Jailbreaking the iPod Touch

It's a snap to enable third party applications on your iPhone or iPod Touch running the 1.1.1 firmware
Ahh... had a nice long break the past week or so, and it feels good to be blogging again. Now then: for Christmas, I received the highly-anticipated and well-publicized iPod Touch and was amazed with Apple's ability to make such a simple, yet successful one trick pony. Thats right: although its great to have a portable device that serves as a diluted laptop, it comes nowhere near the usefulness of, say, an ultra-portable computer. In my opinion, Apple has taken a large step backwards by taking out its ever-popular "disk mode" feature and not including any games (I had become quite fond of playing Parachute). On a plus, it includes a decent web browser that allows you to play media online with its built in Quicktime plugin. Although this does get annoying (downloading any sort of file becomes somewhat impossible) it also has its pros: There are a wide assortment of online apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone alike. Lastly, Apple seems rather impressed with itself for including a native Youtube application, letting all those Youtube-inhaling addicts out there watch their vids whenever they are inside a nice, unsecure Wifi hotspot, which are becoming more and more available these days. All this said, the iPod Touch is pretty handy (it also plays your music and video rather nicely, and as Apple has loved showing everyone, it has Coverflow on it as well), but it does leave something to be desired. So, I did what a huge majority of iPod Touch owners did and "Jailbroke" mine a day or two after receiving it.

Jailbreaking is not as evil as it sounds: on the contrary, it is quite benign and easy to install. It is a simple and small TIFF exploit that is used to install iPhone applications onto your iPod Touch (For all you interested in seeing its code, check it out here, kindly dug up by my good friend Alex). Its only requirement is that you are running its 1.1.1 firmware. To check, simply hit "settings" or "preferences" on your iPod's screen and then tap "general." After that, jut hit "about" to display all of your iPod's technical specs. If your iPod reads something like "1.1.1 (xxxxx)" across from "Version" then you're set. HOWEVER, don't attempt to jailbreak your iPod if you're using 1.1.2 or have somehow found a copy of 1.1.3 which has only been rumored about. Sadly, as of now, there has not been a way to "jailbreak" these editions, but keep reading if you want to find out how to downgrade your iPod to version 1.1.1. Now then, installing the exploit is incredibly simple: you don't even need a computer to do any of this (unlike the notorious iPod linux that so many installed on their older iPods). Simply go to jailbreakme.com on your iPod's internet browser (yes, it's called Safari, and yes, you should know that) and scroll down to "Install AppSnapp." Thats it. Thats all you have to do. It may take a few minutes, but Safari should close out and you should see installation progress on your iPod's screen. After the installation, you should notice a new icon on your desktop that reads "installer." This is the first application you receive after installing the exploit and it is the "holy graile" of 3rd party applications. Simply start it up, and it will spew out a huge list of applications for you to install on your iPod (neatly organised, of course). Installing an app is simple: click the app and then hit "install" in the upper right hand corner of the screen. It will ask for a confirmation, show you a "downloading" and "installing" bar, and then take you back to the Installer home page. Its that simple. After closing installer, you will be prompted to unlock your iPod and, if you have one, enter a password. And thats it. Thats how easy it is to get 3rd party apps. If you want recommendations, check this site out for their list of the top 10 third party iPod touch apps.

Downgrading your iPod is rather simple... even jailbreakme.com is willing to tell you how (along with innumerable other websites). To do this, you must restore your iPod, though, so make sure you have all your music in a safe spot. First things first: download 1.1.1 from apple's website. Then hook up your iPod to your computer, go to the iPod screen on iTunes, hold down shift (or option on a mac) and hit Restore. A window will pop up and ask you for a file from which to restore your iPod: simply go to the 1.1.1 file you downloaded before and click ok. Its that easy... your iPod will then be installed with the 1.1.1 firmware and your iPod is free to jailbreak. Now, as with anything and everything, this may not work 100% of the time, so don't get .frustrated if it doesn't work. Just try it again and everything should be smooth sailing.