Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPod Touch 1.1.2

Update: There is a new application called ZiPhone which provides a simple way to jailbreak and unlock any 1.x.x firmware version. Check it out!

By jailbreaking your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can install tons of third-party applications. For example, you can install the missing iPhone applications like Mail, Notes, and Google Maps on a jailbroken iPod Touch.

Caveats:

• You need wireless access in order to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch.
• If you have recently purchased an iPhone and it has version 1.1.2 firmware (called 1.1.2 otb where otb means “out the box”), you cannot do a software unlock to use the iPhone with another provider like T-Mobile. You will need to get a hardware hack like i3gSIM, stealthSIM, or turboSIM instead (you will still need to jailbreak your iphone though). Learn more about how to unlock your phone.
• Do not upgrade to the latest 1.1.3 firmware. It will disable the jailbreak and any unlock mechanism (whether software or hardware) that you use.
• I don’t know if these instructions will work with a newly-purchased iPhone or iPod Touch with the new 1.1.3 firmware installed. I heard rumors that it is not possible to downgrade a 1.1.3 version to a 1.1.1 version (which is required to jailbreak).

Find Your iPhone’s or iPod Touch’s Firmware Version

In order to jailbreak your iPhone or Touch, you must find its firmware version. If the version is not 1.1.1 (ex: 1.0.2 or 1.1.2), we will need to downgrade to 1.1.1 in order to jailbreak the iPhone or Touch.

If you have an iPhone (and you have an AT&T account) or an iPod Touch, dock it with your computer that has iTunes installed. Complete the registration by activating the iPhone (with your AT&T account) or creating a profile for your Touch. iTunes will show a summary of your iPhone or Touch. Look for the Software Version: field.

If you have an iPhone (and don’t wish to activate with AT&T), you will need to bypass the AT&T activation to lookup the firmware version.

Bypass AT&T Activation (iPhone Only)

When you turn on a brand new iPhone, it will request that you configure an AT&T account. Follow these steps to bypass the activation. (You do not need to dock your iPhone.)

1. Turn on your iPhone.
2. Slide the slide for emergency and dial *#301# to make the phone call itself.
3. To get out of the call so you can answer it (otherwise the phone will keep ringing), erase the previous entry and dial ”0”.
4. Hit the Answer button, then the Hold button. The phone will call itself again.
5. Hit the Decline button. You will be dropped into the main phone screen. Yeah!
6. Tap on contacts tab and hit the ‘+’ (plus) top-right icon to add a new contact. We are going to create a contact with two URLs which will let us access two other iPhone applications, Preferences and Safari. (You actually don’t need the second URL if you are following these steps to get the firmware version. But adding it will save you time later if you have version 1.1.1.)
   • Hit the Add new URL button. Input prefs: (ending with colon). Hit Save.
   • Hit the Add new URL button. Input jailbreakme.com. Hit Save.
   • Hit Save again to save the contact. You will now see your contact with two URLs.
7. Tap on prefs:. You will be taken to the Settings dialog.
8. In Settings, tap on General->About and look for Version. You should see 1.1.1 or 1.1.2.

Restore Your iPhone or iPod Touch to Firmware Version 1.1.1

In order to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch, you will need to upgrade or downgrade to version 1.1.1 first. If you already have version 1.1.1, bypass these steps.

1. Download the 1.1.1 firmware for your iPhone here or your iPod Touch here. The downloaded filename should end in _Restore.ipsw.
2. Download the 1.1.2 jailbreak application here. You will need this to upgrade a jailbroken 1.1.1 iPhone or Touch to 1.1.2.
3. Dock your iPhone or Touch with iTunes running. Ignore the iTunes activation or registration screen (if any).
4. Reboot your iPhone or Touch into recovery mode by doing the following:
   • Holding both the power and home buttons down.
   • After a couple seconds, the shutdown screen with the slide to power off and Cancel button will appear. Ignore it and keep holding both buttons down.
   • After a few seconds, the screen will go black. Keep holding them down.
   • After about 5-10 seconds, a screen with just the apple startup icon will appear. Release the power button but keep holding the home button down.
   • After 5 seconds, the recovery mode screen will appear; you will see a picture of the dock connector and a CD icon. Now you can release the home button.
5. At the end of the above process, iTunes will display a warning dialog with the text “iTunes has detected an iPod in recovery mode.” Hit Ok to cancel the dialog.
6. iTunes will show the Summary page with just the Restore button enabled.
   • On Mac, hold the Option key and click on the Restore button.
   • On Windows, hold the Shift key and click on the Restore button.
7. A file browser dialog will appear. Browse to the downloaded 1.1.1 firmware file and select it. iTunes will begin to restore the 1.1.1 firmware.
8. The restore process may end with an error. This is okay. Just click Ok to close the error dialog. (I saw this error with an iPhone 1.1.2 otb. But I didn’t see this error with an iPod Touch 1.1.2 otb.) If there is no error, the iPhone or Touch will automatically reboot.
9. If you see the restore error dialog, your iPhone or Touch will be stuck in the recovery mode (screen with dock connector). You will need to reboot it using the 1.1.2 jailbreak application you downloaded earlier.
   • Quit the iTunes application.
   • Unzip the 1.1.2 jailbreak application into a folder. On Mac, launch the jailbreak.jar. On Windows, run the windows.bat. The 1.1.2 jailbreak dialog will appear.
   • Click on Boot from Recovery to reboot the stuck iPhone or Touch. A progress dialog will appear.
   • The Boot from Recovery progress dialog may stick around without disappearing. If you see that that iPhone or Touch has rebooted, you can just cancel this dialog.
10. Once your iPhone or Touch has rebooted, it’s time to jailbreak it. You can continue to ignore the iTunes activation or registration screen (if any).

