How to Jailbreak iPhone 3g 2.01 using PwnageTool 2.0.2 on Mac
posted by pylornsFirst things first, the tutorials for the PC seem to actually be easier. Also a lot of the Mac tutorials left off a key step - holding down the option key when clicking the restore function. For someone who has never done this before the other tutorials mostly assume that you know what you are doing. This tutorial will cover how to jailbreak your recently updated 2.01 version iPhone or iPhone 3g.
Note: This tutorial is for iPhone running 2.01 version software, and for Pwnage Tool 2.0.2 on an Apple Mac. While it may work for future releases the screens may not look the same. A PC version of this tutorial will follow. Make sure you have a backup of everything you have on your iPhone, and make sure that iTunes does a backup prior to starting this.
Why should I jailbreak?
I mean, with the App store, the main reason people did it before was because you couldn’t install other applications, now there are lots of applications and all developers can now get their software on it right?
Wrong. Apple has strict, slow, approval process and quite often they remove apps without telling the developers - just look at the box office fiasco. Also, with jailbreaking you can customize what your iphone looks like, all the menus, icons, battery indicators you can individualize your iPhone which is a big factor for me. See screenshot below of how you can customize your iPhone.
Winterboad Theme program
How do I get applications on the iPhone?
There are two applications that install when you use the PwnageTool 2.0.2. Cydia and Installer. Cydia is open source and Installer is not, Installer also has very few programs as opposed to Cydia. Basically these two are like the app store, they connect to multiple sources and categorize applications and themes. They also let you know when an update is made. These two programs are the simplest tools to use. I suggest installing Winterboard and Customize as well these are installed through Cydia and allow you to start your theming fun.
Ok so how do I do this?
1. You need to head out to the location of the Pwnage tool and download it. Go here and download the latest tool. (Also note you’re iPhone should be plugged in and on and iTunes should be ready to rock.)
2. Extract the PwnageTool to your desktop and double click it.
3. Say yes that you want to open the application.
4. Click “OK” to continue.
5. Choose your poison of iPhone and click the arrow for next.
6. Select your firmware (it should show up and just click on it) then click the arrow for next.
7. Click on yes to continue to create your image
8. The tool will need your login/pass so enter them and click continue.
9. Choose if you have Pwn’d your iPhone before. If your first time just choose no.
10. Now we get to the interesting part. Basically you’re putting your phone into DFU mode. This basically sets the iPhone to be ready to accept the new image you just made. The phone will appear to be off when you’re done but your system will still see that it is turned on. Follow the directions by clicking on both the home button and the top button.
11. Next you choose to hold just the home button down.
12. If you held the buttons down correctly you should have put your phone in DFU mode at this point you’re done with the PwnageTool.
13. Fire up iTunes (as noted above you should already have it running. So just bring it back up.
14. Here is where you need to hold down alt/option button and click on the restore button.
15. Choose to open the image that was saved to the desktop by PwnageTool.
16. It takes a good amount of time - some tutorials say it could take 30 minutes or so. Course if you miss a step like I did, you’ll restore incorrectly and 30 minutes turn into 2 hours. But anyway. So baring any unforseen circumstances you should see this screen.
17. Now you want to sync up your phone, restore your previous settings and sync your music, photos, etc etc. You should have two apps installed now on your iPhone; Installer and Cydia.
Postscript: You can do the expert mode on PwnageTool but this tutorial is more for people doing it the first time as simple as possible. Once you know what you’re doing - then go back and fiddle with it if you need to.
Tags: 3g, iphone, iphone 3g, jailbreak, tutorial, unlock
Posted in iphone, tutorials |
August 13th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I am sorely tempted to give that a shot.
So far I am pretty happy with the apps I have except…
Box Office
I want it back. Seriously it was the best most used thing on my phone. I used it more on my phone then I used the phone on my phone. I even wrote the developer. The reply was nice but basically just said - be patient.
Pout.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
There are a few things wrong with just about every tutorial out there on the web for JailBreaking an iPhone 3G, and this tutorial is no exception.
1 - Firmware
You simply say “it will find your firmware” without any indication for how to find it. This crucial piece of information will either lead to getting stuck in pwnage, or bricking your iPhone.
2 - Jailbreaking an already jailbroken iPhone
The steps are different if you’re phone has already been jailbroken. The method listed in all of these tutorials for getting into DFU mode doesn’t work the same on an already jailbroken iPhone, especially if you have used the wrong firmware and bricked it. The best option here for entering DFU mode is:
* Turn off the iPhone
* Hold the home button
* Plug it into USB
* Watch for DFU mode
And finally … what to do when you brick your iPhone. I tried pwnage 2.0.2 the night it was released. Somehow, I got the wrong piece of firmware, and promptly bricked my iPhone. It would try to boot, show me a pineapple for 5 seconds, and then shutdown, reboot, and repeat. I struggled to get the phone in DFU mode, and when I accidentally did, I tried the most insane thing and loaded the firmware again, expecting a different result. That didn’t work very well, and now I had a rebooting iPhone that I couldn’t get into recovery mode. I found a page somewhere with the recovery mode trick listed above, and was able to enter recovery mode. I loaded the old jail broken firmware, and was able to partially recover my iPhone.
