How to Jailbreak Apple’s iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch

While scanning the web a few days ago for information on the Apple iPad, I did a Google search looking for product information on iPad Apps.  About the fourth entry down, a search result caught my eye.  On the CNN website, there was an article about Jailbreaking your iPad.

Out of curiosity and not knowing anything about this term, I clicked the link and came to a very interesting article with full instructions, screen shots, tips and plenty of other helpful information for this Jailbreak process.  This article was a real eye opener and I used CNN’s “Email to a Friend” button to send it to myself for future reference and to tell others who own iPhones, iPads or the iPod Touch devices what this is all about.

Strangely enough, about 2 to 3 days later, I went to my email to find the article and sure enough, there was the email I’d sent to myself, except, the link was for a completely different article on the Apple iPad that had absolutely nothing to do with Jailbreaking!  I was dumbfounded and searched the CNN site for anything to do with this, but found absolutely nothing.  I suspect they may have had some heat over publishing such a detailed article to teach others how to do something that Apple is constantly trying to battle.

What IS Jailbreaking an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch?

A jailbreak is essentially a term for those who have hacked their devices, in order to gain control and freedom over them.  Doing so, immediately gives you access to hundreds of other applications through the Jailbreak app stores, (of which there are many) that would otherwise not be available.  You will now be able to customize your hardware to do things like running other apps in the background, change your icons, tether your iPhone to your PC to use it as a modem, and the list goes on and on.  One word of caution, if you Jailbreak your device, you will void your Apple warranty, but with a backup of the original operating system on your computer, you will be able to restore your factory settings without anyone being able to tell the difference.

Apple’s Operating System only allows for the installation of certain applications which they approve, to be downloaded onto these devices, but there are many other programmers who have put a lot of time and money into wonderful applications that Apple has disapproved.  Some of these companies have tried to play by Apple’s rules and invested heavily in creating what they deemed to be useful applications, but were denied the ability to sell them though the App Store.  There are others that are probably just fed up with the limitations of the firmware and operation systems and have looked for a back door to make these operating systems more useful for everyone. One example is an App that will allow the iPad to run more than one window at a time, just like a desktop computer giving the user greater efficiency and a better user experience.

How To Jailbreak the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch

Just a word of caution before you jailbreak your device, this type of hack is known as a “userland” jailbreak, which means a possible security weakness.  Hackers could hack into your device and cause havoc.  Also, if you do an Apple software upgrade to your operating system after you jailbreak your device, you will not be able to jailbreak it again, unless you have a back up of  the “SHSH blobs”.  This will allow you to downgrade your device to your prior firmware/system, should your device be accidently upgraded.  This is an important step, so to find out more about saving the SHSH blobs.  There’s some good information and a tutorial from Redmond Pie here.  Be sure you read it before attempting your jailbreak.  You can also find some videos on YouTube, which will show you the process being done.  It is a good idea to pay attention to some of the comments under these videos as well.  Although the process of doing this should be simple and takes a matter of seconds, some users have had problems and there is a risk involved.  It is important to note, that since the iPad is so new, many of the Apps in the jailbreak App store, know as Cydia, were created for the iPhone, you could potentially download an App on your iPad that can cause damage to the system.  The most recent software for jailbreaking all of these devices is called “Spirit” which does an “untethered” jailbreak, which just means that you don’t need to plug your device into your computer every time you reboot it.  If you did an earlier jailbreak that was “tethered,” you will need to restore to your original firmware before you jailbreak with the “untethered” software from Spirit.

• You can run any version of iTunes 9, which as of this writing, the latest version is 9.1.1
• Sync your device to iTunes to back it up.
• You can jailbreak ANY  iPhone, iPod touch or iPad using firmware 3.1.2, 3.1.3, or 3.2.
• Download the jailbreak software “Spirit” to your Mac or PC here.
• Watch this video of a Jailbreak using Spirit software on an iPhone 3G

NOTE: IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO SEE THIS VIDEO ON YOUR IPAD, GO TO THIS LINK http://www.youtube.com/Jailbreak video

Before attempting any of this, do your research.  Watch the YouTube videos and see what others are saying that have jailbroken their devices.  Read other articles about jailbreaking. Education BEFORE hand is worth it’s weight in gold!