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Topic: Apple

With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

Summary: Jailbreaking is now legal, but it still voids your warranty. Are you interested in taking the chance?

Joel Evans

By for The Mobile Gadgeteer |

Jailbreaking an iPhone became legal last week, and Apple has already made it known that even though it's now legal to Jailbreak your iPhone, the company still considers your iPhone to be out of warranty if you do. Of course, that hasn't stopped people from jailbreaking, especially since this weekend a web-based service at JailBreakMe.com, made it super easy to do so.

If you're not familiar with using the new service at JailBreakMe.com, Jason covered the process in full detail. The creator of this latest version claims that you can easily restore your iPhone back to normal, so I'm sure that people are happily Jailbreaking all day long.

I've made a few attempts to Jailbreak using the new service, but each one has failed. This has no doubt been because the server is overloaded. That said, as of this writing it's still unknown if MMS and a few other features are back online post jailbreak, so I'm definitely going to hold off for now.

It used to be a bit of a "cat and mouse" game each time the hackers advanced their toolset. Now that jailbreaking is legal, though, perhaps Apple won't spend any more time trying to thwart the hackers' efforts. Then again, it looks like there's a bunch of kids running around Apple Stores jailbreaking iPhone 4 devices on display, as you can see in the video below (thanks to Geek.com for the heads-up).

You can bet that there will soon be an overzealous employee at the Apple Store who catches someone in the act. Once that happens, there's no telling what Apple will do to make an example of the hacker.

Did you Jailbreak your iPhone? If so, share why you did below.

Topics: Apple, Hardware, iPhone, Mobility, Security, Smartphones

About

With more than 15 years of mobile, Internet and wireless experience, Joel specializes in taking existing brands and technologies into the mobile and wireless space. Joel is currently the VP of Strategy Integration for Mobiquity, an enterprise-class mobile solutions provider.

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21 comments
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  • JB, then restored

    I did Jailbreak it. I found that most of the JB software doesn't yet work under iOS4. Also the JB broke Skype. Skype can not run in background to accept incoming calls and IMs. This is important to me. So restored back to factory to unjailbreak. I'll pass on JB for now. There aren't many useful things you can do with JB at the moment.
    taylor@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @taylor@... [b]I found that most of the JB software doesn't yet work under iOS4.[/b] Are you on an iPhone 4? I jailbroke my 3G running iOS4 about 3 weeks ago using a local jailbreaking program and so far everything works... might be an issue with the iPhone 4 itself.

      [b]There aren't many useful things you can do with JB at the moment[/b] I'd have to agree as far as the iPhone 4is concerned - with the earlier models there is quite a bit of very useful things jailbreaking brings to the table... although the number of things has been diminishing with each major iOS revision.
      athynz
      Reply Vote

  • Ha, that's HILARIOUS!!!

    [i]Then again, it looks like there?s a bunch of kids running around Apple Stores jailbreaking iPhone 4 devices on display, as you can see in the video below[/i]

    Ah, the ultimate in drive-by pwnage!!!

    No, I will not be jailbreaking my phone. I was not going to reward Apple with my money for releasing really, really, really bad OSs in their iPhones. Now that iOS4 is actually a decent OS, I simply can't justify jailbreaking it. As taylor above has already noted, jailbreaking isn't free.
    NonZealot
    Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @NonZealot OS4 a decent OS!? Man, at least for the iphone 3g, OS4 is the worst think you can do. I update mine and the phone is working very slow, also many apps crashes very often (black screen). Same apps on my wife's iphone (OS 3) works fine.... I hope apple is working on a big patch for OS 4.... Or are they trying to put 3G out of the market?
      a1fr3d0
      Reply Vote

  • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

    Indeed I have jail-broken my wife's 3GS. I can now upgrade (downgrade) her to the iPhone 4 and send the current on to a family member overseas. Otherwise I am being denied fair use of the current phone.
    John_Harris@...
    Reply Vote

  • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

    I've never sent any phone back to a manufacturer for a warranty service, so warranties are pointless, in my opinion.
    Droid101
    Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @Droid101

      what a looser,so just because YOU don't use them the rest of the world is mistaken by using them. Who are you? why should anyone believe or do what you do? you have the smugness of an apple zelot for sure
      Stan57
      Reply Vote

  • OF COURSE I DID

    The commenters above obviously don't understand what Cydia and the open app stores provide.

    1. SBSettings - Access Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G are now a homescreen swipe away (a la Android). This should be immediately implemented into the next iOS.

    2. Intelliscreen - Yeah go ahead and act like the Alert Bubble that Apple uses for ALL notifications is just gravy. Spare me. Intelliscreen does what the iPhone should do. On the lock screen, you have missed calls, missed texts, weather widget, calendar widget, news widgets, etc. No more missed calls, texts and other alerts because of Apple's idiotic alert bubble.

    3. MyWi & My3G - AT&T is the biggest scam artists in this country. It doesn't cost anyone anything to enable tethering. Give us the option and stop trying to nickel and dime your customers. Likewise with the 3G limits. With these two apps, your iPhone is ready for SHOWTIME.

    And that whole voided warantee is BS. If you notice problems, plug it into iTunes and restore the original software. It's click of a button easy.
    eddit13
    Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @eddit13 I forgot to mention...on iPhone 4, performance isn't hindered ONE BIT. It flies, like it should. Very happy that I returned the Droid X.
      eddit13
      Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @eddit13 What can I say, I jailbreak mine iphone some weeks ago and I agree with al you say. I did it mainly for the tethering, now I can use my iphone as a wireless router and any pc around me can access internet using my 4g. Works great.
      a1fr3d0
      Reply Vote

  • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

    I don't like the fact that Apple leaves their older models in the dust. i understand somethings just can't happen due to speed related issues but seriously I can put apps in a folder now but not have a picture on my home screen? <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3FGdjjythQ" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3FGdjjythQ</a>
    Therophin
    Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @Therophin That's the reason I've been jailbreaking from the get-go with my iPhone 3G... and iOS4 brings so much to the table that the older hardware CAN do (such as wallpapers) that Apple says it can't. They said the 3G is not capable of recording video and left that functionality out... and yet with cycorder (available via Cydia) I can record video to my heart's content on my 3G. Multitasking - well the Apple version of it is a different story... it works but it does bog things down if I keep more than 3 apps open... but it IS older hardware.
      athynz
      Reply Vote

  • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

    Heck yeah! I was doing it while it was in litigation... like I've said before iOS4 brings a lot to the table as far as functionality vs the earlier OSes that is not allowed to run on the older 3G... things like video recording and wallpapers which I've had on my 3G ever since iOS 2.0 via jailbreaking.
    athynz
    Reply Vote

  • Rough Crowd

    You're ALL NUTS.

    Why would I want to mess with a phone I paid good money for so I can force it to do something it wasn't meant to do?
    tomogden
    Reply Vote

    • Because most people buy things to do what THEY want it to do.

      @tomogden

      When I buy a tool I don't give a flip what the manufacturer wants me to do with it, I care about what I want to do with it and if I can do what I want with it.
      Michael Kelly
      Reply Vote

    • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

      @tomogden, So even though it CAN do things that Steve Jobs never meant it too do, you would rather keep the limited version, making your good money less valuable to you than if you were to jailbreak? Fair enough, to each their own, but I don't think it's the jailbreakers who are nuts....
      max_wedge
      Reply Vote

  • RE: With Jailbreaking being legal, will you jailbreak your iPhone?

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