Simply put, jailbreaking your iPhone lets you do what Apple wouldn’t. A jailbroken iPhone can be customized to taste and there are loads of softwares available on Cydia for your device and these are apps you will never find in Apps Store. Besides, you have even more control over your file system. For a complete list of benefits you get for jailbreaking your Apple device, I suggest you take a look at this post. I made a post earlier on jailbreaking iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s with GreenP0ison Absinthe but this post deals with jailbreaking iOS 5.1.1 on your iPhone. If you’re using an iPhone 3G, please you may refer to this guide instead. Follow the steps below.
Requirements for the jailbreak
Download
Download
- iOS 5.1.1 for iPhone 3Gs
- iOS 5.1.1 for iPhone 4 (GSM)
- iOS 5.1.1 for iPhone 4 (CDMA)
- iOS 5.1.1 for iPhone 4s
Download any of the above compatible with your iPhone and computer operating system. You must have iOS 5.1.1 installed already on your phone before going through this jailbreaking process. To check, go to Settings > General > About > Version
If you already have this, then you may skip the next step but if you have a lower iOS version, you need to upgrade to 5.1.1 before jailbreaking.
Prerequisite – Upgrading to iOS 5.1.1
Like I mentioned earlier, skip this step if you already have iOS 5.1.1.
1. Launch iTunes and be sure you’re connected to the internet
2. Hold down the home key and connect your phone to the computer. It should now be in recovery mode
3. iTunes should notify you that your phone needs to be restored to work
4. The rest of the process is pretty simple. Just follow the process and wait till it’s completed.
Alternative method
- Connect your iPhone and launch iTunes
- Click your phone name on the left
- Hold the SHIFT key on your keyboard and click Restore on iTunes
- Locate the firmware you downloaded earlier and upgrade to iOS 5.1.1
This may take a while so you have to wait till the process is completed. If you get something like Error 1015, you should check this post but normally, everything should go just fine.
Jailbreaking Your iPhone
- Connect your phone to the computer. Run Redsn0w. If you’re using Windows, you must first right-click and run as administrator. Now click on Jailbreak
- The process initiates and you should see something on your screen similar to this:
- The next step allows you to choose additional option. If you need to unlock your phone later, you may select the option that allows you to upgrade to iPad baseband but this is not necessary. Normally, you should only select Install Cydia unless you know exactly what you’re doing. Choosing the wrong option may leave you with a bricked phone.
Hit the Next button and the jailbreak should start.
If you got it right, the installation should start and you have nothing else to do now but to watch the whole thing happen. You may see your phone displaying all sorts of “nonsense”, don’t fear. 
When the whole process is complete and your phone finally starts up, you should notice a new application named Cydia on your springboard. Launch Cydia and let it initiate for the first time and now you have a fully jailbroken iPhone. There are tons of repositories and tweaks available and you may check the list of top 10 Cydia tweaks for jailbroken iPhones I wrote.
Twitter: dekokoblog
says:
thanks for sharing this. Can i use this same method to jailbreak my ipad?
Essien recently posted..Blackberry Curve 5 Slot Pricelist And Specification
Sure, it works on iPad.
Great! This is a much more straightforward method.
Dennis recently posted..How many products are you selling with your social media target campaigns?
God Bless Dev Team for making such an easy to use application such as redsn0w It has helped so many of us thank you for the great tutorial
Sure, Saad, Redsn0w has been of great help.I even heard iOS 6 beta4 jailbreak is now available through Redsn0w.
Twitter: obasimvilla
says:
great tips here , easy to use too
Obasi Miracle recently posted..Re: Lists of free Scripts hosting sites and scripts downloads.
That’s such a great information. I want to jailbreak my iphone now after reading this.
Twitter: SilvaniBlog
says:
Thats a good list, but I can’t find any for ipod touch…. Any help?
Azubuike recently posted..How Much Is Samsung Galaxy S Duos Dual SIM Phone
This sure works for iPod touch.
Hey bro, Is this method tethered or untethered? Inform soon. Thank you.
It’s untethered
I tried jailbreaking my iPhone 3Gs, but I keep getting “The iPhone ‘HENRY’s iPhone’ could not be restored.
An unknown error occurred (3194)
Quit iTunes
Locate your hosts file, in Mac OS X this is /etc/hosts and in Windows this is c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Open the hosts file with Administrator privileges
Add the following lines to the very bottom of the hosts file:
74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com
Connect your iPhone to the computer
Launch iTunes
Put the iPhone/iPad/iPod into DFU mode by turning the phone off and then holding down the sleep and power button for 10 seconds, then release the power button but hold onto the home button until iTunes tells you that the device is now in recover mode
Use the iTunes Restore feature as usual with the iOS device
Once your iOS update is finished, remove the “74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com” line from your hosts file again so that iTunes can properly update as usual. If you need them, you can get iPhone firmware, iPad firmware, and iPod touch firmware directly from Apple.
Thanks Mark, though I didn’t succeed due to not knowing “HOW or WHERE” to enter ’74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com’ line from my hosts.
Host file is usually located in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\
You can drag it to the desktop and edit it with notepad. You then have to drag it back to it’s original location after editing.
Thanks ones more, though, I have done as you directed me to, but I still keep getting the same error message.