A jailbreak for current Apple mobile devices was released, somewhat out of the blue by a relatively unknown Chinese team. Since then, the jailbreaking community has confirmed the tool is safe to use so despite many including myself thinking that the next jailbreak wouldn’t hit the Internet till at least the launch of iOS8 and the launch of the iPhone 6, here we are just a couple of months after the last release.
Why jailbreak your device? Well, it’s so popular, with tens of millions of people doing it, because it allows you to customize iOS’s interface and functions. this is something that’s impossible to do normally, while Android-based devices offer much more flexibility and this is one reason why many people prefer them over Apple. My favorite tweaks involve customising the new Apple Control Panel with more buttons – a highly useful customization, plus speeding up iOS’s animations and many more besides.

Anyway, if you want to try jailbreaking, you have a limited time to apply the latest tool as Apple usually patches the exploits used in its next release so while iOS 7.1.1 is current, you’ll be able to give it a go using my guide below. Just to be clear, though, Jailbreaking isn’t illegal and it won’t break your device or invalidate its warranty. In fact, all you have to do to get rid of the jailbreak is restore your device in iTunes and it will be as if nothing has happened.
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1 – Backup then restore your device in iTunes
1
Even if you already have iOS 7.1.1 installed, you need to do this via iTunes – not Apple’s over the air update feature. The latter, for some reason, causes issues with jailbreaks so be sure to restore your device again.
1a
It won’t take long, but it’s always best to start afresh with jailbreaking. Also be sure to backup your device too if you haven’t already done so – you can restore all your apps after the process is complete.
Step 2 – Download and run the Pangu jailbreak tool
2
You can download the Pangu tool from this link but unfortunately there’s no MAC OS version – just Windows at the moment. Make sure your device is connected to your Pc and that itunes is closed. Run the tool by clicking on the icon.
Step 3 – Untick the option box
3
To make sure only Cydia – the jailbreaking tool database, is installed, uncheck the option box as highlighted above. The tool hasn’t been made in English yet so ignore the strange language.
Step 4 – Click run

4
The run button is highlighted above on the right of the main Pangu program. Click this to start – again, be sure that iTunes is closed and that your device is connected to your PC
Step 5 – Wait for the message box
5
A message box will appear after a few seconds. This is your key to do the next step, which you can follow in step 6. It requires you to change the time to allow the rest of the process to continue.
Step 6 – Change the date and time
6
The tool uses a developer account to work, which was closed by Apple on 2nd June. As such, you need to revert your devices time to this date, which is 2nd June at 8:30pm or 20:30 if you have the 24hr clock set. Go to Settings> General> Date and Time and change the date and time accordingly
Step 7 – Allow Pangu to continue
7
The tool will continue on its own once you’ve done this and eventually a Pangu icon will appear on your device’s screen next to other apps.
Step 8 – Click on the Pangu icon
8
You need to click on this icon to allow the process to continue. A message may pop up – you need to click continue.
Step 9 – Allow your device to restart
9
Finally, you device will restart and you’ll receive the message above while it reboots back into iOS.
Step 10 – Click the icon again
10
You’ll need to click on the icon a second time, after which the device will reboot and then you’ll no longer see it in the list of icons – you’re nearly done.
Step 11 – You’re done – there’s Cydia
11
Once your device has restarted again, you should see an app called Cydia amongst your other apps. This is the iTunes equivalent of the App Store and is where you’ll find all the jailbreaking tools and tweaks.
Step 12 – Create Cydia file system
12
You need to click on Cydia first in order for it to create the file system and allow you to browse all the sources and tweaks. This only takes a few minutes.
Step 13 – Open Cydia
13
Your device will restart again and you’re good to go. You can open Cydia and open an account using Facebook or other logins – these can track your purchases so you can install them easily in future although most of the tweaks are free. I’ll be back with an article about my favorite tweaks too but Google GOOGL +0.19% and YouTube will reveal all the good ones.
Step 14 – Restore your device’s apps
14 

Finally you can restore your device’s other apps to get things back to normal. The date and time should also have been corrected and your device should look and feel exactly the same as before, just with the addition of the Cydia icon.

I hope you have fun trying out all the jailbreaking tweaks. Feel free to ask me questions in the comments.

Comments