The iPhone 3.0 software update has been out for about 10 days now and the iPhone Dev team provided hungry iPhone owners with the redsn0w tool and ultrasn0w very quickly to help us jailbreak and unlock out iPhones.
Disclaimer: Messing around with stuff like this usually voids your warranty. It’s also possible to completely brick (ruin) your phone while trying to do this. I’ve done it plenty with no problems, but use this information at your own risk.
Why jailbreak?
The biggest reason to jailbreak your iPhone is to open it up to a lot of new features. For me, the idea of customization and theming was a huge draw, but the two things my jailbreak provided me were access to my shell (as well as SFTP) and a video camera. These things are available as third-party apps installed through Cydia and you can’t get them without jailbreaking. Jailbreaking is also how you install ultrasn0w to unlock the phone.
Why unlock?
The unlock is to break free from AT&T. I have AT&T and I’m in a contract, but if you want to move to another provider like T-Mobile, you’ll need to unlock the phone. I’ve really only tried it with T-Mobile and you lose 3G when you move.
How to Jailbreak and unlock
1. Make sure your iPhone is already upgraded to 3.0
2. Back up your iPhone with iTunes!
3. Download the firmware upgrade and redsn0w (see links on the YouTube video page)
4. Plug in your iPhone via the USB cable.
5. If iTunes is up, eject the phone in iTunes and close iTunes.
6. Turn the phone off.
7. Extract and run redsn0w (follow instructions – see video).
– You are jailbroken at this point –
8. Open Cydia and let it update.
10. In Cydia, click “Manage” at the bottom. Then click “Sources”, then “Edit”, then “Add”.
11. The source is http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com (that’s a zero)
12. Once the repo is added, click “Search” and search for “ultra”.
13. Install the ultrasn0w package.
– You are now unlocked at this point –
14. Turn off 3G
15. Throw in a T-Mobile card and try it out.
I’ve also thrown all the steps in a couple videos. The download links are in those videos, too, so don’t forget to go right to the videos (part 1 and part 2). While you’re there, subscribe to my videos and rate them both 5 stars.
That’s it. Enjoy. If this how-to helped at all, share the link on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, etc. and if you have problems, questions or just a comment, leave it below.
I can be pretty picky about the sponsored posts I accept because I want to post about stuff I would actually use or buy myself. Today is no exception, because today’s post is about a product that I think is timely, useful, and reasonably priced. It’s iPod / iPhone to iTunes Transfer software called iPodRobot.
One of the things that I’ve heard people complain about with the iPhone is that you have to sync it with iTunes to get files on and off the device. I’ve personally felt that was annoying with my own iPhone. Almost every other smart phone on the planet lets you connect to it as a mass storage device and access your videos, photos, etc. This software works as a bridge between your computer and the data on your phone, eliminating the need for iTunes as part of the equation. It’s a great idea and I’m a little shocked that I haven’t seen it before.
When the software starts up, it looks for your phone and connects to it. Then you just select the folders or files on your phone to transfer and tell it to move them to your computer. After confirming (or changing) the local folder, the files are moved. There’s not much to it, really. The one thing I was unable to find (and isn’t listed as an option on the site) was uploading files to the phone from my computer. The lack of bi-directional transfer was a drawback to me. Looking at the glass as half full, you can download a free trial to try it out, and what it does do it does well and without needing any specialized knowledge. For $20, it’s a nice piece of software to have if you don’t want to (or can’t) sync with iTunes for some reason.
While I was on the site, I checked out their Free iPod / iPhone Video Converter software. It did what it promised and pretty quickly. I was able to convert an AVI Flip video from one of my previous reviews into an iPhone-friendly format and just like the transfer software, this had a simple interface and just worked fast and clean out of the box. Although the ipodrobot software lacks a valuable feature I was looking for, I gave the company extra points for delivering otherwise very solid, stable, and easy to use products.
If you’re like me, you couldn’t wait to jailbreak your iPhone 3G to get back some of your apps after upgrading to 3.0. If you’re really like me, you got the following error during Cydia’s updating process on your newly jailbroken phone:
“Internal Error, Could not perform immediate configuration (2) on essential”
Of course, my iPhone still worked fine, but Cydia was useless to me, Icy wouldn’t come up, and jailbreaking the thing served no purpose. Not being one to give up, I did a quick search and this post on modmyi.com saved the day. All I had to do was run redsn0w again and not check the “Install Icy” box this time. A few minutes later, I was back to installing Cycorder again so I can record video without buying an iPhone 3G S (yet)…
Isn’t that a lot better? (If you’re unsure, the answer is yes, it IS a lot better). The above screen shows a completed Cydia upgrade. After my upgrade, I re-installed Cycorder and there was even an old video I had recorded before the jailbreak.
Lesson of the day: If at first everything blows up, Google the error message and keep trying until you attain victory!
