2.1) What Does Jailbreaking Mean?

Jailbreaking, or “hacking” is giving a user read/write access to otherwise locked OS files on your iPhone.

It gives you access to app stores like Cydia that offer programs that you won’t see in Apple’s popular counterpart. It’ll even give you the ability to customize the background of your home screen and change the look of your icons and menu colors.

Starting in early fall after the summer 2007 release of the original iPhone, jailbreaking began as a fairly complicated multi-step process. Things have definitely evolved over the last few years and the online jailbreaking community for iPhones is estimated in the millions (if you’re reading this article on this site, that number shouldn’t surprise you) with hundreds of blogs and forums scattered throughout the web dedicated to this crazy thing called jailbreaking.

Cydia creator Jay Freeman estimates that more than 10% of all iPhones are jailbroken.

2.2) What Are the Benefits of Jailbreaking?

Lacking in able to customize how your iPhone looks compare to the other millions of other iPhone is sure a big issue for most people. Apps like Winterboard from Cydia that allow me to customize my home screen, change the look of my lock screen, and change the overall theme of my iPhone. I can make my iPhone look completely different than the way it does when you open the box for the first time. So much to the point where people will ask me what kind of phone I’ve got when it’s in an unmarked silicon case.

iOS weakness in notification can also be tweak well by apps such as notifyme.

Some might also argue that the lockscreen is way to plain and is a waste of space, hence lockinfo came into help.

All these are the few benefits or Jailbreaking.

2.3) What Are the Risks of Jailbreaking?

Now, although jailbreaking has become increasingly easier, there are still very complicated risks that go with it.

An underground group of programmers known as the Dev Team, for the most part, spearheads all this jailbreak technology without Apple’s permission.

Every time they find a way in, Apple comes along and puts another barricade up with a software update that closes the entrance they had. Then they have to find another way in. It's a cat and mouse game.

Several times during jailbreaks, mine would be stuck in phone purgatory for hours. Take just a few moments to browse any iPhone forum with jailbreaking topics and you’re sure to find several comments along the lines of “help! I tried to jailbreak my iPhone and now it’s been stuck on the Apple logo for hours, help!”

So things definitely can go wrong, but generally it’s user error.

So what can you do if you face such a problem? Please read the spoiler as below:



2.4) Is Jailbreaking Legal?

Yes it is. Under the DMCA of 2010, jailbreaking is legal in the United States, although it voids Apple's device warranty. It is also legal in many other countries including those of the EU.


2.5) What to Keep in Mind?

But the cat and mouse game with Apple shows no sign of stopping as the Dev Team is furiously at work to break into the latest iPhone software to release to the public. Jailbreaking gives you complete control over your iPhone from customizing to 3rd party apps that didn’t for one reason or another end up on Apple’s App Store.

In fact the Cydia store is home to a lot of misfit apps that fell victim to Apple’s ever popular App screening process. Well, now that you’ve heard some background on jailbreaking, you’ve learned some of the benefits and risks, you may now make the choice, to jailbreak or not to jailbreak, that is the question.

2.6) Why Not Jailbreak?

Jailbreaking your iPhone automatically voids the warranty. However this is not really a problem as you can always restore your iPhone in iTunes, putting it back to its factory settings. This will make it impossible for Apple to see you jailbroke your iPhone, thus not voiding your warranty.

In the past, some jailbreak methods were not very stable and sometimes turned your iPhone into an iBrick aka an expensive paper weight. Jailbreak methods are now very stable and I have yet to hear about someone bricking his iPhone while jailbreaking.

HOWEVER, there are also security issues that stop people from Jailbreaking.



2.7) Is Jailbreak hard? I am not a tech geek at all, HELP!

Read the tutorial below, and many other sites if you wish. You don’t need to have a PhD in computer science to jailbreak your iPhone. It’s very simple and straightforward. If you can download 2 files and click “next” when prompted, then you can jailbreak your iPhone.

5.1) SHSH Blobs

A lot of people ask about this one and why Cydia wants to save them. When you upgrade firmware in iTunes, you’ll see at the top when you start a restore “Verifying restore with Apple”. Apple only signs current firmware versions. If you accidentally upgrade and then try to downgrade, your restore will fail. SHSH blobs save you from this headache. It will basically give iTunes a fake hand to shake, which in turn, makes iTunes think your restore has been verified. This can be a life saver if you accidentally upgrade and need to downgrade. TinyUmbrella will save SHSH blobs to the Cydia server as well. I highly recommend saving your blobs for every firmware version in case you ever find yourself in this predicament.

Instructions for saving your SHSH:


Instructions for restoring:



5.2 Baseband

*This only matters to those who have an iPhone that are not officially unlocked.

The baseband is essentially the part of your device that controls the antennae. This has everything to do with your service and signal. This is why most unlockers have to be extremely careful when upgrading. If the baseband changes, it can permanently keep them from achieving an unlock. This is the main reason most unlockers tend to favor PwnageTool. It creates a custom firmware bundle for you to upgrade to that doesn’t upgrade the baseband, only the main OS. If you are running on a legitimate carrier and don’t care about unlocking, the baseband it typically less of a concern. Wifi and Bluetooth don’t run on the baseband either, so iPod touch or iPad owners typically don’t have concerns when it comes to new baseband versions.


