4 Easiest Steps to Jailbreak Any iOS 5 Device Via Redsn0w 0.9.9b6

The most talked about iOS 5 is finally here. This has brought a flurry of jailbreaking tools like Redsn0w and FastRa1n v5.0., to assist Apple users with the jailbreaking of both tethered and untethered versions of the new iOS.

For those of you attempting jailbreak for the first time, you will need to know what Cydia is. Cydia is a third-party software application for iOS that permits you to find and install software packages that include apps, system extensions and interface customizations on a jailbroken iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. After you’ve installed it, it will break iOS features like Apple's official apps and other third party apps.

As this is a tethered jailbreak, you will need to plug the device to a Windows or a Mac each time the device needs to be booted. It, however, has its own disadvantages as once the battery dies, the device will have to be reconnected to a computer to recover the jailbreak application.

An untethered jailbreak doesn’t have such problems and permits the device to be powered without the computer’s assistance.

Here are the steps to follow when you perform a tethered jailbreak via Redsn0w 0.9.9b6.

1 – After you’ve successfully downloaded and installed the new iOS 5 from the iTunes (which you can do by plugging your device into your computer, accessing iTunes, and then updating the selected device), you will need to download and install the Redsn0w 0.9.9b6 jailbreaking tool. You will find the links to the software for both Mac and Windows below.

2 – After the installation, open the Redsn0w and a window will appear offering you two options, Jailbreak (jailbreak and install Cydia) and Extras (Everything else). Here you will need to choose the Jailbreak option from the screen.

3 – The next screen will direct you to a complex set of procedures. Before you can go ahead with them, make sure that the device is plugged in. This will be followed by you needing to turn off the device as it will go through a booting process internally. Do remember to turn off the device as failing to do so may lead to system crash.

You will be shown a command on the screen that will say “Please make sure your device is both OFF and PLUGGED IN to the computer. If it is not off, plug the device into the computer FIRST. Then, hold down the Power button (on the edge of the device) until ‘Slide to Power off’ appears, and then slide to power off. Click next ONLY when your device is BOTH off and plugged in. (if you already know how to enter DFU mode, you may do so right now from this screen without clicking next).”

Click the Next button and you will be shown the set of procedures that you will need to follow to enter the DFU mode.

During the process, you will first need to “Hold down the Power (corner) button for 1 second.” Next you will be asked to “Without releasing the Power button, also hold down the Home (bottom center) button for 10 seconds,” followed by “Without releasing the Home button, release the power button BUT KEEP holding the Home button for 15 seconds.” All of these steps will be on the screen for your assistance.

Once you've done this successfully, you will enter the DFU mode and Redsn0w will travel through a variety of screens. Here, you will need to wait while the “build is being identified.” And you will need to wait till the rebooting is done. Your ramdisk boot environment will be processed during that time and it will be there on the screen to assist you.

Once this has been done successfully, you will enter the DFU mode and Redsn0w will travel through a variety of screens.

4 – Know that once that has been done, your device has been jailbroken and you will be provided with a further set of options under the banner “Please select your options for iPhone3,1_5.0_9a334:” Under this, there will be four options – “Install Cydia,” “Install custom bundle,” “Enable multitask gestures” and “Deactivate.” Check the “Install Cydia” option and click on Next.

Note that you can reboot the device only when it is plugged (tethered) to your computer, and that if you reboot it untethered, the device’s system, including Safari and Cydia, may crash. Now to finish off the process, you will again need to connect your device to the computer and open Extras in Redsn0w where there will be a set of seven options – Just Boot (Just boot tethered right now), Pwned DFU (Enter pwned DFU mode in preparation for restoring to a custom IPSW via iTunes), Recovery Fix (Get out of Recovery Mode caused by an iTunes restore error), SHSH blobs (Fetch, verify or use SHSH blobs, Select IPSW (Manually specify an IPSW), Custom IPSW (Preserve baseband with a custom IPSW) and Preferences (User preferences).

Here, finally, you will need to click on the “Just boot” option and you will be done.

The iPhone Dev-Team will offer you further assistance with jailbreak and Redsn0w. Check for updates to jailbreak here.

For Microsoft Windows

For Mac