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…

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.

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.

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.