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What exactly does a Jailbreak do???

B

BGTHEMOGUL

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 12, 2010
249
1
Call me a newbie and there should be a sticky on this topic for people like myself that hear the term all the time but have no idea what it actually means or enables you to be able to do differently.

Can someone please explain exactly what jailbreaking a device does or allows?

What are the pro's and con's of doing so?

Thanks!
 
i'm a newbie too but jailbreak allows you to have alot of features like custom wallpapers many custom programs and alot more. if you break down word ''jailbreak'' it actually speaks for itself. after ''releasing iphone from jail'' there's a freedom for everything :) if you want to get most out of your iphone, jailbreak it. i needed to jaibreak mine in order to unlock it. hope that helps somehow :)
 
BGTHEMOGUL said:
Call me a newbie and there should be a sticky on this topic for people like myself that hear the term all the time but have no idea what it actually means or enables you to be able to do differently.

Can someone please explain exactly what jailbreaking a device does or allows?

What are the pro's and con's of doing so?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

It opens doors to heaven!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking
 
Read the link you posted that explains the general idea behind it but I'm still curious on the specifics. What type of things does it allow you to do that you couldn't have done before? What's the danger in jailbreaking your device? How hard is it to do? How hard is it to revert back?
 
nepalisherpa said:
It opens doors to heaven!
Click to expand...

Hahhaa, love that! :D

Love my jailbreak and can't wait for iOS 5 to be jailbreak-able. So many things I miss and OP, you wouldn't be sorry. Should the (rare) occasion occur that you didn't like it, it's very easy to just restore the phone back to stock, but I never did quite understand the anti-jailbreak people.
 
it bogs down the phone and makes it perform like crap.




:p




Pros: More freedom, more control, access to more apps
Cons: Can slow down system, can download malware
 
BGTHEMOGUL said:
Read the link you posted that explains the general idea behind it but I'm still curious on the specifics. What type of things does it allow you to do that you couldn't have done before? I'm not being sarcastic, but the best way to learn this is to simply start reading threads in this forum. What's the danger in jailbreaking your device? None. How hard is it to do? If you can read, you can jb. How hard is it to revert back? Simple as clicking on Restore in itunes.
Click to expand...

See inline.
 
There are no cons. JB is the greatest thing you've never tried.

Why do you think there's so much nagging going on in this forum for a release?
 
Why wouldn't every iPhone user jailbreak their device if there are no cons? There has to be risk involved I would assume.
 
Basically, it allows you to install apps from 3rd party app stores. The app stores (like Cydia) have apps that do things Apple's app store would not approve such as apps that change the UI, functionality , tie in or replace existing functionality in a way that apple would not approve of.

iOS is basically UNIX. These app stores run on APT and the apps themselves can have direct access, such as terminal apps, or running a SSH or even webserver from your phone. There are TONS of these 3rd party apps, some free some paid.
 
wrinkster22 said:
it bogs down the phone and makes it perform like crap.




:p




Pros: More freedom, more control, access to more apps
Cons: Can slow down system, can download malware
Click to expand...

No it doesn't...:confused:
Haven't seen malware for an iPhone after three years with each iPhone...just be a smart user as you would with ANY computer

Don't download crapload amounts of themes and tweaks, just the basic necessary ones like 3GUnrestrictor or FakeClockUp or whatever...

BGTHEMOGUL said:
Why wouldn't every iPhone user jailbreak their device if there are no cons? There has to be risk involved I would assume.
Click to expand...

Every iPhone user doesn't know about jailbreaking, like you.

Why? Because the concept of jailbreaking your iDevice isn't marketed well, simple as that

There is no risk whatsoever, just be smart like I said, download basic, necessary packages and tweaks, but don't crap on it with unnecessary themes and Winterboard.

If however your iPhone is having hardware problems and you have to go back to the Apple store, simply restore and you'll be fine.

Hope this helps, if not feel free to ask me or somebody else more :)
 
BGTHEMOGUL said:
Why wouldn't every iPhone user jailbreak their device if there are no cons? There has to be risk involved I would assume.
Click to expand...

some never heard of it

some believe the whole "it voids your warranty" line

some people are timid to try it, they think they can "brick" the phone which you can't, sure you might get it in a state that takes patience and a few tries to get it back to restored state
 
Thanks for the answers I guess I'll wait until a jailbreak is available for the 4s and then read more about it and reviews.
 
BGTHEMOGUL said:
Thanks for the answers I guess I'll wait until a jailbreak is available for the 4s and then read more about it and reviews.
Click to expand...

Some doesn't want to learn, end up paying for someone else to jailbreak. Once it crashes, he/she panics and bring it into Apple store as is instead of restoring it first. It will then void the warranty.
 
Pink∆Floyd;13673289 said:
No it doesn't...:confused:

Don't download crapload amounts of themes and tweaks, just the basic necessary ones like 3GUnrestrictor or FakeClockUp or whatever...
Click to expand...
I don't know about malware, but you're right to say to just install the basics. My ip4 was dog-a$$ slow with all the crud I had accumulated over the past 15 months. I had to return it under warranty and made a list of all the packages I'd installed, so I could get them back onto the new phone.

Holy Cow - 95% I didn't need and didn't reinstall. It's easy to go overboard because the first time you JB, you feel like a kid in a candy store - you just want to grab everything.
 