5.3 Recovery Mode/DFU Mode

Many people still confuse these two terms. They ARE different. There IS an easy way to tell which mode your phone is in. If your screen shows a connect to iTunes logo with a slide for emergency option, you are in recovery mode. If the slide for emergency option is not there and you only see the connect to iTunes logo, you are in DFU mode (DFU mode can also present as a blank screen as well).

The main difference between these two modes is what they will and won’t bypass for installs. Recovery mode will implement iBoot (basically a portion of the bootloader than runs an integrity check) which will not allow you to downgrade your device. DFU mode will still talk to iTunes but it bypasses iBoot which will then allow you to downgrade firmware. Most jailbreaks will require DFU mode for these reasons. To enter DFU mode, you will follow these steps:
Turn off your iPhone
Hold down your power and home buttons
Release the power button when the Apple logo appears, but continue holding down the home button. You should be presented with a Connect to iTunes logo.
Plug in your phone and iTunes should yell at you and say you must restore the device before it can be used.

1) RedSn0w stuck at uploading RamDisk

After updating your jailbreaked iPhone to a new firmware it is always advised to set you phone as a new phone during the first sync after updating and jailbreaking. This will save you from battery drainage, unexpected reboot, hanging etc. If you set your phone as a new phone you will loose many valuable data like Received SMS, Contacts, Call History, Notes, Calender etc. To overcome this problem you are advised to manually backup your iPhone data before updating your iPhone to new firmware. The process is very easy all you need is a Jailbreaked iPhone with SSH installed already. Now follow our guide to access file system of your iPhone here How to Access iPhone via SSH on Windows Mac ” Now follow the paths given below and copy save the certain files mentioned below.

How to backup Contacts :

Navigate to /private/var/mobile/Library/AddressBook
There will be two files save them on your computer.
How to backup Messages :

Navigate to /private/var/mobile/Library/SMS
Save sms.db on your computer
How to backup Calendar:

Navigate to /private/var/mobile/Library/Calendar
Copy Calendar.sqlitedb to your computer
How to backup Notes:

Navigate to /private/var/mobile/Library/Notes
Copy notes.db and notes.idx to your computer
How to backup your Call History:

Navigate to /var/mobile/Library/CallHistory/
copy call_history.db to your computer
To restore these databases after updating and jailbreaking navigate to specified paths and replace the files with you copied and saved earlier.

1) Cleanstatus - Cleans up your status bar easily.
2) Activator - You didn't JB because of this meh?
3) EnchancedTabs - Makes safari more bearable.
4) FBPhotosave - Does what it says on the can.
5) Fakeclockup - Speeds up iOS animations, but needs the (glorious) miyoshi repo (hitoriblog.com/apt). Also consider
Springtomize. Also the latest version is buggy, try finding the older one on Google (and this is a free app mind you).
6) Backgrounder + MultiFl0w + Multicleaner - better task management and multi-tasking. Needs each other because BGer is boring without MF, and MF sucks at properly closing certain apps (badges are not updated, etc), so it needs MCer.
7) HapticPro - If you don't know what it means, you're better off without it. Adds vibrations every time you touch a link or a button. Sucks battery, unless you tune it to a lower setting (and it will still suck battery, only less lol).
8) Lockdown Pro - Lock your apps with a password.
9) SafariDownloadManager - The only proper DM for iOS. Only for those with huge or unlimited data quotas.
10) Screendimmer - My attempt to counter the increased battsuck from HapticPro. Dims the screen after some time, ala Nokia phones.
11) Folderenhancer - Makes folders less pretty, but far more usable.
12) Swipetomovecursor - Another treasure from miyoshi's repo. Swipe a iOS textbox back or front to move the cursor. Fails when used in website textboxes though.
13) Actionmenu - I thought I didn't need it until installed it.
14) Manualcorrect - Hate the autocorrect system? Install this and make iOS auto correct you only when you WANT it to.
15) Startdial - Make Phone.app start in whichever page you want it to.
16) Celeste - Bluetooth sharing aka the holy grail of apps. Fails to recieve nearly all the time though, and is still crap buggy with Nokia phones. But to be able to answer, "Wait ah, I bluetooth this picture to you" to your non-iPhone using relatives/friends is simply priceless.
17) 3GUnrestrictor - Use 3G to Facetime or download huge apps from the AppStore. Data sucker, use with caution.
18) User Agent Faker - Give Safari an identity crisis, and make it think it's Firefox (sans flash of course).
19) BluSelect/YFiSelect4 - Quick bluetooth pairing/WIFI switching without ever going into Settings.
20) Cyntacts/iPicMyContacts - Gives you contact thumbnails in the Addressbook/Contacts.app. iPMC gives you the ability to assign your own pics from a google/FB search as well but is slow compares to Cyntacts.
21) NoWiggle - I hated the wiggle on editing and the version of FakeClockUp I'm using wiggles them real fast. So I ditched them altogether.