With the recent very-easy-to-do Spirit jailbreak for iPhone OS 3.1.3, there are a ton of a new jailbreakers around.

I have written a lot about one off jailbreak apps but never put together a starting guide. It is a great time to put this together as I just scrapped everything and jailbroke my 3GS with Spirit and setting it up to my liking.

Free Must-Have Jailbreak Apps

As soon as you Cydia, here are a few jailbreak apps to consider installing from the new brown app – Cydia.

A small on primer on using Cydia.

• Apps are often referred to as Packages – especially in the manage screen.
• Sources are repositories from various developers where you can find jailbreak apps, themes, etc.

Backgrounder

The very first app I install after jailbreaking. This gives you the ability to run any app in your iPhone in the background.

Tip: In Cydia, when you search for Backgrounder, make sure you do not download the one with (2.x).

Once installed, open up Backgrounder app and for the most part the default settings would work. I’d highly recommend checking out the Activator screen where you can control the shortcuts to enable & disable backgrounding.

Also, I always go into ‘Global’ tab and turn on the badge. This helps me know when an app is running in background so I don’t run my battery down. (the reason Apple doesn’t allow backgrounding natively) We just have to have a watchful eye on it.

Activator

I believe this app gets installed along with Backgrounder. But, even if you don’t get that Activator lets you add some awesome gesture & button controls. It totally lets you customize your volume button control, home button, power button or swipes across status bar, or on the screen to do various things for various apps installed in your phone.

For eg. you can set your iPhone to open Weather app when you shake it.

Tip: Take it easy and start off with a couple of settings. Once you remember those shortcuts add more.

Categories

I have written in detail about Categories here, so I won’t repeat it again here. It basically lets you organize your apps in folders.

SBSettings

SBSettings is a powerful app. It provides easy to access toggles for most of the services in your iPhone. You can turn off 3G, Voice, EDGE, Bluetooth, WiFi, adjust volume, SSH, etc. with a single swipe across the status bar and a tap on the toggle. A must have.

With Winterboard installed, you can also theme your SBSettings windows.

Tip: Check out SBSettings ‘More’ button and ‘Set Toggles’ to turn on/off the toggles you use often. And Processes button gives you another way to kill running processes and free

Circuitous

Circuitous is a relatively new jailbreak app that gives you easy access to currently running apps by showing an overlay of app icons no matter what app you are currently in.

You can use Activator to set an action or gesture to activate Circuitous. I use the short hold on the status bar to activate it.

Circuitous makes it very easy to switch to backgrounded apps or even kill the onles you are not using anymore.

Winterboard

Winterboard is the open source version of iPhone’s native Summerboard. This basically lets you add powerful theming to your iPhone. Winterboard itself does not gives you themes. Once installed, you can search and find winterboard themes you like in Cydia. There are a lot of them. To make it easy for you, we have collected some of the best iPhone Winterboard themes as well as in the process of curating iPad Winterboard themes.

Tip: When you look a theme in Cydia, check out Winterboard themes (Complete). They tend to have more apps, lockscreen, dialer, iPod, etc.

OpenSSH

This is for a power user who is familiar with ssh’ing into unix/linux/Mac with a terminal. You need OpenSSH installed to SSH into your iPhone or iPod Touch.

MobileTerminal

For a power user. You can use a terminal from within your iPhone! Try managing your web server from your iPhone. The feeling is priceless! :-p

RockApp

Rock is an alternative place to look for jailbreak apps. It has gotten a lot more stable lately and fast. I like to browse through the ‘Top rated’ & ‘Release Date’ tabs in the ‘What’s new’ section especially to find new and interesting apps.

Tip: Not all apps are available on Rock to download even though you can browse through it.

Other Good Free Jailbreak Apps

I am going to leave this section to you guys. Share your best finds in the comments and I will add them to the list here with a brief description.

• Lockdown – A great app to password protect certains apps or all apps. Also, has an useful option to prevent apps from getting accidentally deleted.
• Battery Control – Nice options to display battery as percentage and a paid option to add more styles. (thanks @speedlifes)
• Notifier – Adds taskbar notifications for stuff like new mail, missed calls, voicemail, etc. (thanks @ragart)
• WiFiFoFum – An awesome WiFi hotspot scannerwith several interesting features. (thanks @speedlifes)
• WeatherIcon – Adds current weather to your status bar.

So, comment away!

Stun is a complete iPhone & iPod Touch Winterboard theme. The theme features stylish wallpaper, icons, UI images, UI sounds, sliders, dock, and much more.

It has custom loading screens for different apps and the app icons are themed with a cool box shaped effect. The only downside is the icons available seem a little lacking. As you can see only part of my home screen icons have the Stun icons available.

Stun also has a SBSettings theme available if you would like to get a matching theme.

How to Install Stun?

1. Your device must be jailbroken.
2. You must have Winterboard installed via Cydia.
3. You must have ZodTTD Repository added to Cydia.
4. Search for Stun in Cydia and install it.
5. Launch Winterboard and activate Stun.

Don’t forget to check out our collection of our favorite iPhone Winterboard Themes and the best Pogoplank themes.

GinoAwesome is a fun and colorful iPhone Winterboard theme. It has fun and unique icons for tons of Apps not just the usual Apple native apps but also for popular apps as well.

I have the Reflective Dock Cydia app installed to get the reflection look.

How to Install GinoAwesome?

1. Your device must be jailbroken.
2. You must have Winterboard installed via Cydia.
3. You must have pwncenter source (http://apt.pwncenter.com) added to Cydia.
4. Search for GinoAwesome in Cydia and install it.
5. Launch Winterboard and activate GinoAwesome.

Screenshots

Don’t forget to check out our collection of our favorite iPhone Winterboard Themes. I might add GinoAwesome there. What do you think?