Control Option Command

I love my (1.gen thoroughly hax0red) iPhone and one of the nice things I discovered a while ago (I can’t remember if this is a firmware 2.0 only trick so I can’t say exactly when) is this little trick. When you’re typing a URL in Safari you can hold down the .com key and get a few more choices (.org, .net, .edu), I thought that was pretty cool and attributed the strange choice of “.edu” over say “.co.uk” to a US-centric perspective from the developers.

Before firmware 2.0 I had the dictionary on my phone turned off because it just interfered with my typing, but now that switching between English and Norwegian dictionaries is just a tap away I’ve really come to like it. I was also pleased to see that when I activated the Norwegian keyboard “.no” was now added to the list of domains, and baffled to see that “.net” had been removed while “.edu” was stil there…

Seriously. I can’t remember once typing a .edu URL into a browser. Seeing that I’m on my “Fix everything that bothers me” crusade nowadays I traced down the offending .plist on the phone and fix0red it good. Here’s a two-step guide to get this fixed. You will of course need a Jailbroken iPhone you can SSH into. If that means nothing to you you’ll have to go do some searches on “JailBreak iPhone” and “PwnageTool” first. Come back when you’re ready.

SSH into your iPhone and navigate to

System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework

Find the file corresponding to your language. Norwegian would be “Keyboard-nb.plist” (Norsk Bokmål. Hence the “nb” instead of “no” folks).

Open this file in a plist-editor, such as “Property List Editor” which you’ll have if you installed the developer tools with OS X. If not just google it and get an app that’ll do the job. Scroll to the line that says UI-TopLevelDomain and expand it. You’ll have to change the values in two places as pictured below.

That’s it. Save the file, reboot Safari (just hold the Home button for a while) and you’ve banished that pesky .edu, or whatever you set out to do.