Jailbreak Your 1.1.1 iPhone or iPod Touch

Now you are ready to jailbreak your 1.1.1 iPhone or Touch:

1. Turn on your iPhone or Touch. Go to the Settings dialog. (If you didn’t need to restore to 1.1.1 firmware, you may already be in the Settings dialog.)
   • If you wish to bypass the AT&T activation on your iPhone, follow the steps from Bypass AT&T Activation above again until you get to the Settings dialog.
   • If you have an AT&T activated iPhone or iPod Touch, just go to the Settings dialog by hitting the home button and tapping on the Settings icon.
2. Hit Wi-Fi to setup your wireless access. Once you are done and back in the Settings dialog, make sure that the wireless is working by looking for the connected icon (blue quarter circle) at the topmost-left corner.
3. Browse to jailbreakme.com to install the AppSnapp application which will provide access to tons of free third-party applications for your iPhone or Touch.
   • If you have an iPhone with activation bypassed, follow these steps:
     • While you are in the Settings dialog, you will want to disable the Auto-Lock by going to General->Auto-Lock->Never. This will prevent the iPhone from turning off the display, taking you back to the activation screen, and forcing you to repeat the bypass process (call yourself, accept, hold, decline, etc.).
     • Press the home button to take you back to the activation screen.
     • Just slide for emergency, dial 0, Answer, Hold and Decline to get to the contacts dialog again.
     • Tap on your contact (there should only be one called No Name). Tap on the second URL, jailbreakme.com to launch Safari. Safari will take you to the jailbreakme.com website.
   • If you have an AT&T activated iPhone or iPod Touch, follow these steps:
     • Press the home button and tap the Safari icon. Safari will be launched.
     • Browse to the jailbreakme.com website.
4. Read the jailbreakme.com website text, scroll down to the bottom, and click on Install AppSnapp button.
5. The iPhone will return to the activation screen. This is expected.
6. After almost a minute, the iPhone will restart. If the iPhone doesn’t restart after more than five minutes, do a manual restart. To do a manual restart: hold the power and home button down until the screen blanks (ignore the slide to power off) and release both buttons when the startup screen with the apple icon appears.
7. After restarting, you should see that the startup screen has a slide to unlock. Congratulations, you have jailbroken your 1.1.1 iPhone or Touch.
8. If you have an iPhone and don’t see slide to unlock (instead you see the slide for emergency), try manually restarting your iPhone. If you still don’t see it after restarting, repeat the steps above to install AppSnapp again. The failure might be caused by a temporary network connection issue.

Upgrade Your Jailbroken 1.1.1 iPhone or iPod Touch to 1.1.2

Version 1.1.2 doesn’t have too many differences from 1.1.1; the major improvement is the ringtone customization. Of course, there are bug fixes, etc. Follow these steps if you wish to upgrade your jailbroken 1.1.1 iPhone or Touch to version 1.1.2:

1. Press the home button and tap the Installer icon (this is the AppSnapp application).
2. Update the installer by clicking on the Update tab, select the update package, and tap the Update button.
3. Once the installer is updated, click on the Install tab, scroll down to Tweaks (1.1.1), and install the OktoPrep application. This will prepare your 1.1.1 iPhone or Touch for upgrade to 1.1.2.
4. Download the 1.1.2 firmware for your iPhone here or your iPod Touch here. The downloaded filename should end in _Restore.ipsw.
5. Dock your iPhone or Touch with iTunes running. Register your iPhone or Touch with iTunes.
6. On the iTunes summary tab, you will see that both the Update and Restore buttons are enabled. Let us perform an Update (not a Restore which would erase everything):
   • On Mac, hold the Option key and click on the Update button.
   • On Windows, hold the Shift key and click on the Update button.
7. A file browser dialog will appear. Browse to the downloaded 1.1.2 firmware file and select it. iTunes will begin to update your iPhone or Touch to the 1.1.2 firmware.
8. After the update, the iPhone or Touch will restart. If you have the iPhone, you will end back in the slide for emergency screen. This is okay.
9. Quit the iTunes application.
10. Go to the 1.1.2 jailbreak application folder (Unzip it if necessary). On Mac, launch the jailbreak.jar. On Windows, run the windows.bat. The 1.1.2 jailbreak dialog will appear.
11. Click on Jailbreak! to jailbreak the 1.1.2 iPhone or Touch and install the AppSnapp application. A progress dialog will appear.
12. The Jailbreak progress dialog will disappear when done and you will get a message saying that the iPhone or Touch will reboot several times. Let it reboot a couple of times.
13. Wait until the reboots end (give it a few minutes of nothing happening).
14. If iTunes gets launched during one of the reboots, iTunes may complain that it cannot read the iPhone or Touch. This is okay. Just cancel the error dialog and disconnect/reconnect or reboot the iPhone or Touch. iTunes should sync correctly once you do this.
15. You should also see the Installer icon on your home page. Congratulations, you have a jailbroken 1.1.2 iPhone or iPod Touch!
16. If you have disable the Auto-Lock, don’t forget to re-enable it by going to Settings->General->Auto-Lock. The default is one minute.

To undo the jailbreak, just dock your iPhone or iPod Touch, put it into recovery mode (hold power and home, etc.) and do a restore using iTunes (shift-click on Restore and select 1.1.2 firmware). Do not restore to 1.1.3 firmware (unless you are sure) because you may not be able to downgrade from 1.1.3.

The information above was consolidated from two websites: Unlock the iPhone and How to Install Third-Party Apps on Your New iPhone or iPod Touch.