Long story short, I had to find a pre-jailbroken firmware image to load on my iPhone in order to get a 2.0.1 firmware on my iPhone 3G. I never did figure out what firmware file I needed, but I know how to now.
Here are my extra tips:
1 - Firmware
To get the correct firmware, plug in your iPhone, start iTunes, and when it offers to upgrade for you, select the button labeled “Download Only” Let iTunes figure out which firmware file you need. pwnage will find it wherever iTunes puts it.
2 - Jailbreaking an already jailbroken iPhone
Use the USB cable trick for getting into DFU mode and it will work every time flawlessly.
3 - Backup
Backup takes forever in iTunes. Let it finish and make sure it is done before you actually update the firmware. If you don’t want to backup, you can just re-initialize and re-activate it when you start it up the first time.
4 - Reactivation and restore
When you first start up with the new hardware, iTunes will want to “re-initialize” your iPhone. This is OK, and you have to do it twice. The first time, tell iTunes you want to restore, and go have a cup of coffee. It will take a while. When it is done, and your iPhone reboots, iTunes will go straight back to the same screen. This time just tell it to Initialize the iPhone, and the next screen will tell you that it is done, and it will never bother you again. Once you have completed this process, you can re-sync your music, ringtones, games, apps, etc.
5 - Broken apps after restore
I found that once I did a restore, my mail app was broken. When I attempted to open Mail, it crashed and took me back to home screen. When I attempted to remove my mail accounts, they would not remove. Several other apps were broken as well, and I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out that it is a known bug in the firmware after a restore. iTunes screws up the “permissions” in the iPhone directory where your applications and configuration settings are. This means that the phone can’t read or modify these settings, which causes the crashes. Load a program in Cydia called “BossPrefs”, run it, click “More”, and then select “Fix User Dir Permissions”, followed by “Fix Me!” You can do this as many times as you want, and will fix many quirky behaviors and crashes.
That’s my .02. Jailbreaking your iPhone is not for the faint of heart, or the non-tech savvy. I jailbroke my iPhone, but I left my wife’s alone. If she had been there when the thing was bricked, she would have flipped out. If I did it to her phone, she would have my ass.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Good extra insight. I basically geared this towards people doing it for the first time.
August 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
You’re info was the best I have found out there. I had some of the same problems. Thanks!
August 30th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Awesome, and I hope DJ Felix threw out some help in his comments as well as he had some additional insight.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
DJFelix: Nice insights. You are right. There is some very important info left out of every tutorial. In this case, this is a well written tutorial with most of the required info but I hate it when things are stated like “unless you skip some steps like me and…” What steps? What happened? How did you fix it? The author identified a potential pitfall in the process but didn’t help at all in avoiding it. Another example, most tutorials give the old “you could brick your phone” warning but never state which are the absolute critical steps.
The other thing that is left off every tutorial out there is when the pwn is done, you have the new firmware and are still connected to itunes, itunes is sitting on the screen asking you to set up new or restore a backup. Which one? From what I can tell from people who had problems, setting up new should be the way to go unless you have an “Unjailbroken backup”
My experience is still on going. pwn worked fine. It took two hours to restore the custom firmware but it took the same when I had to restore using standard apple stuff when I screwed things up shortly after I bought the phone. Once complete the phone resets still connected to itunes and then it asks to restore from backup or set up as new and since this is the first jailbreak I restored from backup since none of the tutorials tell you what to do here. During the restore, the stupid iPhone popped up reminder message from my calendar and crashed itunes. I had a partial restore now. I had to figure out how to get it into DFU mode but then itunes didnt like my usb port so I had to change ports. I got it in DFU mode with the same procedure listed in the tutorial but now I am face with which ipsw to restore. I decide to do the original apple one and it flashed rather quickly. Then again it asked me to restore from backup which should be fine since I backed up before this whole process. After clicking start I noticed the date of the backup was AFTER I started this procedure which I don’t understand since it did not backup during the pwn process. So I don’t know what it is going to restore but right now after 50 minutes I still have about halfway to go on the restore. Once this is done, Im left with the question, is this phone considered “previously jailbroken?” even tho I have restore it to factory conditions because none of the tutorials or even the dev team mention if anything is permanently changed. I will update when it completes.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
BTW, this wasn’t meant as a rant. Nice job (really) on the tutorial and thanks for putting the time in to it.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Well we strive to improve and if you read the next post Praxis included some additoinal information as well. So I’ve got another tutorial on the mac version of quickpwn and I ran into an issue which I’ll include because I agree with what you said, a tutorial is great until a screen is different from the screenshot….
September 5th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Yep. In fact I came across your tutorial while trying to recover from what I mentioned earlier. So the restore did finally finish, almost exactly one hour to complete and I have what appears to be the original firmware installed. When it finished it STILL asked me if I wanted to set up as new or restore from backup, even though I just finished restoring from backup. I picked set up as new this time and it worked fine and I even still have my SMS and data. I don’t get it but it looks like I am ready to start again.
Anyway, If you happen to know what you should select after the custom firmware restore finishes, you may want to include that as well. As a side note, once it had finished and itunes was waiting for me to decide whether to set up as new or restore from backup, I noticed that my iPhone DID have all my installed apps on it already…
October 15th, 2008 at 6:07 am
just a quick thank you, im going to give this a go when i get in. i pray i dont ‘brick’ my phone!!