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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Finally,
you device will restart and you’ll receive the message
above while it reboots back into iOS.
Step 10 – Click the icon again
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
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
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
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
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.
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