So you want to unlock your iPhone?

If you're a new iPhone user I’m pretty sure you want your iPhone Unlocked, Activated and Jailbroken!

I know that's the first thing I wanted when I got my iPhone. I have read every thread possible on unlocking, activating and Jailbreaking your brand new iPhone and have come up with the conclusion that I'll never learn it unless I try it myself. Thanks to all who made unlocking this easy, especially to Geohot, Zibri, Aviega and the rest of you guys (you know who you are)

What you'll see here is my personal guide to doing exactly what I want on my iPhone just in case I have to do it again.(I like to document the changes I make and monitor what works) So what you'll see here is a was initially a guide intended for my eyes only, but after seeing how many threads there are, questions asked re: this topic, I decided to put my guide up as well. It is by no means complete, but based on my experience, it is definitive enough to suit my purposes.

The information here comes from a mashup of all the things I've read, guides I've followed and videos I've watched on the subject of iPhone unlocking, activation and jailbreaking. Any steps you find similar or even identical to guides you've read are purely incidental and unintentional.

Let’s stop Talking and get on to the guide, shall we?

The Definitive Guide! New iPhone Unlocking & Customizing Guide by pongster

How I (pongster) run an Unlocked, Activated & Jailbroken iPhone with the latest Firmware and Baseband in 6 Fool-proof Steps:

Why write another guide?

This is simply my personal guide as to how I got my iPhone on the latest Apple has to offer so as always, YMMV! This is basically a compilation of every thread I’ve personally read, every video and tutorial I’ve seen and all the hours spent on mustering the courage to unlock and customize as others have successfully done. This is a document that details what I would do if I need to restore my phone again. I Hope that by writing this guide, I not only help myself (I might forget how I did all of this) but be of assistance to you, the new iPhone User!

What’s covered in this Guide?

As of this writing the latest firmware is 1.1.4 (2.0 has been announced for June 2008 though) and the latest baseband is 4.04. This guide will be using ZiPhone 2.5c and it will ONLY work if you are willing to downgrade your bootloader. (I noticed that the latest ZiPhone that does not automatically downgrade the baseband if you choose NOT to Downgrade the Bootloader) Alternately, you could use other methods of unlocking that will allow you to maintain your 4.6 bootloader. (like Independence, iPlus, Nate True's, etc.)

I’m on Vista Business, with 2gb of RAM, and a Core2Duo if that makes any difference. I’m also using iTunes 7.5. Before starting anything, I usually reboot just to make sure everything is fresh. Lastly, if you haven’t done so, install iTunes 7.5 before starting.

This guide assumes your coming from a previous iPhone firmware and are looking to get the latest as of this writing. (1.1.4) If your phone is Out of the Box (OTB) 1.1.4 go straight to Step 5!

Nuff Said! Let’s get started!

Step 1 Download the 1.1.4 iPhone restore firmware from apple and do remember where you saved it on your System. This saves us the trouble of a suddenly faulty internet connection if done Over the Net directly from your Summary page in iTunes. At this point please also download ZiPhone 2.5c (We're going to use this in a lil' while)

Step 2 Make sure your iPhone is connected, and then go to the "Summary" tab found when you click your iPhone from within the iTunes Application. Hold down the Shift button WHILE PRESSING Restore. (I can't stress this enough. Not pressing shift will download the restore firmware from the net, defeating the failsafe method we introduced in Step 1 which allows you to always have the latest restore firmware handy.) You will be asked to locate your restore firmware which you just downloaded moments ago (You do remember where you put it right?):)

Step 3 Wait for the iPhone Restore to Finish, about 5-7 minutes before everything is complete and you will KNOW its complete when the iphone has the cable and iTunes logo displayed, plus a "slide for emergency" You now have a phone that is as freshly installed as if it were right out off the Box (OTB)!

Step 4 Turn the phone off completely (by holding the sleep button till the "Slide to power off" text pops up)

Step 5 Hold the Home button WHILE attaching the Cable to connect your iPhone to your PC, making sure you ONLY release when the iTunes logo and cable are displayed on the iPhone. Ignore any prompts by iTunes (it will detect a phone in recovery mode, which means you're on the right track!)

Step 6 Open the Ziphone2.5c GUI and click “Do It All!”, wait 5 mins and voila! You have in your hand an activated, unlocked and jailbroken iPhone running 1.1.4, 3.9 BL, 4.04 Baseband

Make sure the ff. applications are working: Wifi, Youtube, Maps, EDGE, iTunes, Weather

Based on my experience, everything worked OTB except my EDGE and Maps Locate Me (probably where i live cause there are reports that this works OTB as well) I noticed my signal is more stable than when I was on 1.1.3 and power management seems to have improved (could just be a placebo effect since I don’t have the time to really test these as I would like to)

Customizing your iPhone: Preparing it for the apps you want to have!

Now I'm sure you'd like to begin customizing your phone, so I will take you through the steps I took in ensuring I have the most stable and functional iPhone i know. This assumes you know how to add sources in installer and you have an active Wifi connection.

I've been reading about the inherent flaws of the BSD subsystem that Nullriver (Installer's developer) installs, so this guide focuses on using Cydia before doing any customization. Cydia is an Open Source Package Management App by Jay Freeman (saurik) that is based on Debians Apt-Get system. At the moment not all sources found in installer have been ported to Cydia, but I am hopeful this will change once people see and feel the Cydia difference. I also have installer installed for apps that I need that are not yet on Cydia. My ballpark estimate has at about 50/50; meaning 50% of my stuff is from Cydia and the other half from installer.

