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General Is Jailbreaking Overrated?

TheRainKing

TheRainKing

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 11, 2012
999
535
I recently jailbroke my iPhone again and it basically dawned on me how pointless it actually was. The Cydia store is full of either apps that you are expected to pay for (more expensive than the average App store app) or apps that are free but extremly buggy. I remember a quote from Steve Job autobiography where he talked about why he didnt want 3rd party apps on the iphone, he said "they will just mess things up", and now i can see what he meant. Cydia is full of crappy apps with rubbish GUI that constsntly crash.

The only apps that i find useful on Cydia are SBSettings, because it allows me to toggle wifi, 3g etc from the notification centre, and VLC player, because it lets me play all media types. Aside from that i cant find any useful apps... There are tweaks that add new screen transitions, let you hide certain apps and set custom themes, but is any of this really important? Not really.. And they tend to cost money.

So yeah, basically im beginning to question whether jailbreaking is actually that useful anymore.

What do you guys think?
 
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TheRainKing said:
I recently jailbroke my iPhone again and it basically dawned on me how pointless it actually was. The Cydia store is full of either apps that you are expected to pay for (more expensive than the average App store app) or apps that are free but extremly buggy. I remember a quote from Steve Job autobiography where he talked about why he didnt want 3rd party apps on the iphone, he said "they will just mess things up", and now i can see what he meant. Cydia is full of crappy apps with rubbish GUI that constsntly crash.
Click to expand...

I would say Cydia apps are around the price you will pay on the app store ... if they're more expensive, it's often because they provide multiple features and low-level system mods that are other wise impossible for the user to change. I love jailbreaking and actually would rather pay for Cydia apps than App store apps.

Given Cydia was written and basically maintained by ONE person, I have found it to be very reliable, up to date and useful. Hell, even the NEW app store has been so unreliable lately!

TheRainKing said:
The only apps that i find useful on Cydia are SBSettings, because it allows me to toggle wifi, 3g etc from the notification centre, and VLC player, because it lets me play all media types. Aside from that i cant find any useful apps... There are tweaks that add new screen transitions, let you hide certain apps and set custom themes, but is any of this really important? Not really.. And they tend to cost money.
Click to expand...

To each their own! We all get our own level of customizability. If you only want a few cydia tweaks, then only install those! I have about 10-15 that I miss dearly on my iPhone.

If theming isn't for you, or the transitions, ect., then just simply don't use them. Are they necessary? No. But neither are four variants of Angry Birds! The point is, that jailbreaking at least gives the user OPTIONS. OPTIONS are good to the consumer.

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Dima470 said:
BiteSMS is free and i use it very often...
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If you illegally crack it. :rolleyes:
 
The ability to turn off A2DP and 3G alone is worth jail breaking to me. It's the reason I looked in to jail breaking to begin with. The few other tweaks I did are just icing on the cake.
 
I liked the ability in jailbreaking to blacklist incoming phone numbers and to put toggles where they are easy to access. If Apple allowed this through IOS, I wouldn't jailbreak the phone.
 
TheRainKing said:
I recently jailbroke my iPhone again and it basically dawned on me how pointless it actually was. The Cydia store is full of either apps that you are expected to pay for (more expensive than the average App store app) or apps that are free but extremly buggy. I remember a quote from Steve Job autobiography where he talked about why he didnt want 3rd party apps on the iphone, he said "they will just mess things up", and now i can see what he meant. Cydia is full of crappy apps with rubbish GUI that constsntly crash.

The only apps that i find useful on Cydia are SBSettings, because it allows me to toggle wifi, 3g etc from the notification centre, and VLC player, because it lets me play all media types. Aside from that i cant find any useful apps... There are tweaks that add new screen transitions, let you hide certain apps and set custom themes, but is any of this really important? Not really.. And they tend to cost money.

So yeah, basically im beginning to question whether jailbreaking is actually that useful anymore.

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...


Getting any app you want for free to try it out (let's be real, any LITE version of an app blows dick) out before you buy it is pretty gucci.
 
Whether or not it's overrated is up to you some people love it some people don't. For me I love it and the day I can't hack my iPhone is probably the day I change platforms. there are tons of good free tweeks out there you just have to hunt or look for them. Also my 4S rarely crashes, battery life is just as good and so is my speed. If one doesn't like there jailbreak they should just restore it and move on. it's like trying a food and then you don't like the food, Just don't eat it anymore.
 
It's subjective but I do agree. I think jailbreaking is a lot less useful than it used to be and when I jailbroke my iPad a few months ago I couldn't do anything useful with it without paying double what a standard App Store app would cost in Cydia, which I was reluctant to do for something that wasn't even properly supported by my device and OS so I just restored it back to normal in the end.

As for VLC I have the App Store version from before Apple removed it so I guess I lucked out there.
 
Only overrated if you see no need for it.

I happen to love JB. Zephyr, Bitesms, SBSettings, Lorem, pushtone, etc.

JB is great, especially in the office where it seems like everyone has a iPhone. Great for making my iPhone mine.
 
TheRainKing said:
*snip*

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

I think you have no idea what you're talking about. Most Cydia apps are operating system enhancements instead of traditional 'apps.' It drastically improves how things work. All good things cost money, I don't know why you expect jailbreaking to make Cydia tweaks free.
 
I cant wait to jailbreak my iPhone 5, I dont care if its over rated. Its the freedom and community around it. In history I have activated my paid iOS dev account twice. And that was while waiting for the iPad 2 jailbreak and now while waiting for my iPhone 5 to be jailbroken. But I like Jailbreak more than the Dev account.

