How to download Cydia for iPhone

If you’re new to iOS and jailbreaking, you probably don’t know what “Cydia” is on everyone’s lips. But what are they talking about? Undoubtedly, when we hear or read the word Cydia in some medium, the conversation is related to the world of jailbreak, which translated into Spanish is something like “escape” or, if we translate it directly, “break the cage”. But how to download Cydia? How is it installed?

In this article, we will try to explain several things about Cydia so that you will never have any doubts about the application store that Saurik launched now more than 8 years ago.

What is Cydia and what is it for?

Apple presented its application store in the Keynote of the WWDC in 2008 and baptized it as App Store, whose direct translation is “Application store” (which seems not to be as good as in English). iOS restrictions made developers want to “break the cage” that prevented some modifications to the iPhone. Saurik then decided to launch an alternative app store from where we could download apps not allowed in the App Store and other types of modifications, such as SBSettings (initially called BossPrefs) or Winterboard, which is used to add themes (skins or skins ) to our iPhone.

I’m not going to say that the jailbreak is less and less important, but I will say that in the beginning iOS had many more limitations, so the jailbreak was almost a must. Without going any further, to be able to record video with the first iPhone it was necessary to install a Cydia tweak . Without further delay, let’s see how to download Cydia and install it on different models of iPhone or iPad.

How to download Cydia for iPhone 4 and earlier

The best way to download and install Cydia on iPhone 4 and earlier is to search for the necessary tool for the version of iOS used by this device:

• If you have iOS 7.x installed, you will have to go to the Pangu website and download their Pangu 7 tool.
• If you happen to have iOS 7.0-7.0.x and you don’t trust Chinese hackers (you wouldn’t be the first), you can also use the latest tool released by the evad3rs hacker team that you have available on their website.
• Made the uncritical decision to stay on iOS 6, you can use the p0sixspwn tool .
  For other versions, consult the page http://jailbrea.kr/
• You can also try and install Cydia Installer, a tool for Windows that is supposed to download Cydia. In any case, it is something that I do not recommend.

Compatible models

The quick answer is: everyone. Any iOS device, be it an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, is compatible with Cydia. Of course, not all devices are compatible with all versions of Cydia.

In any case, if we jailbreak an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, entering Cydia we will see if it can be updated to the latest version. If it is not possible, the latest version that we can install from Cydia is the latest version compatible with that device.

Tutorial to install Cydia

This process can be a bit tricky or very simple, depending on the process you choose and at what point you want to install Cydia.

Process 1: Normal installation. Forced process if the jailbreak has not been done before

This is the recommended process to install Cydia on your iPhone.

• If you don’t have the alternative app store Cydia installed, it gives you problems or it disappears, maybe it’s best to start from 0, so the first thing we’ll do is make a backup.
• The second step is to watch one of the tutorials that we have in iPhone News to jailbreak your device.

As simple as that. Although it might work out fine, manually installing some packages tends to cause more problems than fix them, so I recommend doing Process 1 to install Cydia. Also, it’s the only way to install it if we haven’t jailbroken the device yet.

Process 2: Manual installation.

I would not recommend this process to install Cydia, but it will prevent us from starting from scratch with all that this would mean. We will do the following:

• Download the .deb package of the version of Cydia that we want to install.
• Open an SFTP client, like Cyberduck.
• Navigate to /var/root/Media. If we don’t have the Cydia folder, we create it.
• Inside the Cydia folder we have to create (if it is not already) a folder called AutoInstall.
  We take the .deb package that we downloaded in step 1 and “upload” it to the AutoInstall folder.
• We restart twice. After the second reboot, Cydia should show up on the Springboard.

How to jailbreak the latest iPhone models

The hacker groups that are in charge of doing the jailbreak are also in charge of launching tools for it. Otherwise, jailbreaking could be mission impossible. If you were to ask me “How do you jailbreak an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad?” my answer would be “What device and what version of iOS do you have installed?”.

Although it is true that the latest tools make the process practically the same, it is also true that there may be slight but important differences in the process. If I have to say a single generic method, I would say that it has to be done as follows:

1. We are looking for information about the jailbreak for the version of iOS that we have installed. This point can be a bit funny, but I say it because, for example, in iOS 5.0.1-5.1.1 we have to use the Absinthe tool, in iOS 6.1.2 we have to use evasi0n, in iOS 7.x evasi0n7 and for iOS 8 and iOS 9 we will have to use one of the tools offered by the Pangu or TaiG hacker teams. On the jailbrea.kr page we can check this information up to iOS 7.1.
2. We make a backup of all the important data of the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. This is an important step for when we are going to do any flashing, not just jailbreaking.
3. We run the tool downloaded in step 1.
4. We follow the instructions that appear in the application. In many cases, these steps include unlocking the device and tapping on the new icon that has been created on the springboard.