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Topic: Hardware

15 reasons to jailbreak your iPhone

Summary: Jailbreaking is "legal, ethical, and just plain fun", and allows you to use your iPhone exactly how you want it to.

Zack Whittaker

By |

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Spire is a non-iPhone 4S working port of Siri. It's an easy port over, and doesn't churn up half as much space as you would think. On older devices, particularly iPod touch devices, it may run a little slow, and it all depends on a working proxy. But once you find one -- and be warned, you may want to pay for one, as they are readily available to purchase on the web as a premium service -- you will have a working version of Siri. Just hold down the home button and you are set to go.

International Business Times has a guide to install Spire on your iOS 5+ device.

But be careful. Your data may run through this proxy, so emails and other data may not be as secure as you would ordinarily like it.

Price: Free
Compatible with: iOS 5+ (including the iPod touch, iPad, and the iPhone 4 and 4S)

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Topics: Hardware, Apple, iPhone, iPad, Mobile OS, Mobility, Operating Systems, Smartphones

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43 comments
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  • #1 reason...

    Make it more like an Android phone.
    BigMagoo
    Reply Vote

    • LOL

      With Android you could not even UPGRADE your OS, until you don't root it... Otherwise you can wait for the official release...
      Tinny77
      Reply Vote

      • Mostly a joke, but

        You can still do almost all of these things on Android without rooting the phone. It doesn't really matter which OS version you're on.
        BigMagoo
        Reply Vote

      • Not true

        You can upgrade your Android phone very easily when rooted, I use rooted custom roms exclusively on my android device and I'm usually running leaks of official roms long before they are released as an OTA, and if you don't want to live on the bleeding edge the official ota's are usually made into a custom rom that is pre-rooted within a day of the OTA being released, often the same day.
        movielover76
        Reply Vote

      • LOL Back at you.

        And you can with an IPad? ROFLMAO. I upgraded my Android pad and phone quite easily after rooting and I didn't even have to stick with what the vendor wanted me to run. Good luck running a third party version of IOS on your IPad.
        fldbryan@...
        Reply Vote

    • oh the irony

      Well considering most of the stuff you guys do on Android was done in JB iOS first anyway, I find this comment extremely ironic.

      JB iOS had the following before Android did:
      - third party apps installed from non first party sources
      - emulators and bluetooth wiimote synching
      - specific types of apps, like irc clients, HTTP servers, a REAL (non-dalvik) JVM
      - VM's for other languages, like python and tens of other languages
      - UI Themeing

      And many other things I dont have time to type out.
      seraph82
      Reply Vote

      • Like I said before, I was mostly joking.

        I went through 2 iPhones and I liked them a lot. Of course, I didn't love them until I jailbroke them. When I got my Android it was a nice surprise for me that I could do all of those things out of the box - no need to void the warranty with JB or root. Since then, my warranty has expired and I rooted the crap out of my Atrix - now it's running a beta version of ICS and I'm loving it.

        Anyway, no need to get butt-hurt here, but whatever came out first doesn't matter - you still need to JB your iPhone to get it to do those things that Android phones can do out of the box.
        BigMagoo
        Reply Vote

  • I got a "get out of jail free" phone instead...

    Why go to jail in the first place? Get Android and feel the handcuffs slide off!
    TaxNerd
    Reply Vote

    • Hmm....

      Right, but what else "slides off" with the handcuffs after switching to Android? Let's make a list of all of the things that are "sliding off" with the transition of iOS to Android, shall we?

