What is cydia?
Cydia is actually a free to download program for iOS. Cydia is a software application which was developed by Jay Freeman popularly known as saurik and was released in early 2008. This free app allows iPhone or iOS user to browse and download applications on their jailbreak devices. The sole purpose of the cydia is to provide free apps, wallpapers, themes and other software. Cydia was launched mainly to counter the restrictive apps store of Apple. Most of the cydia apps are free with just a few requiring you to pay to use them and cydia has become quite popular among the iOS users. Cydia also offers cydia store which includes paid apps.
How get cydia installed on your iPhone?
In order to install cydia on your iPhone you will need to jailbreak your phone first by using proper jailbreak tools. However there are some jailbreak tools that may have cydia inside themselves, i.e. these tools automatically will install cydia once the jailbreak is complete such as redsn0w, Spirit jailbreak etc. The separate installation will require presence of internet connection. You can also install cydia by download cydia.dab file and then copy it on your iPhone. Once you are done you will just need to restart your device to have a jailbreaked phone.
Now,
1. Open the cydia app on your iPhone. When starting for the first time the cydia will be initializing the file system, then it will restart again.
2. Now, the cydia will ask you “Who are you”, this is actually a way to determine and prepare the system files to work according to your preferences. Select the categories, this help cydia to interact more with you. Selecting right categories will help cydia to determine the right settings for you. There will be three options namely : User, hacker and developer. Use “user” (recommended for common use) and then select done.
3. Cydia will now check for the packages updates and it will then ask you to update its database for the first time for now. The downloading of the packages will start and the upper bar will show the downloading in progress statement. This will download the update packages for the cydia.
4. Let the cydia download and update its database index.
5. A pop up will appear asking you to upgrade the essentials. Now you find three options Upgrade essentials, complete upgrade and Ignore (temporary). Use the complete upgrade option to completely upgrade all of your essential packages which are out of date. Now select confirm. But never use Ignore as you may face some errors in the later stage while using cydia.
6. Wait until the completion of the process and then close cydia by tapping on close cydia (restart).
Now, your cydia installation is complete and it should be working fine. Now you can start adding your favorite repository to cydia. You can also try your hands on installing packages to modify, customize or giving a tweak to your iPhone by installing 3rd packages (off course unofficial and outside of apple’s apps store) of your needs.