This guide focuses on the use of Cydia as THE BSD Subsystem (it installs a more feature complete BSD subsystem on your iphone, with the option of installing the usual utilities such as sudo (yay!) and top (yay again!)

For Apps that "require" Nullriver's BSD Subsystem, we will be installing the "Fake" BSD package from saurik to make sure apps will install without any glitch. (Saurik’s Cydia BSD Subsystem is much more complete, but don’t take my geeky word, check out saurik’s site (www.saurik.com)

Tweak ON!

AFTER Activating, Jailbreaking & Unlocking:

1. Go to installer to update your sources. We’ll install Cydia by adding to the installer sources ("http://apptapp.saurik.com" without the quotes) Be patient as this will take about 10 minutes as it frees up space on the 300mb iPhone partition by moving the fonts, ringtones and applications to the larger partition) (we’ll install FAKE BSD as well the Cydia Manual refresh which basically does an apt-get update for you manually)

2. In this order, install the following, Cydia Manual Refresh then Fake BSD from saurik’s repo in installer

3. Add ispazio sources ("repo.ispazio.net") and install all his useful sources

4. Install Community Sources & BigBoss' Beta Sources

5. Add "http://i.unlock.no" (without the quotes) as a source

6. Exit installer and restart if prompted.

7. Open Cydia from your homescreen and install OpenSSH, Terminal & vterm-100 exit after installing these.

8. Open installer and install Boss Prefs, appsupport & Regionfix from iclarified to fix CallerID problems.

Open installer and install the following:

9. Install fixes for 1.1.4 from unlock.no & iclarified sources (ibrickr fix, volume patch, etc.)

10. install Customize (modded version 3) if working, install graphics and soundpacks (Please find the separate “How to install Customize on 1.1.4” guide below.)

11. Install Summerboard & SMB Themes (I use a personally modded Realize Rainbow and Graphite)

12. Install Books and EBooks

13. Install iPhysics and top level packs: Newton, Rawds Moto, AstroPhysics, Lightstreaks, crayongolf, H3x

14. Install the following Games: isnake; lightsoff; Ants; Caissa, Tris, Chuzzle

15. Using installer you can install iSMS after adding the swirly repo and iSMS repo (iSMS repo is "http://iphone.nonsoft.com/repo/")

16. Install Insomnia or John Tool (to keep your net connection alive during SCP sessions and surfing) from Repo's

17. Install Safari Add-ons (Safari Bookmarklets & Safari as Fileviewer) from ispazio

18. Install Mobile Finder, Mobile Text Edit, Mobile Preview

19. Install 1Shoot from Cydia, if available or from installer

How to install Customize on 1.1.4:(no.10) this is based on what worked for me, using various sources (I don’t know all your names but you know who you are) and personal experience in modding permissions using the Command Line Interface (CLI) in Linux

1. Download the Customize Modded Version 3 for 1.1.4 (I did not mod this, I'm only providing a link to it. If the owner of the app wishes, I can take this link down, just let me know.)

2. Extract the Customize.app folder on your PC (remember where this is or just keep it open.)

3. You can use Cyberduck (on Mac) or WinSCP (on Windows) to transfer the Customize.app folder into the /Applications folder of your iPhone.

4. On your iPhone, run term-v100 app and login with "alpine" as the password.

5. After every command please press enter, taking care to put exactly what is written here (you could mess your iPhone since you are logging in as root, I can't stress this enough!)

Commands:

/bin/chmod -R 755 /Applications/Customize.app

/bin/chmod +s /Applications/Customize.app/Customize

6. Now exit term-v100

7. Open Terminal app (you did install this, right? Its no. 7 on the customization guide above it’s different from Terminal and Mobile Terminal)

8. You are instantly on your home directory as user "mobile" not root so you can't mess up the root system of the iPhone.

9. Type the following command then press Enter to start the app

Command:

/Applications/Customize.app/Customize

(It’s normal to see the cryptic stuff on the screen)

10. It should start and probably crash, wait till it crashes completely (if it doesn't crash reboot just the same AFTER exiting the app) then REBOOT your iPhone (press sleep button till "Slide to Power Off" pops up, remember?)

11. You should see the Customize icon on your home screen. Press this and see if it will start. If not, be patient and repeat step no. 9. It should start, and then exit the app. If it fails to exit (like mine did, it wouldn't return to the home screen and it had the Customize options instead.) REBOOT again!

12. At this point when you press the Customize icon, it should launch flawlessly! (Not sure why and how it worked, but this is what I had to do to get it working)If its still doesn't run, please start from step no. 9 again until it does. It will work eventually!

Thanks & Shoutouts:

Thanks to the iPhone dev team, (you know who you are) especially those who made all this possible.

Thanks to the maintainers of the sources and repo’s and the amazing app developers! Here’s hoping you keep the juices flowing and continue developing for the iPhone and offering these apps for all.

Thanks to all members of the iPhone Community, those who are just joining and those who have been there from Day 1.

Shout Outs to all the Forums and Communities for the help and know-how especially (in no particular order): ModMyiFone, AppleIphoneSchool, Philmug.ph, Philmug.org, and Hackintosh!