      - the performance and consistency of the UI
      - not needing to customize the sh|t out of the UI to make it not suck
      - battery life
      - first party updates
      - more battery life
      - not having to root/rom to get the latest and greatest OS perks and security patches
      - a decent selection games
      - even more battery life
      - good looking, full featured apps
      - a nearly endless selection of aftermarket accessories due to a common form factor
      - EVEN MORE BATTERY LIFE!!
      - good pay apps that don't earn for their developers by raping your battery and your privacy
      - decent cloud integration with third any third party applications
      - airplay, facetime, imessage, icloud, and several other zero-difficulty services that can be used by people other than technofiles
      - decent cloud or personal cloud based wireless synchronization, backup, upgrade, and restore functionality
      - uncompromised hardware selection (you need a freaking PhD to shop for an Android phone that doesn't have MASSIVE compromises, like a pentiled screen and/or crappy battery life and/or a locked bootloader and/or an a-standard screen size that will end up letterboxing many games or distorting the layout of many apps and/or atypically oriented buttons and LEDs and ports and/or many other things ad nauseum)


      I could keep going on forever, but as a fan of both iOS and Android, I think it's pretty clear that if either were the silver bullet to fix the all of the problems of the other without any drawbacks, Android would have 100% marketshare instead of the 55-65%ish it currently has, or iOS would have 100% of mobile profits instead of the 60-70%ish it currently has.

      I know, it's crazy, but I own and love both platforms and am a fanboy for neither. Jailbreaking is the exact same thing as rooting/romming - it supplants the factory provided phone experience with the features said experiences are sorely lacking to most technophiles.
      seraph82
      Reply Vote

      • Hmmm... of batteries

        When I want a spare or HC battery for my Android phone, I go down to my nearest Walmart, dealer, or online OEM supplier, etc. Hmmm?... About that spare iPhone battery? Errr? Guess I gotta send/take my phone in to my nearest service center... Now, who gets raped? But, I'm sure that great battery life has assured my this will never happen again to me or several friends.
        Calbeach01
        Reply Vote

        • Used a mobile charger before

          Have you ever used a mobile charger before?
          vincent_w
          Reply Vote

      • And you know what?

        Every single one of those cons is worth it because of swype.

        Seriously, it's that good.
        Aerowind
        Reply Vote

      • Knowing what you are talking about

        @ Calbeach01
        Um what?
        http://www.google.com/search?q=phone%20battery&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#hl=en&tbm=shop&sclient=psy-ab&q=iphone+battery&oq=iphone+battery&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_l=serp.3..0l4.8366l8366l1l8647l1l1l0l0l0l0l191l191l0j1l1l0.llsin.&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=cdec41a267425e7e&biw=1187&bih=599

        Feel the dumb coming on?
        .DeusExMachina.
        Reply Vote

      • @Calbeach01

        I have been using iPhones since several months after the first version came out and have yet to need either a backup battery or to have a battery replace. Good for you that spare batteries are available but I personally prefer not to need to carry around an spare. Of course if I want a backup battery for the iPhone there are option out there but of course you overlook that don't you.
        non-biased
        Reply Vote

  • Jail Breaking

    How is this done? Can it be done to a 3GS I-Phone?
    SimeonMac
    Reply Vote

    • Jailbreak 3GS

      Yes. Just go to www.jailbreakme.com for all the details.
      MLmilnarich
      Reply Vote

    • Tons of information

      Go to www.jailbreakqa.com, the semi-official help site endorsed by the author of Cydia.
      PepperdotNet
      Reply Vote

  • Newsstore

    Quite easy to add it to a folder actually. Try Google.
    oafcmetty
    Reply Vote

  • wanna be android

    The title of this article should actually be "15 reasons to make your iPhone act more like an Android phone".
    lifegiver36
    Reply Vote

    • dont want iOS to be Android

      No thanks! I like

      - regular 1st party updates
      - applications that dont look/act like a bag of smashed a$$holes
      - a snappy, good looking, and consistent UI that doesn't need to be customized to not completely *suck.*
      - having a large plethora of addons and accessories due to a common form factor
      - BATTERY LIFE LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL @ ANDROID IN THIS RESPECT.

      Seriously - I love Android, but I am HUGELY thankful for iOS at the same time for the aforementioned reasons. I'd rather make Android more like iOS than make iOS more like Android, but they both do have flaws.
      seraph82
      Reply Vote
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