Jailbreaking an iPhone

[grnidone]

What does it do when you do it?  Why do you do it?  How do you do it?

Can you really get service on any telecom if you jailbreak?

[ukgimp]

Scared to do it in case it bollocks my phone.

It allows you to get to stuff you usually find is licked down by apple.

I think you can get more apps as well, ones not "allowed" by apple.

[Brad]

What I have read is that each update to the iPhone OS then unjailbreaks the phone.  Not sure what the ramifications are when that happens.  I assume you have to re-jailbreak it.  Cat - mouse game.

My iPhone is my only phone so I'm too chicken to mess with it.

[rcjordan]

>any telecom if you jailbreak

Only those that are GSM networks; primarily ATT & Tmobil.  Or those reseller networks that piggyback off a major cell provider's GSM network.

The others are CDMA, and that's why you see so much interest in the development of a cdma Iphone.

http://cellphones.about.com/od/phoneglossary/g/cdma.htm

[Brad]

>>How

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1928745/iphone-3g-3gs-handsets-unlocked

My eyes glazed over at "... and baseband versions ...".

[creative666]

Luckily my brother in law is the manager of a Vodacom (Vodafone own the majority share along with the local landline company Telkom) shop here in Cape Town and replaced my screwed up jailbroken iphone... you can reverse the jailbreak but I had played around a little too much with it

The only real reason to jailbreak is to get apps that have not been approved by Apple - there are some pretty sweet apps that Apple dont want you to have...

[Drastic]

...  there are some pretty sweet apps that Apple dont want you to have...

Any examples?

[grnidone]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is too chickenshit to do this.  My iPhone is also my only phone, so I don't want to screw it up.

[creative666]

Before it bricked I had a cut down version of Apache running on it - I never did anything worth while with it at the time it was just to see how it would run.

I had Cycorder installed which would let me record video and also had custom look and feel by downloading and installing themes via Winterboard. I used Veency which would let you control most of the functions on your iphone when connected via the PC, easier than using iTunes or the actual phone itself.

These are the ones that I used often, but there were many more that got removed pretty quick as they were pretty shite.

[Travoli]

>Any examples?

Free tethering for one.

[mivox]

Yup, using my "unlimited" data plan for tethering is a big one. There are also a lot of little system tweaks that just make the phone more usable. I had app 'folders' on my old phone before iOS 4 came out, for instance. Now I have an addon that lets me put unlimited apps in each native folder, and just scroll down to see the overflow. I have a utility that lets me assign a password to specific apps, so if I want to let a kid play with the games, I know they won't be able to accidentally open anything inappropriate. I have a slide-out toggle screen, so I can adjust brightness, turn bluetooth/wifi/Edge/3G on or off from any screen, without having to open the settings app. I have a text expander utility that works anywhere (except certain web form fields).

Etc., etc., blah-de-blah. A lot of the addons are silly, but some are really useful.

But yes, you can't upgrade your OS without having to re-jailbreak, so you wait until a new break is announced. And if you have it unlocked, it's apparently way harder to break the new basebands to allow a re-unlock, so you have to jump through odd hoops to save your old baseband and make a custom upgrade package. Bit of a pita if you've unlocked, but it's usually not much of a wait for the basic jailbreak.

And I've never had my phone 'brick' ... it's locked up on a black screen before, but I've always been able to get it back into recovery mode and start over.

[bill]

> free tethering

That's why I JB'd my phone initially. It was great to use my phone as a wireless hotspot out in the Japanese wilderness. It was a lot cheaper than traipsing to an internet cafe or paying for hotel wireless.

> Apple

If you have AppleCare or need maintenance at an Apple Store then you need to undo your JB. It's a warranty violation apparently. That's a bit of a PITA.

> brick

Never heard of anyone bricking their iPhone. I have a many friends who aren't very technical who have JB'd their phones and nobody has truly bricked one yet. You can always restore to the factory defaults and start over from my experience.

> Why

You get a lot more freedom with a JB iPhone, but then you do run the risk of playing around too much. My first time around I had too much junk on my phone, and the uninstall routines must not have been working well. It slowed my phone down tremendously. I went and got a new phone from Apple and started over from scratch (battery replacement = new phone).

[creative666]

I wasnt exactly careful with my old iphone - it was dropped several times and I am sure that had something to do with it