How to Jailbreak an iPhone
I’ve already jailbroken my iPhone 4 and I’m going to jailbreak my old iPhone 3G while writing this tutorial.
You may have a really big question. Check out my [cref why-jailbreak-an-iphone-4] article.
Latest Information
The key to jailbreaking your phone is having the latest information. While learning about it myself, I ran across a lot of old articles. At sometime in the near future, THIS will be an old article. So the important thing is to get the most up-to-date information. The best site that I found to get the latest jailbreaking software for your phone is using iClarified’s Jailbreak Wizard. The wizard will walk you through how to jailbreak different itirations of iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPods, Apple TV, and iPad for Windows and Mac, and for various iOS firmwares. Check it out to see if you can do yours. I do want to warn you not to get the latest jailbreak. Just because the jailbreak is out there doesn’t mean that the apps and the other software will work with it. It takes a while for developers to catch up. Do your research. Stuff will crash your system.
If your phone is currently running the firmware you want to jailbreak, you’re good to go. Before jailbreaking, I had 3 iPhones. iPhone4 running iOS 4.2.1, iPhone 4 running iOS 4.1, and iPhone 3G running iOS 4.0. At that time, the jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1 was tethered only. That means that every time you reboot you have to be connected to your computer to reboot your phone. That could be a problem if you need to make an emergency phone call. For that I had to [downgrade-an-iphone-4-ios]. If you need to do that, make sure you read my warnings.
Jailbreak Instructions
My specific instructions for my iPhone 3G that was running iOS 4.0 were How to Jailbreak Your iPhone Using JailbreakMe [4.0.0, 4.0.1]. I decided to use JailbreakMe to jailbreak my phone. It’s a well-respected app.
The page for my iPhone 4 that was running iOS 4.1 is How to Jailbreak Your iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 Using Limera1n (Windows). I decided to use Limera1n to jailbreak my phone. It worked very well for me. I will use this same method to jailbreak my daughter’s iPhone 4 when she’s ready. Another good set of instructions that have some better images and information for this same method can be found at MacStories. This article also gives a great list of apps that were known to work or have issues when I wrote this article. I found it very useful.
After jailbreaking the phone, click on the Cydia app. At first launch it might reorganize its files and go back to the Springboard. Open it again, choose Developer Mode: No Filters. Let it check for updates, perform a complete upgrade of all packages.
Conclusion
Unlocking the iPhone is EXTREMELY easy. The hardest part is deciding what Cydia applications to install. See the [my-jailbreak-setup] article to see what applications and themes I’m using.
You may also want to know [cref how-to-unlock-an-iphone]. This is useful if you’re going to sell a phone or want to use it on T-Mobile or another GSM network.
