Jailbreak Your iPhone with One Touch
Just tonight Erica Sadun, a well-known iPhone tinkerer and TUAW blogger, announced the launch of jailbreakme.com. The site enables its iPhone/iPod Touch visitors to “jailbreak” their units in mere minutes, with a single touch. Jailbreaking is a term for opening up the closed iPhone/iPod Touch system, or breaking it from its jail if you will. If your iPhone is jailbroken, you can install dozens of third party applications and utilities. I did it myself earlier tonight and was amazed at how well and quickly it worked.
However, it should be noted that it only worked for me while connected via Wi-Fi. I guess EDGE was too slow. Basically, all you do is visit jailbreakme.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch, scroll to the bottom and initiate the install. It takes advantage of a TIFF exploit in v1.1.1, which gives full system read+write access allowing jailbreakme to download and install Installer.app. After you initiate the install, Safari will close and after a minute or so the phone will lock. Slide the bar to unlock it and there should be a new icon for Installer.app. Run that and you can choose which third party applications and tools to install. When installing apps, keep touching the screen so that it doesn’t lock itself because the download might fail if it does.
So far I have installed the BSD Subsystem, Community Sources, OpenSSH, vterm, Kb2 (lets you turn off keyboard autocomplete), Apollo (great instant messaging app), Navizon (pseudo-GPS using Wi-Fi and cell towers - maps your general location), Lights Off (addictive game), iFlickr (take photos and send them directly to Flickr), SendPics (send original iPhone-taken photos via email; iPhone usually sends smaller versions) and a few others.
Earlier I was backing up my server via SSH on my iPhone and viewing Apache logs; that is pretty damn incredible. Now is the time to buy an iPhone people.. or in February when the SDK is released and third party applications are embraced by a larger community. As I told Zach Hale, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier with a piece of technology. I’ve been grinning all night.
Thanks to Ethan for pointing me to the TUAW post.
Everything is sexy on the iPhone, even the jailbreak part! ^^
Thanks for posting Paul, your pics are superb.
Thanks for this post — I’ll have to wait another 11 days until “iPhone Day†in Germany, but this will be one of the first things I do (I’m looking forward to SSH into my server on-the-go and iFlickr will be useful as well), so thanks again for the hint!
Don’t suppose you know if thisworks on a version 1.0.2 that has already been jailbroken?
I am guessing I will need to restore to original, and then upgrade and then jailbreak again which seems a lot of hassle for what little benefits 1.1.1 gives
Awesome!! Thanks for the heads-up; I’m loving my new apps!
Hi Paul, I’m a few weeks into ownership and love the device as well. How easy is rolling back the unlock so you can upgrade when Apple updates the firmware again? That is my only concern.
Are some of the apps open source? It would be interesting to take a look at the code as well.
these pictures and reviews are killing me, I was totally content with my blackberry, but now that you’ve made the switch and are happy, I’m starting to reconsider!
I’ve run the install from Safari on my IpodTouch. Safari closes, but it doesn’t lock and nothing happens thereafter… any thoughts?
@Nic: My iPhone did the same thing 2 or 3 times; just retry until it works, or reboot your iPod & try again.
I am starring at my display in AWE. It is that easy? A simple touch?
WOW
I ran the same jailbreakme installer and so far I can’t get any third party apps to work for me (iFlickr, lights out, send pics, customize). When I open them it goes to a white screen for a second and then it reverts right back to the home screen. I’ve reset the iPhone a few times with no luck. Also tried a restore and then re installed.
Any other ideas?
So there’s an SSH client available for the iPhone now? Where at?
I was installing it last night and installed a bunch of apps that have worked in the past, however most of them would load slightly then completely quit out, back to the main screen.
@Don Wilson
Did you try installing the BSD Subsystem package. When I installed that everything seemed to start working just fine for me.
Ok, I’m starting to be convinced. The price is still a little steep for a gadget I don’t *need* to have, but the possibilities are helping…
Am sure you will have seen the fact that the UK iPhone will have yet another Firmware version, that once agaon wont work with any of the current Jailbreak options.
I really want an iPhone, (having played with my girlfriend’s iPod touch- the interface is just great), but I can’t justify the cost… £310 for a phone? Not in the UK, we are used to getting a free phone when you take a out contract. On top of that, you are looking at close to £1,000 a year subscription fees… I agree with the Gizmodo UK summery: “iPhone: Very Small. Very Cool. Very Expensive”
Jailbreakme.com dont work for me. I just keep receiving the page it says “you must visit this url on your Iphone/Ipod Touch”, I am browsing the page on my iphone.
What to do?
It would be cool if you could use the Eye-Fi SD card to upload via Wi-Fi to the iPhone and then to Flickr using the iPhone’s cellular signal.