone in an unjailbroken state if you have an emergency reboot and can't boot tethered, with the caveat that Safari and Mail don't work. Um... doesn't it already do that? Turns out, no, it doesn't. When I got home and was near my computer, I decided to try this out and rebooted my phone, expecting my lock screen to appear and to be able to writing a post for my blog laughing at the silly semi-tether people. Nope---stuck at the Apple boot logo. This utterly surprised me because I swear to God, just a few weeks ago, when I was on iOS 5 beta 7, my phone accidentally rebooted while I was out and it booted fine---just Safari, Mail and my Cydia apps didn't work. I'm not sure what changed, but it's certainly not a pleasant change.

So, if you're on a tethered jailbreak, especially if I coerced you into tethered jailbreaking your CDMA iPhone 4 around 6pm last night by telling you that you could always just boot unjailbroken if your device shut down for any reason (I apologize! I was actually wrong for once!), this semi-tether might be something to look into. It's a package on Cydia, which means all you have to do is add a new repository, download the app, and then reboot the phone. I'll walk you, the imaginary reader, through the necessary steps:

1. Open up Cydia. Tap the "Manage" button at the botton and then tap the "Sources" button in the middle. Tap the "Edit" button that appears in the top-right corner and then press the "Add" button in the top-left corner.
2. A dialog will pop up. Enter "http://thebigboss.org/semitether" into the textbox and then click "Add Source".
3. Cydia will reload its sources. When it's done, tap the "Search" button at the bottom and then search for "SemiTether".
4. Install the "SemiTether" package.
5. After installing, it will ask you to reboot your device. Do so without booting tethered. Your phone should boot successfully (albeit taking longer than it normally does) into an unjailbroken state with Safari and Mail not working.
6. If all is well, then connect your device to your computer and boot it tethered with redsn0w.

There you go! From now on, if your device crashes while you're on the go, rebooting it won't trap you at the Apple boot logo. Hopefully the real untethered jailbreak comes out soon because this tethered jailbreak, even if it is semi-tethered, is really annoying. The semi-tether has a lot of caveats too, such as an increased boot time (by like a minute and a half apparently) and it apparently doesn't work for everyone and may conflict with some Cydia apps you have installed. I suggest that, if a jailbroken device isn't necessary for you (like it is for me---I seriously need my Scrobbl :P), you might want to consider unjailbreaking your device, at least until the untethered jailbreak is released. If you ever want to unjailbreak your device, it's very easy---it just takes some time. All you need to do is connect your device to your computer, open iTunes, click on your device and then click the "Restore" button. It'll backup your device and reinstall the operating system, thus removing your jailbreak. This is just a suggestion: it's perfectly acceptable to keep your device in a tethered jailbreak. It really depends on your needs.

So, in the end, what did we learn today? Three things, I'd say: one, that things are definitely subject to change whenever changing is most likely to screw me over; two, that my posting rate is still so infrequent that my Physics classmates are actually telling me about it (well, you know what? Your mother.); and three, that I use far too many dashes when writing. Seriously, count them. Then, solve for the tension of the rope pulling the box up the hill. You heard me.