New to Jailbreaking

[calum86]

Hi, I am totally new to jailbreaking. I have had my iphone for about a year, but never considered it or read about it until now. My friend has convinced me its a good idea, but I'm a bit scared in case i mess up my phone. I have a few questions that i hope you guys can answer.

1. Can I jailbreak safely with 3.1.2?

2. If something goes wrong and I need to restore my iphone will i lose everything?

3. Can I still download from the app store? And sync normally with itunes?

4. Are there any downsides? Like slowing my iphone (3G) down or anything? or worse?

Thanks in advance guys

 

[lungho]

1. Yes you can jailbreak safely w/ 3.1.2 and your 3G

2. Sync your phone with iTunes and make sure it backs up your phone before attempting a jailbreak.

3. Yes you can download apps from the appstore and sync normally.

4. Depends. Sometimes a jailbreak can go wrong and you'll have some weird stuff happen or some things won't work properly. If so, restore with a backup and try again.

I would make a separate backup of your contacts just in case. I use google sync for my contacts so I don't have to worry about that.

If your jailbreak goes bad even after restoring from a backup file. Restore again but as a new phone......you will lose all non-backed up info.

Assuming you are using a PC and not a Mac, go into task manger and disable anything that has to do with itunes.

Make sure iTunes isn't set to start automatically when you plug your phone in.

Last, when using BlackRa1n, switch your phone to airplane mode before running the program. If you don't, often the phone will hang in DFU mode.

Once you jailbreak, be very careful as to what you install. You can do a lot of neat things but if you're not careful you can brick your phone and you'll have to start from square one again.

 

[calum86]

Thanks for the help

What exactly do you mean be careful what I install? Install from where? And how do I know what to avoid?

 

[lungho]

You'll start out slow just like I did. But you'll get to a point where you will want to dive into the phones file system and manually change things yourself such as email tones or sms tones or you may find a theme or a mod online that you have to manually install.

Use common sense and backup files before you make those kinds of changes. That's all.

 

[Ipheuria]

What firmware are you on now? read through some threads in this forum you'll get alot of knowledge about possible drawbacks and different ways to solve problems you experience on your phone. If you are on firmware below 3.1 you still have unlockability on your phone. So if you have a Mac get pwnage tool and look for the thread with instructions and links on JB your phone with pwnage tool. If you don't have a Mac look for the thread with links to custom firmware files I beleive created with pwnaget tool. So just put your phone in DFU mode and Shift+Restore and point to your custome firmware file.