There are plenty of guides out on the interwebz that will walk you through jailbreaking your iPhone, but what about if you already have a jailbreak and want to upgrade to the latest iPhone firmware? Unfortunately, you should not just plug your jailbroken iPhone into iTunes and perform an upgrade.
When you jailbreak your phone it creates a separate partition (space) within your phone to hold your jailbroken files and applications. If you upgrade your phone it naturally wipes out your jailbreak, which means you have to jailbreak again right after the upgrade; but more importantly that space it made for your jailbroken files goes into limbo. This means that the space is basically lost, and when you jailbreak again it will create another partition to use. As a result you’ll wind up with a ‘messsy’ phone that has lost data within it’s storage space. There are also the other common pitfalls, such as loosing all your jailbroken applications and data.
After a lot of trial and error I believe I have finally settled upon a series of steps to ease the pain of upgrading a jailbroken iPhone. This process will involve restoring your iPhone instead of simply upgrading. This is for not only avoiding the issue mentioned above with lost partition space, but also to try to keep as many of your apps and settings as possible after your upgrade with the new jailbreak.
I have written this for iTunes 9 on Windows platforms, and the latest iPhone firmware of 3.1.2.
Process
1. Using your already jailbroken iPhone launch the Cydia installer and download the Rock App installer, if you have not done so already. This is an alternate installer to the Cydia application for jailbroken apps that in many ways is superior to Cydia, but also allows for important backup creation of your existing jailbroken applications list. (More Information on Rock)
2. Once installed, if you are a new Rock App user launch the application and register for usage. It’s a simple registration that will prompt you for your e-mail address and a password to login. Once you are signed in give the application a moment to refresh it’s data, and once it is completed go to Manage > Settings > and scroll down near the bottom. You will find an App Backup section with the option Save Packages to RockID already checked. If you uncheck this, and place a check-mark on it again it will prompt you to create a backup. Choose the Yes – Now option and Rock App will create a listing of all your existing jailbroken applications and store it on their servers, so that the list can be reinstalled automatically after your upgrade.
3. After Rock is finished launch iTunes and plug your iPhone into your computer. It may prompt you to perform an upgrade right then and there, but either cancel that prompt or download the upgrade only, not download and install. Within iTunes right-click on your iPhone in the left hand pane and click on Transfer Purchases. This will ensure that all your purchase applications are migrated into your iTunes library if it has been a while since your last sync.
4. After the purchase transfer has completed right-click on your iPhone again and select Backup. This is a bit self explanatory, it and will backup your files and settings to restore after the main Restore itself.
5. Once the Backup has completed on the iTunes main screen for your iPhone click on Restore. This will apply the new firmware and wipe all data and settings from your iPhone, including what will be the old jailbroken partition. Data, applications, and settings will be restored on subsequent steps if all steps prior to this one were followed.
6. Once your phone has been restored and upgraded it will reboot and begin the activation process; the phone will be in emergency mode while this takes place. After the activation is completed the iPhone will once again appear in iTunes. In the main screen you should see a new prompt called Set Up Your iPhone. Put a bullet next to the option “Restore from the backup of” and choose the backup you created before your Restore from the drop down menu.
7. After your iPhone has been restored from your backup you may want to sync it with your iTunes library to transfer over your music, ringtones, and purchased applications. Be sure to click on each individual tab first to make sure the sync settings are setup the way you want (especially the applications to sync / install).
8. Now that the sync is completed your iPhone is technically ready to use, but there is the all important jailbreak. The current iPhone firmware 3.1.2 jailbreak is called “blackra1n“, and it is available from http://www.blackra1n.com/ . Visit the site and click on the Windows logo at the bottom, and save the file in a folder on your local computer.
9. Once the jailbreak is downloaded make sure that iTunes is closed, along with the iPodService as well (can be closed through Task Manager). For those running Windows Vista or 7 I’d recommend going through the following post and trying some of these prerequisites as well, as I had issues running the blackra1n application under Windows 7.
10. When ready launch the blackra1n application and click on the appropriately titled “Make it Ra1n” button. This will put your iPhone in factory restore mode and load the jailbreak. If all goes well you should see your phone reboot and be usable afterwards. If for some reason it gets stuck in factory restore mode for longer than 1 or 2 minutes unplug the phone, reboot it (hold power + main key), and make sure the prerequisites above were followed before trying again.
11. After the jailbreak if you look at your iPhone you should notice a new blackra1n application available for you to launch. If you open this app on your iPhone you will be given the option to install the Cydia, Rock, and Icy installers (I myself installed Cydia and Rock). Install at least the Rock installer.
12. Once Rock is installed launch it and insert the credentials you created in an earlier step. Then again, go to Manage > Settings > App Backup > and Restore from Backup. It will load a list from their server and you should see the backup you created before you began the process. Select the backup and you should be given a list of all your previously jailbroken applications and components (scroll down to see list). Click on the Restore From Backup button and it will bring up the installer portion of the interface where it will re-install all those applications. Afterwards, you should be prompted for a respring (reboot), if not manually restart your iPhone.
13. After your iPhone reboots from the Rock App Restore you should finally have all your jailbroken apps reinstalled, and in a lot of cases the settings as well! Certain applications like Categories may need to be reconfigured again (recreate folders) and your icons may be out of order, but you should be sitting with the latest iPhone firmware, all your apps, and hopefully most of your settings.
Trust me, in many ways it’s superior. GREAT interface, fast loading and installing, and you can access the same repositories. Remember that you don’t want to wait to try Rock App, you can put it on at any time and give it a shot to check it out.
Rock App sounds like a good alternative for Cydia, well atleast for the backing up of the appz you had installed part. I’ll try it out for the next upgrade.