SwitchBoard.app

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Revision as of 03:37, 1 November 2014 by Morpheus (talk | contribs) (explaining so called"prototypes")
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SwitchBoard.app is one of Apple's internal utilities. It's a simple launcher of other developer utilities. It's usually located in /AppleInternal/Applications folder along the other internal applications. Currently, there is no SwitchBoard binary available for public.

SwitchBoard and diagnostic utilities are copied onto the device during restore from special firmware bundles which are seeded only to Apple official service centers. It may be installed onto devices through PurpleRestore. Switchboard and its internal utilities are, in fact, present on all i-Devices during manufacturing - The utilities run extensive tests on the devices, including sensors, thermal measurements and more - and only when all tests pass do the devices go through a final stage, involving formatting and installing the production image of iOS on them. This was made evident by a wave of alleged "prototypes" to have hit eBay during the fall of 2014. The "prototypes" in question were various iPhone 6 devices that, for one reason or another, did not get formatted fully, and thus remained with a full image of switchboard, root access (via drop bear running on the device's USB interface), and a full suite of debug utilities.

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