I had a 3g iPod that I had jailbroken. I didn't even have it for a month and didn't have a lot of stuff on it before it started slowing down a ton. before another month, some of my apps weren't working and I eventually restored it. To this day, the iPod still has problems. About three weeks after the restore, a couple of the apps stopped working. The picture totally disappeared on the apps and just left white blocks which would freeze the iPod if I tried to open it. I would restore it again, and it would be fine for another month or so and then the same thing would happen again. I really don't know a lot about jailbreaking or hacking, so I think it was my ignorance that led to these problems. My recommendation is don't do it unless you know what you are doing.
 
greganpace said:
I had a 3g iPod that I had jailbroken. I didn't even have it for a month and didn't have a lot of stuff on it before it started slowing down a ton. before another month, some of my apps weren't working and I eventually restored it. To this day, the iPod still has problems. About three weeks after the restore, a couple of the apps stopped working. The picture totally disappeared on the apps and just left white blocks which would freeze the iPod if I tried to open it. I would restore it again, and it would be fine for another month or so and then the same thing would happen again. I really don't know a lot about jailbreaking or hacking, so I think it was my ignorance that led to these problems. My recommendation is don't do it unless you know what you are doing.
Click to expand...

Apparently, something you installed has negative impact on your iPod. Once you restore, then it is nothing on your ipd and it acts like new when it leaves Apple. However, when you hook it up to your iTunes and hit "restore from back up" where you put craps back on to your iPod and that was the problem. It is not because of jail breaking slowing or making your iPod crashed.
 
Crystal-RX said:
Apparently, something you installed has negative impact on your iPod. Once you restore, then it is nothing on your ipd and it acts like new when it leaves Apple. However, when you hook it up to your iTunes and hit "restore from back up" where you put craps back on to your iPod and that was the problem. It is not because of jail breaking slowing or making your iPod crashed.
Click to expand...

I did a clean restore the second time wondering if that was the problem. Not from a back up. I took it into apple to see if it was hardware, and they said everything checked out fine and just told me to restore it if it gives me problems. Any other ideas on how to fix it would be great because I still have to restore it about once a month or so. Pandora is usually the first app to go and I can't survive without it...
 
I wanted to mention another thing Jailbreaking can do for you. It can actually make your phone safer from hacks and/or malware.

I used SSH to change my root and mobile passwords, so it would be that much more difficult to hack into the phone. Unless you change the passwords, you have the exact same one as everyone else in the world.
 
dgstan said:
I wanted to mention another thing Jailbreaking can do for you. It can actually make your phone safer from hacks and/or malware.

I used SSH to change my root and mobile passwords, so it would be that much more difficult to hack into the phone. Unless you change the passwords, you have the exact same one as everyone else in the world.
Click to expand...



only thing there is you have to have ssh turned on and be jailbroking for people to access you IOS device. However Comex jailbreak me exploit was a PDF security flaw that was fixed with 4.3.4. So he discovered a security flaw.
 
If you want a plain and simple explanation, think about it this way:

You know how at school, the computers that are available to students usually have a ton of restrictions on them? You can't install new software, you can't change system settings, sometimes you can't even change the desktop wallpaper. This is because these machines are configured with a very specific and very limited set of privileges, or user permissions. The same thing exists on your iPhone. The iPhone user is barred from making any serious changes to the phone's file system, because they do not have permission to write (e.g. modify file data) within the vast majority of the file tree. Jailbreaking gives you full write access, so you can modify, add, delete, rename, move, etc any file on your phone.

By itself, jailbreaking poses zero risk whatsoever. The reason JBing has an often negative association among some people, is because they either don't understand it and are regurgitating what they've heard from others, they blame the JB for user error, or they installed a ton of crap/pirated apps/outdated tweaks/incompatible tweaks/etc without doing the research first, and think the inevitable slowdown on their phones is a result of jailbreaking. Another reason is because app piracy requires jailbreaking, and many people JB solely for that reason; hence, people associate jailbreaking with stealing apps.

In short, jailbreaking is for the person who wants to feel like they totally "own" their iDevice. It allows the user to enable often very basic functionality that Apple leaves out or ignores. It can make your phone safer than it would be at stock, because whereas Apple can take weeks to push out a software update to fix a security hole, JB devs usually do the same within hours or days (Comex, for instance, released the fixes for the flaw that his jailbreaks exploited).

As long as you do the research, there's no risk. Literally, none. You can always restore and go back to the way it was. Good luck.
 
BlizzardBolt said:
Doesn't basebands increase the difficulty of jailbreaking making it possible for a Bricked phone which can not be restored even if forced in to DFU mode.
Click to expand...

No and there's no such thing as a phone that was 'bricked' by a jb.
 
BlizzardBolt said:
Doesn't basebands increase the difficulty of jailbreaking making it possible for a Bricked phone which can not be restored even if forced in to DFU mode.
Click to expand...

In the worst case scenario, one would have to force an iPad baseband onto an iPhone. It'll 'just' break the GPS but the phone will be functional.

TC25 said:
No and there's no such thing as a phone that was 'bricked' by a jb.
Click to expand...

Well, that's semantics. Even though there's always a way out of a JB incident, it takes some savvy to find it. It's certainly not for everyone.
 
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