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Does jailbreaking really slow down your phone? Any technical information?

S

sofakng

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 5, 2008
270
32
Is there any solid information on whether or not jailbreaking slows down the phone?

I'm a software developer (although nowhere near the level of the dev team, et al) and can't think of a reason why the jailbreak itself should change anything. If anything it should be faster (because it's not checking if code is signed) but everytime I jailbreak I swear my phone gets slower and that's even if I only load a few emulators, etc.

Even if the jailbreak itself doesn't cause any slowdown, how about Mobile Substrate and 3G Unrestrictor, etc? If I understand correctly these are basically wrappers around different sections of code so I can see them causing a very tiny bit of slowdown.

I'd still love to see any information from somebody with a technical background, etc...
 
Jailbreaking by itself with nothing from Cydia installed? No. With stuff from Cydia? It's possible that there could be a slight slow down. However, since the iPhone 3Gs the slow down has been so small its almost like there is no slowdown at all. But, if you install something that was not made for your firmware version, it could make your iDevice very slow.
 
In my opinion I see a very slight slow down in various ways but with all the stuff I think it is worth it. And it is so mininal you wouldn't really be able to tell without nit picking. I did run a test through speed test before jailbreak, after jailbreak and after I installed some programs and I saw no decline in the speed of my iphone. I think that if you install a ton of stuff from cydia naturally it is going to slow down the phone I would think due to memory problems. If you only have certain things and delete the stuff you don't use I don't think you'll have a problem
 
Most people won’t notice any lag from jailbreaking. Even with some lag, the advantages win over the slight lag someone might notice. Of course, if Apple implemented a lot of the stuff we have to add, we wouldn’t even have that lag.
 
Why does the lag even exist? That's probably the root of what I'm asking...
 
sofakng said:
Why does the lag even exist? That's probably the root of what I'm asking...
Click to expand...

Many Cydia applications run all the time (Winterboard, etc.) or when certain events occur (BiteSMS, etc.) so you're running additional code that wasn't there before.

Additional code = more CPU cycles, RAM, and so on. The more unused RAM and CPU cycles that are available, the less you'll notice any slowdown caused by jailbreak apps.

I could drag down my 3G pretty easily, but my iPhone 4 remains pretty responsive. I didn't notice any performance hit at all.
 
With the 3G i noticed lag and battery drain - but I was also running winterboard and some themes.

On the 4 I do not notice any slowdown, and the battery has been great.
 
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