How to SSH into your iPod touch on a Mac

Normally we’d install AFPd and simply mount our iPod touch on our Desktop to manipulate its content as if it’s a flash drive. Unfortunately AFPd version 0.2 is not compatible with firmware 1.1.3. A newer version 0.3 that is supposingly 1.1.3 aware is out, but it needs more work as I can’t get it to work on my iPod touch at all.

So here’s how manipulate the content of your iPod touch using sFTP.

First, you need to install the OpenSSH package by Ste into your iPod touch if you haven’t already done so. It’s available in the Installer, under the “System” category.

Next, download and install the Cyberduck (it’s open source) FTP client, unless you already have a FTP client that supports the sFTP (not just FTP) protocol.

Launch Cyberduck and click on “Open Connection”, and fill in the table as shown below:

Select SFTP as the protocol.

Replace the

Downgrade Mac OS X iTunes 7.6 to 7.5

Feb 8, 2006 Update: This post is obsolete. Read the new revised post instead.

You probably know it’s not possible (as of writing) to jailbreak to firmware 1.1.3 unless you have a jailbroken iPod touch running firmware 1.1.2. Unfortunately to jailbreak to 1.1.2 in the first place, you need iTunes 7.5. If you try to use iTunes 7.6, your iPod touch will be stuck at the Recovery Mode endlessly after you ran the jailbreak.jar. Tsk tsk.

iPod touch icons for Mac OS X

I made these iPod touch icons for use in Mac OS X Leopard. They are giagantic 512×512 pixels icons that look great in Finder’s Cover Flow view, and are backwards compatible with Tiger. There are 21 icons in this set.

The iPod touch no longer looks like a generic drive when mounted on the Desktop!

Download the .zip file here. (Alt source).

Here’s the instructions on how to change icons.

iPhone 1.1.3 Update…

The buzz this morning is that the iPhone 1.1.3 update will give jailbroken ones a hard time… blablabla. It goes without saying the same will probably applies to our iPod touch. Then it hits me; what if I can’t get hold of the current version 1.1.2 firmware anymore? That would be disasterous if I accidentally upgraded my iPod touch to 1.1.3 and can’t downgrade back to 1.1.2!

A quick check and thank goodness a copy of the 1.1.2 firmware file is found residing in my harddisk. I’m pretty sure it’ll get erased once a newer version is available.

So I back it up to another location for safe keep. You probably should too.

~/Library/iTunes/iPod Software Updates/iPod1,1_1.1.2_3B48b_Restore.ipsw

I’m so smart ….

(Don’t ask; I have no idea where to look for a copy in Windows.)

Mount and use your iPod touch as a Thumb Drive!

Feb 22, 2008 Update — AFPd is no longer available via the STE repository. You can, however, download it from the author’s site.

Listen, this guide is for Mac OS X users only. As of now, there’s no easy way to mount the iPod touch as if it’s a thumb drive in other operating system such as Windows. Mac users… read on!

You’ll need a jailbroken iPod touch, and a little app called “AFPd” by Prof. James F. O’Brien of UC, Berkeley. The app can be found in the Installer, under the “Network” category via the STE source (http://psmxy.org/iphone/). The “BSD Subsystem” package is mandatory and you’ll have to install it first if you have not already done so previously.