Back from the archives: How to jailbreak

Back from the archives is a weekly post where we look back from our old work and repost it without modifying any of the contents. We have no guarantee that this information will work (or is valid) today, but enjoying reading just for the fun of it. This blog post was from July 26, 2009. Read the contents after the jump.

Via ismashphone.com, iphonefreak.com, Apple’s SLAs

That was quick. GV Mobile, one of the Google Voice apps removed two days ago by Apple per the request of AT&T, is now on the Cydia Store free of charge. Even more interesting, Sean Kovacs said that he was working on a web app version, which would then be for use by all iPhone and iPod touch customers, not just jailbreakers. Certainly this might interest people to go ahead and jailbreak their iPhones and iPods just for this features. This guide is intended for beginners and features a step by step guide on how to jailbreak iPhone 3.0.1 and iPod touch 3.0 on Windows. and Mac OSX. If you do not have iPhone OS 3.0, this guide will also show you how to get it for free. You will need a iPhone or iPod touch, iTunes, and redsn0w (ultrasn0w for iPhone 3GS). The entire jail breaking process will take about 15 minutes to 1 hour to finish.

Did you know that Apple says that it’s illegal to jailbreak? Read this to find out:

1. General The software (including Boot ROM code and other embedded software), documentation and any fonts that came with your iPod touch, as may be updated or replaced by software updates or system restore software provided by Apple, whether in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “iPod touch Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License, and Apple reserves all rights not expressly granted to you. The rights granted herein are limited to Apple’s intellectual property rights in the iPod touch Software and do not include any other patents or intellectual property rights. You own the media on which the iPod touch Software is recorded but Apple and/or Apple’s licensor(s) retain ownership of the iPod touch Software itself.

2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions
(a) This License allows you to use the iPod touch Software on a single Apple-labeled iPod touch. This License does not allow the iPod touch Software to exist on more than one Apple-labeled iPod touch at a time, and you may not distribute or make the iPod touch Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple devices at the same time. This License does not grant you any rights to use Apple proprietary interfaces and other intellectual property in the design, development, manufacture, licensing or distribution of third party devices and accessories for use with the iPod touch. Some of those rights are available under a separate license from Apple.

(b) With respect to updates to the iPod touch Software and system restore software that Apple may make available for download (“iPod touch Software Updates”), this License allows you to download the iPod touch Software Updates to update or restore the software on any iPod touch that you own or control. This License does not allow you to update or restore iPod touchs that you do not control or own, and you may not distribute or make the iPod touch Software Updates available over a network where it could be used by multiple devices or multiple computers at the same time. You may make one copy of the iPod touch Software Updates stored on your computer in machine-readable form for backup purposes only, provided that the backup copy must include all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original.

(c) Except as and only to the extent permitted by applicable law, or by licensing terms governing use of open-sourced components included with the iPod touch Software, you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive the source code of, decrypt, modify, or create derivative works of the iPod touch Software, iPod touch Software Updates, or any part thereof. Any attempt to do so is a violation of the rights of Apple and its licensors of the iPod touch Software and iPod touch Software Updates. If you breach this restriction, you may be subject to prosecution and damages.

First, you might ask yourself: “Why am I even doing this?”

Jail breaking provides much more customization that a regular iPhone does out of the box. Also, some apps that might not be on the app store, or pulled like GV Mobile, are on the Cydia Store, which is included with every jailbreak. Finally, iPod touch users can and the phone.app, sms.app, and other applications which are included with every iPhone, but not iPods. There’s even a list of reasons on iphonefreak.com. The list is shown below.

1. Kate: This app offers a collection of tools that include Phone Extras, SMS Extras, EQ, Smart Dialer, FaceLife, uCalendar, Reminder, System Font and Privacy. While each of these offers a special set of features, I use Kate for just a few.

SmartDialer includes a setting to have both a vibration and tone feedback on the numeric keypad.
SystemFont to change the font on the overall iPhone.
uCalendar which adds a calendar (or list of pending events) on your iPhones lock screen.
Privacy which has a few key items, but for me the most important is the ability to surpress your SMS popups. Now, when I receive a text message the little red counter will increase, but I do not get that annoying popup that I have to react to.

