How to Jailbreak iPhone iOS 4gs with PwnageToo

When you don't want to depend solely on the official App Store to get your iPhone 4 applications, you want to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch—and less than two weeks after the iPhone 4 launch, it's easier than ever to do with your new device. The hard-working iPhone Dev Team released the jailbreak utility PwnageTool version 4.1 this weekend, and while it's not as one-step as ZiPhone, it still offers an easy GUI interface for the job. Let's take a look at the step by step for jailbreaking your iPhone 4device with PwnageTool.

The iPhone 4 jailbreak is still relatively new, and does suffer from instability. While I successfully jailbroke my device this morning, I have experienced hang-ups and freezes trying out new apps, and I haven't had a chance to make sure every single feature on my device still works as it did pre-break. If you decide to jailbreak, proceed with the utmost caution and a full backup of your device's data.

The iPhone 4 jailbreak will add an app called Cydia to your iPhone, which is the iPhone 4 version of Installer.app. Like Installer.app, using Cydia, you can browse and install free iPhone apps not officially sanctioned by Apple. Right now pickings are very slim, but they're bound to expand over time.

You can still use the App Store as usual after you jailbreak your device—this just gives you more than one place to get iPhone apps. Apps you've already installed from the App Store still run on your device as well.

At this point in time the iPhone 4 jailbreak is still very young and the selection of applications is sparse for end users—so you may run into problems without much gain. If you're dead-set on jailbreaking right now, before you start, back up your device and be prepared for the worst. Alternately, you can hang in there and wait for things to get more stable, more apps to come out, and for developers to issue a one-step solution like ZiPhone was for the 1.0 software.

What PwnageTool does is build a custom software bundle to install on your device, which includes all the official iPhone 4 software goodness along with the jailbreak. When all is said and done, you'll come out the other end with an IPSW file that you'll use to "restore" your iPhone or touch within iTunes. Here's how to build your custom jailbreak bundle with PwnageTool.


Fire up PwnageTool and note the big honking warning.



Again, for emphasis: While the custom iPhone software PwnageTool produced ran fine on my first gen phone, your mileage may vary, proceed with caution, don't run with scissors, and do consider just waiting till more folks get a chance to test this out and developers can squash any bugs.

What, you can't wait? Or you just want to live vicariously? Ok. Choose your device and hit the next button.

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