I have had my iPhone since the product was first released.  I have really enjoyed it, and I have always been interested in the updates Apple brings.  I have also played around with the “Jailbreaking” process, which allows you to apply 3rd party applications and modifications to the iPhone.

For a while now, Apple has been secretly working on the iPhone 2.0 software.  Not secretly in the sense that nobody knows, but secretly in the sense that there is no real detail about it, short of some screenshots.

Tonight, I did a search online for iPhone 2.0 beta.  For the first time, there was a copy of the new beta firmware out. “SWEET”, I thought.  I downloaded the file.

I plugged my iPhone into my laptop, iTunes launched, and I was ready to roll.  I option-clicked the “update” button in iTunes, which allowed me to specify which firmware file I used, and I selected this beta.  It went through the full process, and rebooted.  That was as far as it got, it wouldn’t activate!  Ugh.

I decided to attempt a no-no.  I tried to use the Jailbreak application “ZiPhoneOSX” to activate my phone, and things got worse from there.  It was a no-no, as the ZiPhone app doesn’t yet support the iPhone 2.0 software.  Needless to say, it got stuck in a reboot cycle.  No matter how many times I force reset it, or turned it off and on, it was hosed.  It would no longer detect in iTunes, so I couldn’t do a restore.  I started searching on Google, and found a few others stuck in the reboot loop (although they wouldn’t admit attempts at hacking the phone).  Unfortunately, there was no documented solution I could find.

I then stumbled on something.  If I held the “Home” button on the phone down during the reboot long enough, it would eventually come to the screen where it shows the end of the dock cable.  It then showed up in iTunes, and I could choose “Restore”.  I did so, and then let it work through the restore of the normal firmware.  In the end, it would error out, but I had a feeling that the 1.1.4 firmware was back on the phone.  I decided to re-open the ZiPhoneOSX app and choose “refurbish”, which puts the iPhone back to its original state.

After the phone rebooted, iTunes detected it again, and I was able to restore from backup, and the phone is now back in service. Whew, I didn’t permanently kill my $500 phone.

All that to say, be careful when messing with your iPhone.