Jailbreaking Continued: Cydia

So you managed to jailbreak your Apple device, now what?! Well, when you jailbroke you’re iOS device, a new app called Cydia was installed upon your lovely home screen. Cydia is basically an unofficial App Store of sorts, it holds tweaks, utilities, app, and themes that Apple didn’t want in its official App Store. At first run, Cydia is a bit daunting, but once you know what to do…it’s as easy as pie.

So where do you start? Well, the first time you open up Cydia, you’ll see a screen that says: “Initializing Filesystem.” This will prepare your device for running Cydia. After the filesystem has be initialized, the Springboard (your home-screen) will restart. There’s no need to panic, you’ll actually get used to this, because it happens a lot when you start to actually install apps.

When you restart, re-open Cydia and you’ll be met with a question: “Who are you?” This screen is asking what type of content do you want to be served to you while surfing through Cydia. If it’s you first time using Cydia, stick with “User.” “Hacker” and “Developer” are really only there for the veterans of jailbreaking and those who don’t want anything censored. So, if you’re not one of those…stick with “User.”

After you chose who you are, you are brought to the actual Cydia app. The app is split into 5 sections.

1. Cydia: The main page where any announcements and featured items are shown.

2. Sections: Every app, tweak, theme, utility, etc. neatly categorized.

3. Changes: Any new packages that have been added are shown here.

4. Manage: Manage Sources (I’ll talk about those in a second), Packages, and Memory; all in one convenient place.

5. Search: Search for packages.

Cydia comes installed with plenty of packages built-in that you can install, but these packages are stored in “sources.” Sources are hold the links to the packages that Cydia uses to download and install them. If you need a metaphor to get it, here’s a good one: Cydia is like a school, inside the school are lockers (sources), inside the lockers are books (packages), you must go to your locker to get the books and take them to school. Was that a great metaphor, or what?! So now that you know what everything is, we can get started with installing packages!

Before we start installing packages, I’ll show you how to install a source.

First, open Cydia and tap your way to the “Manage” tab.

Then, tap “Sources.”

Followed by “Edit.”

Finally, “Add.”

A popup will…pop up, and you can add the source URL into the text field. Hit “Add Source,” and that’s it!

Installing packages is just as easy. All you need to do tap on the “Sections” tab, just scroll to a package, hit install, and you’re done!

That’s basically all you need to know about Cydia and getting started with jailbreaking! I’ll write a post soon about the best, must-have, packages inside Cydia…stay tuned!

SK( Managing Editor )

Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.

Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.

In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.