14 DAY TRIAL // Musclenerd, the iPhone Dev Team’s most Twitter-active member, has made an interesting announcement regarding the tweaked iOS 5.0.1 update from Apple targeting iPhone 4S handsets.
According to a series of tweets signed Musclenerd over the past 10 hours, the latest iOS 5.0.1 IPSW features decrypted ramdisks.
Developers looking to port the iPhone 4S-exclusive Siri to older-generation devices will now be able to do so, legally, as the revised IPSW makes it possible to avoid infringing on Apple’s copyright while extracting the necessary files.
Musclenerd's tweets read:
“Huh...today's 4S 5.0.1 bump (9A406) has wide open main fs”
“(to clarify: wide open for inspection from a Mac/PC...not wide open security wise :) Can get Siri files and such without piracy)”
Answering a question from one of his followers, the hacker specifically said, “it’s the first public 4S ipsw where the main filesystem keys are obtainable (due to non-encrypted ramdisks).”
Siri is a personal assistant application stemming from a company that Apple acquired for a couple hundred million dollars last year.
The service is exclusive to iPhone 4S handsets and, while hackers have been trying various kinds of ports, none seemed to do the job quite well, not to mention that these ports were legally questionable.
For those who aren’t very familiar with its functionality, you can use Siri to make a call, get directions, find a business, schedule reminders and meetings, search the web, check the weather anywhere on the planet, and even ask even blunt questions like “What can you do for me?”
If Siri knows who you are, it can use that information to help you. This info is used for questions like “How do I get home?” or “What good restaurants are near work?”
The assistant also learns about the key people in your life over time, and can then carry out tasks like “text my sister” or “call my dad”, and so on.