Jailbreak Your Apple 3G iPhone Using Windows
Ever since I got my Apple 3G iPhone I have been reluctant to Jailbreak it because I was worried about bricking the phone. I had to renew my contract for 3 years, pay $249 and I am locked into a contract that I pay roughly $90 a month for is quite the money hole right? Well with the QuickPwn 2.1 and a little help from iPhoneInCanada I have successfully Jailbroken my iPhone! The nice thing is that you can always do a Restore via iTunes in case something weird happens, just ensure you have the 2.1 Firmware handy.
Jailbreaking versus Unlocking
**Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage that may happen to your phone. Ensure you backup your iPhone via iTunes.
I’ll let you know right off the bat that Jailbreaking an iPhone is NOT unlocking the phone, well in terms of unlocking it from the carrier (in my case Rogers Wireless). The Dev team is still working on unlocking the phone so you can use it with any GSM carrier but for now you are still stuck with whom you buy the iPhone from.
Jailbreaking allows you to install 3rd party applications without having to go through iTunes as well as change the look of the springboard, in other words, it also allows you to skin the phone to be even more unique.
How To Jailbreak a 3G iPhone Using QuickPwn 2.1
My experience with Jailbreaking my Apple 3G iPhone has been slightly different than what Gary over at iPhoneInCanada posted in his video tutorial. The snag that caught me was QuickPwn could not find the default 2.1 firmware on the computer in which it needs. Normally it is stored in the Application Data folder for iTunes (it differs for Windows XP and Windows Vista).
If you are Jailbreaking your 3G iPhone from a computer that did not originally install the 2.1 firmware you will need to download it from here (238 MB). You also need to ensure you already have the 2.1 firmware installed on your 3G iPhone so if you do not, ensure you have iTunes 8.0 or greater.
When you start QuickPwn you will need to ensure your 3G iPhone is attached to your computer via the USB cable. It will detect if it is connected or not and let you continue.
It will then search for the 2.1 firmware on your computer and match it against your iPhone. You may need to browse to the firmware if you downloaded it and saved it somewhere else if not in the default directory QuickPwn defaults to. If it finds the correct firmware it will show you a big Green checkmark and you can continue.
From here it will reboot your phone and ask you to put it into Recovery Mode. Just follow the steps it has on the screen. Once in Recovery Mode, you can choose to install the Installer and Cydia (skip the boot logo part, then QuickPwn will do its magic and Jailbreak your iPhone.
When it is done it will reboot your iPhone and here some people have reported longer reboot times than others. For me my iPhone rebooted in under 2 minutes. The Apple icon will show for a while, just be patient and it should be reboot.
Congratulations you should now have a successfully jailbroken 3G iPhone! You can check out the two newly installed applications: Installer and Cydia.
What do you do now?
That is entirely up to you. So far I have installed a bunch of programs using Cydia such as: Flashlight, NES (NES Emulator by 123Locker.com), Winterboard (theme application), BossPrefs, PDANet and StumblerPlus (WiFi Sniffer).
good for you man. I’ll give it a go tonight.
Now I really, really want an iPhone!!! Think I’d be scared to try this though
@Heather - Thanks for visiting! The nice thing about doing this is because you have the default firmware you can always do a restore via iTunes. I have yet to hear of someone ‘bricking’ their iPhone trying to Jailbreak it.
will this void my warranty?
I’m not sure actually. I mean by modifying your phone to something other than the manufacturer specifications would probably be a void of warranty, but the grey area I would say is that you could restore the old firmware if you needed too.
Interesting stuff. I guess there’s not much point unlocking iPhone in Canada since there’s really only 1 GSM carrier…
It’s not unlocking the phone. You’re just unbranding it sort to speak. There is not unlock for the 3G iPhone yet.
Jailbreaking just allows you to download 3rd party applications without having to go through iTunes. It also allows you to modify its look too.
So I downloaded the file and then my virus thing popped up and told me that the file contained a trojan horse virus… so I decided not to continue..
@Tracy - weird. Where did you download the program from?
From the iPhone in Canada site. The number one step on that page. Took about 20 minutes to download and then I got the warning about the virus.. so I didn’t want to keep going, I wasn’t sure if anyone else had problems with the file.. it might just be my computer, who knows. But I’m kind of bummed, I want to jailbreak it!
I found a different site that had the QuickPwn and it worked! Only two questions, which I hope you can answer, how does the installer app work? And do you know how to mix two themes together?
@Tracy that’s cool you were able to get it to work. I use a loading program called Cydia for my applications. Seems to have a larger repository. As for mixing two themes, I am not entirely sure on that. I’ve loaded WinterBoard on my iPhone and just use some simple interface adjustments.