iPod nano 6 Hacker Denies ‘Jailbreak’ Reports

Developer and hacker James Whelton was able to hack an Apple iPod nano 6G during a trip by plane, enabling the device to boot with modified files, such as the Springboard (application) icons.

“So I won pink 8gb iPod Nano at some awards I was at recently and hacked it on the flight home,” Whelton writes on a barebones site he’s just set up in light of the feat.

“I’ve successfully done a basic springboard hack, figured out how to bypass the cache comparison and uncovered some interesting stuff as whats to come on the iPod Nano,” he explains.

While his springboard hack is declared “simple” by the developer, the bypass of Nano’s cache comparison is something to look at in the future, he believes.

The function in question “compares any modded SB file and reverts it if it doesn’t like it, this opens up the possibility of hacking and modding, while not adding bootloaders or any of that fun stuff,” he writes.

This apparently led to the impression that Whelton had achieved what is known as a “jailbreak,” yet the hacker clarifies in a later post that, in order to have a jailbroken device, you need root access.

“Just a quick post before I gotto bed, the iPod Nano hasn’t been ‘jailbroken’ as some sites claim,” he writes.

“I do not have root access over the device. I did not ‘install’ an app. I figured out how to remove them and insert a blank space into the springboard,” Whelton explains.

He further elaborates, noting that he figured out a way to make the iPod boot with modified files, by simply bypassing the procedure it takes to stop this.

“I hope this will allow us to figure out a way to jailbreak it,” he stresses. “I am primarily focusing on exposing some of the (for now) hidden features of the device,” Whelton concludes, adding that jailbreak fans shouldn’t get their hopes up for now.

Also worth noting is that, in accessing the Springboard Plist file, Whelton also discovered that the device’s other Plist files reference support for movies, TV shows, Apps, Games, vCards, and iCal events.