Mystery icon-less apps appear

[gordol]

Out of nowhere, three mystery apps showed up on my 3rd gen iPod Touch (iOS 5) today, they had blank white app icons and are not deletable.

Two of them are iOS Diagnostics, and Getting Started. I don't recall the name of the third but it had "App" in the name. The device is currently in the middle of a wipe/reset specifically to wipe the thing clean, to be followed by a restore and reload from my last backup.

Where did these things come from? WiFi was OFF and it hadn't been plugged into iTunes when this happened. Also, when I opened up "getting started", WiFi was on as it connected to my home network.

 

[Massie]

These are built-in iOS system service apps that are normally not viewable on non-jailbroken phones. The jailbreak process reveals them on occasion, most often when installing new packages/updates from Cydia. Usually a simple respring will hide them again; either way it's nothing to worry about security-wise.

 

[gordol]

It is jailbroken, thanks for the info.

BTW, after sitting overnight, it still hadn't deleted ANY data! The spinner was still going and neither the Home nor Sleep/Wake button were responsive on their own, but holding them both down rebooted the iPod. And when it came back up, all of my apps and data were still there. I had used "Erase all content and settings"... so if that failed, how DO I erase all content and settings, for when I eventually replace this device?

 

[BLiNK]

just do a Restore as New when given the option at the end of restoring in iTunes. this will bring it back to stock, no trace of it ever being jailbroken

 

[gordol]

just do a Restore as New when given the option at the end of restoring in iTunes. this will bring it back to stock, no trace of it ever being jailbroken

So the Erase all content and settings on the device itself is useless?

 

[3cit]

So the Erase all content and settings on the device itself is useless?

It's worse than that! That button is actually DANGEROUS on jail broken devices!
Hopefully for you it's just useless!
restore as new with iTunes!

 

[gordol]

It's worse than that! That button is actually DANGEROUS on jail broken devices!
Hopefully for you it's just useless!
restore as new with iTunes!

I appear to have all of my settings and content, but I was scared this morning when it was still spinning on me. Thanks, all.