Additionally, this one is found in Installer.app, however the rest of the apps that I will mention can all be found in Cydia. Unfortunately, this one is not free, it costs either $20.00 for 6-months, $35 for 12-months or $45 for the life of your iPhone.

2. BossPrefs: Again, this is an app that deals with settings and offers a few features that Apple does not allow by default. When you first launch the app you are presented with several on/off toggle switches that allow you to quickly and easily turn features on or off. Items such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode and even email accounts can be switched off (or back on) as easily as two steps — one to launch Boss Prefs and the second to toggle the switch.

Boss Prefs also allows you to hide icons from the display. Now apps that are on by default such as Stocks, Weather, YouTube and Notes can all be hidden from view. You can also make some adjustments to items such as the battery indicator, instead of just having the standard indicator, you can switch it to a numeric indicator. You can also do things like disable the dreaded “killswitch.”

3. Reminder (Notifier): This app gives you a few notification items which all appear in the menu bar at the top of your iPhone. You can have a message (which is in the top right corner next to the Bluetooth unlockyour iPhone. and Battery Indicator) to alert you of a missed call, voicemail, email or text message. These are nice and what I consider helpful because you can see them with the lock screen, so you can see what you have waiting even before you

4. iPhoneModem: I will start by saying this is not a free app, it will cost you $9.99, however there is an option to try before you buy. That said, it is a great app. iPhoneModem allows you to tether and share (just like NetShare) your iPhones connection with your laptop. Of course, I would not suggest abusing this or you may risk violating your terms of service.

Finally, rounding out my top 5 is a recently updated app the provides turn-by-turn directions;

5. xGPS: What can be said here, this is the app that plenty of people have been waiting for. It finally brings audible turn-by-turn directions to the iPhone. Best of all, the app is free to download and use.

And just because there are so many good reasons to jailbreak, here are are two honorable mentions;

6. Make it Mine: This is nothing special, really just for fun, this app allows you to create a custom carrier name and get rid of the standard AT&T.

7. Qik: This app offers the ability to stream live video using your iPhone. Granted the quality is not always the best, but at the same time the streamed video is also saved online and can be fun when catching spontaneous moments from time to time.

Tempted? Keep on reading to see how to jailbreak! If not, but you still want GV Mobile and greater customization, look here for more! Another guide by ismashphone.com guide includes how to tether you iPhone’s internet connection to your PC or Mac, sync with more than one PC, turn off the accelerometer, have emoticons in notes, and more. Some tricks will require jail breaking, which will having you referring to here from time to time. View article here.

First, open iTunes and sync your iPhone with your PC on last time. You still want all your media, contacts, and notes even if your iPhone fails to work while jail breaking. Also note that you cannot freely updates firmwares as soon as they are released, or you might losing your jailbreak forever. After you have done this, download an extra copy of the iPhone OS 3.0 firmware for your device onto your desktop. Links below lead to downloads of the firmware.

iPhone 2G: Download here

iPhone 3G: Download here

iPhone 3GS: Download here

iPod touch 1G: Download here

iPod touch 2G: Download here

You also will need redsn0w 0.8 and iTunes 8.2.1. Get them by clicking on their links. For Mac users, iTunes is already included in your OS. Download redsn0w for Mac and PC below.

redsn0w 0.8 for Windows: Download here
redsn0w 0.8 for Mac OSX: Download here

Now that you have the firmware saved, it is time to restore it to your device. Current iPhone 3.0 users can skip this process, since you already have it on your device. This process only ensures you have iPhone OS 3.0 up and running on your device. To restore the .ipsw file to your device, you need to connect your device to your PC, and press the ‘Restore’ button while holding the shift key. Now navigate to where you saved it, and select it. See the following picture below for more information.

