Is Apple Blocking Push Notification on Jailbroken iPhones?

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148apps posted up a PR from a developer in the Czech Republic that states:

“When the Push based application such as NotifyMe requests an ID from APNS, the server responds within a second and identifies the device with the unique token. From that point, the connection between APNS and user’s device is successfully established,” said Pavel Serbajlo, PoweryBase’s lead developer. “However, on a unofficially activated device, APNS keeps the application wait forever and does not provide any respond at all, keeping user wait infinitely or time out the connection, if the target application is capable of timing out.”

Last week we mentioned Jailbreak users were having problems with Push, but a lot of you responded that things seemed just fine, or that an updated Jailbreak process fixed it for you.

So that makes us wonder, is Push Notification really not working? And if it's not, is Apple really blocking it, or is it just not set up to recognize some Jailbroken iPhones that weren't activated in the usual way via iTunes?

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.
22 Comments
  • It's working fine for me. I jail broke my 3G and I get push notifications in AIM.
  • For me too, I've jailbroken my iPhone before any push enabled app was available and Beejive and eBuddy are working fine with push.
  • My Jailbroken 3GS gets Push just fine. I think only hacktivated iPhones are having these issues.
  • The difference is hacktivation, not jailbreaking. There's a fair bit of crypto involved in the activation process and the "fixes" so far involve taking certs from other phones. This will only work for so long; eventually people are going to have to be on official carriers and paying official plan rates for Push and YouTube and who knows what they'll cert off in 3.1 or 4.0?
  • I activated mine with an official ATT sim to get push working, later I jailbroke and unlocked and Push works awesome, wouldn't work when I hacktivated before.
  • @Greg: So more a product of the hacktivation process than Apple going "Aha! Hactivated iPhone! Block it! Block it!!!!"?
  • Too bad I don't need it and Push Notifications is such crap anyway. Now eat that Apple. By the way I tried the Pre and with that WebOS and the up and coming Android UIs I would be very scared.
    Time to start working hard on revolutionizing the smart phone industry like the first go...right Jobs?
  • works for me
  • Push works great on my jailbroken 3G. I'd say it's the unofficial carriers that require the hacktivation. Best to activate with a go phone sim and then use ultrasn0w to hacktivate. Perhaps that would work better.
  • Ok, really how can you post about something like jailbreaking without checking the iphone-dev teams blog. It is a known issue, hacktivating a iphone screws up its unique ID that push services use to find your phone.
    Guess what is even more fun if you are not getting the messages chances are someone else with a hacktivated phone IS as the beejive IM forum has jailbreak users complaining about getting messages for other people in other languages.
    Do NOT USE PUSH if you hacktivated!
  • i am having no problems at all with my jb 3g.
  • I don´t understand how this is a story, all this time after 3.0 is out, and specially after people figured how to solve the problem on hacktivated iphones. That chzech guy is just dumb
  • I have a jailbroken 3G on AT&T and Push works for me. However, I did notice a hiccup the other night with AIM. I was in a conversation and switched my 3G off in the middle because I was on my Wifi network. I didn't get any push notifications, so I thought my conversation was over (other person went away). However, 2 hours later I got a push notification which was from a message that was sent 2 hours previously. Not sure if this had to do with switching from 3G to EDGE, or if push doesn't work well with EDGE, or maybe something else???
  • It's the unlocking of the phone, not jailbreaking. So if you arn't on the official iPhone carrier, you won't get the Push Notifications
  • i agree wuth Greg and abtionoj, the post has a bad title and it is it even newsworthy...?
  • I think iSkythe has it right - the title of this article isn't accurate.
    It's the unlocked and activated phones (i.e. ones on t-Mobile) that are/were having PN issues.
  • I have an att iphone 3G (jailbroken & unlocked) and i am using it in Germany with o2. I am using IM+ and i get push messages all the time. Works great.
  • guys just to have a nice summary on this:
    scenario A)
    1) buy net-locked phone (i.e. t-mobile)
    2) activate it officially via itunes
    3) jailbraik & unlock
    4) = push is working fine
    scenario B)
    1) buy net-locked phone (i.e. t-mobile)
    2) jailbraik & unlock
    3) activate already unlocked iPhone via itunes
    4) = push is NOT working?
    so it is about "when" you unlock the phone?
  • iSkythe has it WRONG...i have several friends using SIM cards from networks that dont support the iphone...and guess what?? PUSH NOTIFICATIONS WORK
    Why? Because there are at least TWO methods to make them work
  • i have a 3g and my carrier is tmobile. can someone instruct me on how make it work
  • okay i have a iphone 3g using t-mobile but i dont get aim push notifications at all soo is there anyway that some one can help me?
  • I'm using a Jailbroken iPhone 3GS, running 3.1.2. I am still on the network that originally issued my iPhone. Push seems to have worked fine until a few days ago. Ironically, I recently installed an SBSettings add-on called "Push Notifications SBSettings" and this problem started occurring afterward. Uninstalling the add-on didn't do anything. It seems to have permanently altered the push notifications.
    Any help would be appreciated.