Activate + Jailbreak iPhone (Windows)

By default, when you get the iPhone, it is not activated. As it’s known, one normally needs to use Apple’s iTunes in order to activate the iPhone. Since “activating” the iPhone via iTunes means signing up right away for a 2 year contract with AT&T, T-Mobile, or whoever the service provider in your country is, some folks would rather not do it — for various reasons… For those folks, there is a very simple solution out there.

This solution will work with any iPhone firmware version released before the end of March. Supported firmware versions include v1.0.0, v1.0.1, v1.0.2, v1.1.1, v1.1.2, v1.1.3, and v1.1.4.

This guide will also explain how to jailbreak your iPhone at the same time as activating it. What does jailbreak do? It allows you to install unauthorized third party programs, but can also lead to security problems. If you’d rather not jailbreak your iPhone, refer to this activation-only guide.

In order to activate and jailbreak your iPhone, just follow these simple steps below:

#1) Download and install ZiPhone (make sure you select the Windows version). You will need to have Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 installed in order to run this program.
#2) Download and install iTunes (make sure you select the Windows version).
#3) Connect your iPhone to your computer via provided USB cable.
#4) Wait for Windows to find your iPhone — you will see a message informing you that Windows found the iPhone.
#5) Launch ZiPhone.

#6) Click on “Don’t Unlock“.
…wait for the operation to complete and you’re good to go!

Possible problems: ZiPhone may display an error message and fail to run, or it may hang at the “waiting for phone” steps. If this happens, you should try the following:

- Make sure iTunes is shut down.
- Make sure iTunesHelper and any other services or daemons related to iTunes are not running.
- Upgrade to iTunes 7.6.
- Reboot your computer.
- If possible, try another computer.

Now that your iPhone is activated and jailbreaked, you can already show it off to everyone and install third party programs — although it still cannot make or accept calls. In order to accept and make calls your iPhone needs to be unlocked — but only if you don’t intend to sign up for a contract with your official service provider.

P.S. If everything went fine, Installer.app was installed by default — you can find it on your iPhone’s springboard. You can use this application to find and download unauthorized iPhone programs.

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