If you have ever restored your device before, this process is familiar because you are essentially repeating the steps. I recommend that you sync your device before continuing because this will erase all data on your iPhone or iPod. After you have restored, make sure that you have downloaded redsn0w 0.8. To download and extract redsn0w from the official source linked above, you will need BitTorrent and a extraction utility. If you don’t have anything to extract the file with, you can use 7zip, both of which have download links listed below.

BitTorrent: Download here

7zip:Download here

If you need more instructions on how to use BitTorrent, view the how-to here. Note this guide has already given you the official client download (see above) and the torrent to download (redsn0w), so just start reading from step 3. Look for redsn0w installation and open it. From this point, just follow what the installation says.

When it opens, click browse and navigate towards the .ipsw file.

Note that these pictures are for redsn0w 0.7, however it’s almost identical to 0.8. Make sure that you have installed iPhone OS 3.0 before continuing! On the next screen, make sure you install Cydia by checking the icon next to it. In redsn0w 0.8, you have a choice for Icy, a lightweight alternative to Cydia. Pick one, the other, or both.

Now connect your iPhone or iPod touch running iPhone OS 3.0 off and connect it to the computer. Naturally it will turn on, and when it does, go ahead and turn it off again.

Timing is everything here, make sure you count while your holding the button, otherwise click back and do it over. Then, jail breaking has began.

When it says done, your done.

After this, go ahead and open Cydia, install whatever you want, or look at the ‘top 5′ list above! You are now done jail breaking! In case, however, it does not finish, or redsn0w is taking an abnormal amount of time, go ahead and turn on your device and do it over.

Now, go ahead under Cydia and look for GV Mobile, if that’s what you did it for. After you installed it, go ahead and use it, provided you have a Google Voice account.

If your iPhone or iPod is not under warranty and it won’t get past booting, look at the following excerpt from ismashphone.com:

You’ve probably been in a situation in which your iPhone seems dead (white apple logo on a black boot up screen).

You may ask yourself: “Huh? What did I do?” Try to trace your steps:

a) Have you installed any new applications?

b) Did you do a hard reset while your iPhone seemed frozen?

There’s nothing you can do about some app crashing your iPhone. But you gotta stay away from hard resets, do them only after you’re 100% sure that your Phone is not responding.

You probably tried this method (getting the device in recovery mode) and still cannot connect to iTunes. If all failed, follow the following steps:

1. Turn off your iPhone. You may need to do a hard reset: (hold Home and Sleep buttons until the screen turns off).

2. Connect USB cable to your iPhone and open iTunes

3. Now, this is the most difficult part of the process.

You need to get your iPhone into DFU (Device Firmware Update)

Timing is everything, so make sure you have a timer.

a) Hold Home and Sleep Buttons for 10 seconds

b) After 10 seconds release Sleep Button

c) Continue Holding Home Button for 10 more seconds

If you performed the steps above correctly you will see this message in iTunes:

If not, repeat the steps above again – timing is everything.

4. During the next steps, iTunes will restore the original firmware to your iPhone:

After the process, your iPhone gets restored but remains blank/empty.

5. After the restoration process, the iPhone reboots. If you are still connected to iTunes, you will have an option to restore your iPhone from the back-up.

Note: If you have been stopping backup during the iPhone sync process and have never completed your backup in full, shame on you. You will not be able to restore from backup unless you have completed a full backup in the past.

Select your option of choice and click continue.

If you selected the backup option, you will see a backup progress bar.

Note: The backup process will move at a steady pace until the last 5-10% (see screenshot above). After that, the progress bar will not move for a long period of time (1- 3 hrs). Do not stop the restore process. Everything is fine, it just takes a long time. FYI – it took us 2.5 hours for the restore process to complete.

6. After the restoration process completes, iTunes will give you a prompt and the iPhone will reboot.

7. After that, you will need to sync your iPhone. If your iTunes is configured to start sync automatically, you don’t need to do anything.

We hope this iPhone restoration process via DFU mode worked for you. Make sure to give yourself ample time, since it may take you up to 3 hours.

Back from the archives: How to jailbreak

About Sina Hamedian

Subscribe via Email

Back from the archives: How to jailbreak

About Sina Hamedian

Subscribe via Email

Tags