22 Comments

Good analysis. Thanks. I do wonder if $apple will discover that the user is always not in the US region after activation and hence, disable the functionality?

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Unfortunately many MANY people no longer use X and refuse to. Could updates be posted elsewhere so we can know what’s happening with this important workaround?

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This is impressive. The features are still not working in Czech Republic too. There is a simple hack to run Hearing Test without hassle: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/3130205a8ecc4203818a164316f938ae - just run the Shortcut. Could this work for enabling Aid too?

EDIT: it worked until the last beta, not working anymore.

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author

You can actually launch it directly by navigating to this URL: x-apple-health://HearingAppPlugin.healthplugin/HearingTest

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Yes but won't work ,it just does the test

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Yep, that's correct.

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Awesome!! Really inspiring 🤩

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And also any idea if it’s possible to use an iPhone 16 in airplane mode with WiFi enable?

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Is the Apple Store region required to be changed in the end?

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Hey would you be able to share your script to reboot and enable networking? Im trying to do the same with my iPhone 16 in my DIY faraday cage but when I try to re-enable console logging it manages to get a signal before I can put it back in the cage! Any help very much appreciated :)

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This is pretty cool!

However, I'm a bit confused about the Faraday cage part - as in.

You have a non-cellular iPad (i.e. Wifi only).

This goes inside the Faraday cage - so that it can't see any nearby Wifi SSIDs. The ESP32 that's broadcasting California SSIDs also goes into the Faraday cage as well.

However, you mention a laptop that's connected to the iPad, and gives it internet access. I assume this is *not* inside the Faraday cage? Or do you mean there's an Ethernet cable (or some other hardwired internet connection to the laptop), and that also needs to be blocked from RF signals?

Is there a requirement for the iPad to have internet access in order to activate the hearing aid features? If there isn't - then you could just do this whole setup in a place without any wifi signals, right?

Or if the iPad needs to be blocked from Wifi - but it still needs an internet connection - would giving it a internet connection via a USB-C Ethernet dongle work?

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author

There's a USB-C cable connecting the iPad (in the cage) to the macbook (outside the cage) for 2 reasons:

- Seeing logs to make sure the region has changed - there's a 10-min cache so this tells us if we have to wait a bit

- for providing internet - reverse tethering over usb provides internet that's routed through a US VPN. This is required because there's another IP address based check that the iPad makes to https://gspe1-ssl.ls.apple.com/pep/gcc

>would giving it a internet connection via a USB-C Ethernet dongle work?

It should, but usb cable also gives us logs so we went with that.

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Thanks for the info!

However, with a Faraday cage if you have a cable (e.g. USB-C) coming out of it - does that not let some of the signal out?

E.g. 5Ghz wifi RF has a wavelength of 6cm, so the aperture sizes would need to be tiny (60mm/10 = 6mm hole sizes or less) - and that's assuming no leakage at seams etc.

How were you able to get the USB-C cable out of the Faraday cage, without any leakage?

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came from X - Great documentation of your experiments!

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What software do you use for binaries analysis?

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Is this thing permanent??

Also, really cool project :)

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Great work guys. Very proud of you all. I am sure, one day you would all be successful entrepreneurs solving social problems.

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Great , did you find any simple method so that everyone can do this?

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Seriously impressive

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Nov 13·edited Nov 13

This is incredibly dangerous if you ran the microwave WITHOUT a cup of water inside. When a microwave is run WITHOUT a load on it, it far, far exceeds the radiation safety limits of the device!

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author

Yeah, we did have a glass of water in it

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A faraday bag might also be useful.

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