How to jailbreak your iPhone / iPod Touch

If you're reading this page, I'm going to go ahead and assume you have at least a passing interest in installing native applications on to your Apple mobile device.  And since at the time of this writing, it is not yet July 11th, 2008, there is no chance of doing so through an Apple-implemented method.  Leaving you... the jailbreak. When the iPhone was first hacked, jailbreaking was a tricky business.  It involved workaround and exploits and command line access and SSH interfacing and, I believe at one point, the sacrifice of a prized oxen.  Now, we have the beautiful and elegant ZiPhone.  I'm going to walk you through this in stages:

iPod Touch Jailbreak If you do not currently have a jailbroken iPod, making this a fresh install:

Download ZiPhone for your system, and if using the Mac version make sure you move it from the disk image onto your hard drive.

Open the program.

Quit iTunes.

Select the "iPod Touch Jailbreak" option, and wait.  DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING.  Your screen will scroll through a large amount of text, as will the program, and will finally reboot with the Mac logo back into your homescreen.  Congrats, you have jailbroken your iPod.

If you already have a jailbroken iPod, but wish to upgrade your firmware or install:

Skip down to the section on "What to do if you break it", and follow the instructions for restoring your firmware after backing up anything important.

If it doesn't work, and your iPod Touch is unresponsive:

Don't panic, read "What to do if you break it."

iPhone Jailbreak Follow the same steps to download ZiPhone, quit iTunes, and launch.  Instead of iPod Touch, you click either "Jailbreak & Activate" if you're going to use the device with AT&T, or "Unlock, Jailbreak & Activate" if using with another carrier. What to do if you break it Don't panic, first of all.  I first broke my iPod Touch roughly 22 minutes after receiving it, trying to run the program from its disk image.  Currently, the ZiPhone works with up to firmware 1.1.4, which is also the most recent release.  If the most recent release is supported for jailbreaking, download the firmware directly from Apple through iTunes.  Otherwise, download the latest supported firmware here. Now:

Make sure ZiPhone isn't running, if it was open.

Turn your phone off.  (Press the power button until the slider appears, drag it over to power the device down.)

Hold down the Home button while reattaching the USB cable.

Keep holding the button until you see a "Connect to iTunes" screen.

When you see the following screen on your computer, you may release the Home button:

You may now click ok and follow the instructions to restore your firmware. That's it!  It's really very hard to permanently break an iPhone, so play away!  After jailbreaking, look around the Installer program and pick some apps you'd like to try.

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