This is the third installment in the series “Apple Jailbreak Q & A”! If you missed it, check out “What is Jailbreaking?” before getting started with the rest of the series.
Can My Device be Jailbroken?
Not every iDevice can be jailbroken, but most any of them that run the iOS firmware (iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone) can be jailbroken to some degree or another. Not all iOS devices are made equal, your mileage may vary. For instance, each iteration of the iPhone comes with faster hardware, different processors, memory, and other internal components. Your device is limited in the degree it can be jailbroken based on its hardware. The iPod classic and older iPods, iPod Nanos, Minis, and Shuffles do not run iOS and therefore cannot be jailbroken in this fashion. There are alternate OSes, games, and other things that can be done to those, but that is outside of the scope of this series.
Two Types of iOS Jailbreaking
Tethered – Each time your device reboots, you will need to connect the USB cable and use special software to boot it back to a jailbroken state, or else third-party (non-App Store) apps will not function, nor will the Cydia app store.
Untethered – No special requirements, each reboot should take the device to a jailbroken state. This is the ideal way to jailbreak, but requires a bootrom firmware exploit – generally the jailbreaking community waits until an untethered jailbreak is available before upgrading to Apple’s latest firmware release.
How Do I Know if My Current Device Can Be Jailbroken?
Visit JailBreakMatrix.com – we aren’t going to re-invent the wheel here, and they have done a simply amazing job of breaking down which models can and can’t be jailbroken on which particular firmware version your device is running. Check in iTunes with your device attached, click on your iDevice in the left pane and then read what version of iOS you are running and what model of device you have. JailBreakMatrix shows you if it’s jailbreak-able, which firmwares you might need, which exploit method to use, and often a written or video guide on how to do each of the above configurations. Just click on your model under the firmware version you are running, and maybe note whether or not you can safely upgrade to the latest firmware before jailbreaking. Bookmark this site and check it before any software update to your device on iTunes.
Incidentally, this is an Apple jailbreak Q & A, but I thought it was worth mentioning people are attempting to “jailbreak” the PS3, with some products already released in the wild on USB keys for a small ransom.
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