Things that will be installed on my iPhone 5 the day of jailbreak release (and deleted until they are iOS6 compatible if needed):

Infinifolders (scrolling folders infinite size)
Octopus Keyboard (beta preview it is out of beta now)
Five Icon Dock
SBSettings in Notification Center (beta footage, longs since out of beta, and I like an other theme better)
Nitrous (I cant live without this, it makes Chrome(and others) as fast as Safari)
Browser changer (make chrome or others your default browser)
Download files in Chrome!
Applocker (password apps like mail)
Adblocker (didnt see a link, it does exactly what you expect, saves bandwith and makes surfing faster too)
Close Enhancer (more intuitive and faster closing in apptray)


There are of course many others, those are just on the top of my head. Some tweaks I just cant remember right now I need, cause I currently only have a jailbroken iPad, which uses other tweaks ;)
 
I just jailbreak even if I don't want to install anything because I like to have the options there. Also, Nintendo emulators are great.
 
Couldn't imagine my life without f.lux any more - it's so GREAT not to have to stare at the bluish screen any more, particularly before going to bed!

And it's only one of the essential, absolutely-must JB tweaks.
 
Menneisyys2 said:
Couldn't imagine my life without f.lux any more - it's so GREAT not to have to stare at the bluish screen any more, particularly before going to bed!

And it's only one of the essential, absolutely-must JB tweaks.
Click to expand...

^^^X2^^^

Couldn't live without some of the tweaks that I have. Oh well... it's your opinion OP, if you feel that JBing lacks, who are we to change your mind? :apple:
 
Jailbreaking doesn't have to be a life-changing thing to make it desirable. I use things like sbs settings, themes, backgrounder (to kill all background apps) and gridlock (to place icons where ever the hell I want them). That and lockscreen widgets make the iPhone a whole lot more than what Uncle Steve envisioned 5 years ago.

Keep in mind that folders and separate wallpapers were Jailbreak features long before Apple incorporated them.

Just because you Jailbreak doesn't mean you have to download every single crap thing that is on Cydia. - there's also about 2000 flashlight apps in the Apple App store. You have all of them?
 
Menneisyys2 said:
Couldn't imagine my life without f.lux any more - it's so GREAT not to have to stare at the bluish screen any more, particularly before going to bed!

And it's only one of the essential, absolutely-must JB tweaks.
Click to expand...

Never heard of that app until you mentioned it, but after doing some research, that does sound like a pretty useful app. I hate trying to use my iPhone in a dark room only to be blinded by it.
 
Siggen said:
I cant wait to jailbreak my iPhone 5, I dont care if its over rated. Its the freedom and community around it. In history I have activated my paid iOS dev account twice. And that was while waiting for the iPad 2 jailbreak and now while waiting for my iPhone 5 to be jailbroken. But I like Jailbreak more than the Dev account.

Things that will be installed on my iPhone 5 the day of jailbreak release (and deleted until they are iOS6 compatible if needed):

Infinifolders (scrolling folders infinite size)
Octopus Keyboard (beta preview it is out of beta now)
Five Icon Dock
SBSettings in Notification Center (beta footage, longs since out of beta, and I like an other theme better)
Nitrous (I cant live without this, it makes Chrome(and others) as fast as Safari)
Browser changer (make chrome or others your default browser)
Download files in Chrome!
Applocker (password apps like mail)
Adblocker (didnt see a link, it does exactly what you expect, saves bandwith and makes surfing faster too)
Close Enhancer (more intuitive and faster closing in apptray)


There are of course many others, those are just on the top of my head. Some tweaks I just cant remember right now I need, cause I currently only have a jailbroken iPad, which uses other tweaks ;)
Click to expand...

I want to personally thank the OP and you for this list of apps I didn't know about.
 
Vetvito said:
I want to personally thank the OP and you for this list of apps I didn't know about.
Click to expand...

No problem, my list would be longer if it was for the iPad, as you can see in my signature, I don't currently use a Jailbroken iPhone yet. Its been a while since I had my previous iPhone. Im just taking this out of my head, its by far not comprehensive a list.


By the way, those were just tweaks.
Some regular apps that you can get from cydia:

iFile (best file manager for iOS, full filesystem access, can install deb files, and open files in other apps)

iTransmission 2 or 1.1 (2 if you are jailbroken, and can download and open torrent files, 1 if you either are not jailbroken(and have a dev account) and/or need the ability to just copy torrent/magnet URLs into the app)
Until the iP5 jailbreak you can always download the 1.1 version and sign it with your own dev account. Its a bitch getting the files out, but i need the ability :)

Mobile Terminal, command line emulator for the native shell on the iOS device, you can SSH to your home computer, or run command line tools like nmap, change password on your users (do must do this if you have SSH installed or others can ssh to your device), or run dpkg to build debs and lots of things. You can also see in this video you can use iFile to get the newest version of this app, and you should use the newest version.



More tweaks:
iBlacklist (block those pesky ex'es from spamming you with phone calls and SMS) (warning didn't see if this video was a good representation for the app, @work now)

Also there is a tweak that slims down the navigation bar in apps. Cant remember the name, installed it on an iPhone a year ago, and it freed up some vertical pixels and looked good

Dashboard X (widgets on your home screen!!!!!) It works spledid
 
TheRainKing said:
Is Jailbreaking Overrated?
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Subjective matter. If you think so then don't do it. I find it very useful. As with any subjective matter, YMMV.

The word overrated is overused and misused. Overrated doesn't mean "I don't see the point" as many seem to think it does. Clearly, many find it useful given that there's a subforum for it.
 
SBSettings and IntelliscreenX is basically all I want it for. Toggles anywhere, including lock screen.
 
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