For a variety of reasons, should you need to restore your iPhone, you may not always want to use the most recent version of the iPhone firmware. We've found a good deal of instruction out there that suggests complicated (and likely ineffective) ways of doing this which usually involve disconnecting your PC from the internet during the early stages of the restore process.
Thankfully, there's a much easier, and effective way to restore your iPhone with a particular firmware version of your choosing.
On Windows:
Hold the SHIFT key while clicking the "Update" or "Restore" button in the iPhone tab in iTunes
On Mac:
Hold the option key while clicking the "Update" or "Restore" button in the iPhone tab in iTunes
Subsequently, a dialog box will come up which will allow you to select the firmware file to use for your update. At this point, simply browse to and select the firmware file that corresponds to the version you'd like to restore your iPhone with.
Firmware files have an .ipsw extension and can be found at the following locations:
On Windows:
Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates
On Mac:
~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates
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Did not work for me.... gave me an error and this is what was in the log.... it appears that it checks the hardware version id...
[libusbrestore: 0x1A50, 17:45:16.562] =>: operation 3 progress -1: operation 4 progress -1
[libusbrestore: 0x1A50, 17:45:16.578] =>
[libusbrestore: 0x1A50, 17:45:16.578] => Unsupported device in recovery mode: product id: 0x1280 release number: 0x1102
[libusbrestore: 0x1A50, 17:45:16.578] => No suitable device tree found
If you are trying to roll back from 1.1.1, that's not possible. However, if you have 1.0.2 or lower, this works just fine....at least for me.
im looking for this kind of solution..and all works fine for me great help..keep it up
now i restore my iphone to 1.01
Apple indirectly promoted the SIM unlocking program, anySim, that caused thousands of iPhones to not work after their new update and should be held responsible for replacing or reprogramming useless phones.
Apple.com promotes the use of third party applications at MacUpdate website:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/news/macupdatewidget.html
MacUpdate.com offers the iPhone unlocking program AnySim 1.0 for download.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/25818
Since Apple.com refers it's customers to this other website that offers anySim, couldn't people hold Apple responsible for the bricking/disabling/renderingUseless, etc... of our iPhones?
Apple.com recommends MacUpate.com as a source of third party applications for it's products. Someone with more time than me needs to look into holding Apple accountable for the damage they caused to thousands of iPhones. This link between Apple and anySim should be more than enough...
(I have screen shots and links to Google's cache of these links if Apple tries to cover this up)