So you’ve had your iPhone or iPod Touch for a while now but you still haven’t done anything to it that Apple didn’t want you to. Why should you jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch? I will go over some of the advantages and disadvantages of jailbreaking as well as some of the potential pitfalls.
Winterboard
This is probably how your iPhone or iPod Touch looks without jailbreaking. There’s a generic black background that makes sure it doesn’t stand out from the millions of iPhones out there. The only time you see your wallpaper is the unlock screen for a split second before you actually start using your iPhone. Winterboard is perhaps the most popular reason people jailbreak their iPhones! The iPhone jailbreak will allow you to customize your springboard through the jailbreak-only app Winterboard! You can download themes (there are tons of them out there) to make your iPhone look like this.
Or even this…
You can change everything from the sounds to the unlock screen sliders to the keyboard itself but only if you jailbreak the iPhone or iPod Touch! A definite Advantage.
The possibilities are pretty endless here.
Categories
If you’ve had your iPhone for a while, it can get pretty messy. Your apps are all out there on your springboard and you will have to sift through the various icons to find the app you need. With the Categories app, you can organize all your apps into folders!
The advantages of categories is that it can clear up the app clutter on your springboard and make it easier to find the apps that you need.
Backgrounder
Backgrounding is a highly anticipated update feature that has yet to be added by Apple. Steve Jobs has stated that they are working on implementing it but they would like to get it right the first time so it wasn’t part of the firmware 2.2 update. Luckily, if you jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch you have access to the backgrounder which will provide the service. The disadvantage to this app is that you will have to watch which apps you have running or else you can slow your iPhone or iPod Touch significantly. This service is especially useful for instant messenging apps like AIM.
Modem
Ever wanted to use your iPhone’s 3G connection on your laptop? You won’t be able to download torrents but you can definitely get some work done with the modem app. The name is iPhonemodem and it makes tethering a reality. We’ve had some trouble getting the 3G to work but there are some people out there who have successfully tethered their iPhone’s 3G connection to their computers. Once again, another advantage to jailbreak!
Games
Jailbreaking your iPhone or iPod Touch will open up a new world of games. Developers who have become fed up with Apple’s draconian app store rules brought their talent into the third party arena and there are some wonderful games available. The NES emulator will enable play of old school NES games. There’s also a Playstation emulator and tons of ported games like Doom!
Unlock
If you wish to unlock your iPhone (for use with other carriers besides AT&T here in the U.S) some time in the future when the iPhone-dev team release their soft unlock, you will have to jailbreak your iPhone 3G first. Remember though, don’t update to firmware 2.2 if you want to unlock!
update: As of January 2nd 2009, the iPhone Dev team have released an iPhone 3G unlock and it actually only works with firmware 2.2 so ignore this unlock warning! Check out the iPhone 3G unlock tutorial.
Disadvantages
We get a lot of people asking us the disadvantages to jailbreaking the iPhone or iPod Touch. After all, it seems too good to be true? There is a very very slim chance that you can brick your iPhone or iPod Touch (which basically means rendering it unresponsive). But those are usually fixed by doing a reset (press and hold the home and sleep buttons at the same time). You can then reinstall firmware 2.2 and try again. Doing the research might set you back 20 minutes or so and the whole process might take another 15 minutes. If you ever take it back to Apple for warranty, you probably don’t want them to see that you’ve jailbroken it so you might spend another 10 minutes doing a firmware restore through iTunes to set your iPhone or iPod Touch back to its original settings.
Overall
In the end, the advantages far exceed the disadvantages and jailbreaking is a very useful process. In a sense, jailbreaking will untie the hands of your iPhone or iPod Touch and allow it to be used to its full capabilities. It also opens up a whole new world of functionality. Do the research and see if its right for you, we definitely think it is! Check back next week when we will go over the entire process step by step. It should be noted that jailbreaking the iPod Touch and jailbreaking the iPhone are similar processes which achieve most of the same goals. Check out the iPhone vs iPod Touch article to determine which one is best for you!
-Derek
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January 4th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Hello, I was just wondering if jailbreak can bypass the iPhone activation?
January 5th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Hey thanks for your awesome videos & reviews! I have a silly little question. What is the name of that background that has those animated characters running around in the sunset? piggyback question, the xmas tree lights, so I can install that next xmas. =]
January 5th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Jailbreak will not allow you to use other carriers if that’s what you mean Ars. I found the background using the backgrounds app from the app store and I got the “christmas lights” theme through cydia. You will need winterboard.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
how do u install games after downloading the NES emulator?
January 25th, 2009 at 4:48 am
But then how are you gonna pass the activation screen on the iPhone 3G that let you only to do emergency call? iTunes won’t let me activate the iPhone 3G 2.2 as I don’t have a valid sim card.. SHould’nt there be a place where quickpwn asks you if you are a legit user and then ask whether you want to activate or not? (hacktivation)
February 20th, 2009 at 2:23 am
just doing project about iPhone
:D:D
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:45 am
I have my iphone 3g since its release in june, here in portugal, after a week a jalbroke it and i don’t regret it. Today i have on it many apps from cydia, some very usefull like backgrounder, hclipboard and many others, i even found a way to put every appstore apps i want saving in the same folder an access its files with another app (like airsharing). this can be done just by creating a shortcut with the name “documents”, making the app think its saving in its own directory… Use winscp to do that…
Cheers from portugal.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Hi,I’ve just both my IPHONE 3G so its not possible to jailbreak version 2.2.1. So any Idea to make it possible?
March 31st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
i bought an iphone 3g that was already unlocked from a store in dubai(united arab emirates)…. is it safe for me to jailbreak???
plz comment fast!!
tqvm!
April 8th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
coolios
April 14th, 2009 at 8:45 am
i Have an i pod touch 7G version 2.2.1 am i able to jail break my i pod? and whats the best way to go about doing so as in what do i need to dl ?
April 27th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
There is no iPod Touch 7G.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:04 am
sounds nice.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Okay, I was just wondering when you jailbreak you’re iphone 3G if you get a LANDSCAPE keyboard.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:10 am
I will be getting my Iphone 3g any day now. If I jailbreak it will I still be able to use itunes to sync ringtones I make and also Outlook calendar/contacts? Or do I do it without iTunes? If so, how do I do it.
Thanks,
Marc
May 21st, 2009 at 7:14 am
you guys r Freakin Amazing u know that! Only an idiot would think you would get fined $250,000 for jailbreaking your ipod/iPhone which technically is only software so it will not break your device. Some people are so Naive.
June 1st, 2009 at 11:21 pm
hey! i just jailbreak my phone, but bad thing it wasnt succesful to me. my iPhone 3G. got broked down, and it even been restored. so all of my files was los but luckily i have bak up on my iTunes.
i really want to jailbreak my phone but, i dont want the same thing to happen again. what am i supposed to do?
terribly NEED HELP!
please!
June 4th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Ja21
First things first. Go to QuickPwns OFFICIAL homepage and download the latest version and the Firmware if you are not up to date.
2nd I was helping a friend recently and we ran into issues. Later we found that when using Windows 7 we were getting compatibility issues. Switched to Vista and even XP and both worked great first time. Cheers!
June 6th, 2009 at 4:58 am
thanks, ill just try if it works the second time around. well, i downloaded the QuickPwns and also the Firmware. by the wat im using a Windows XP computer. is the latest Firmware 2.2.1 or is there another latest version than that? sam2 to the QuickPwns.
please inform me right away.
thanks so much for the help.
:]
June 15th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I have resently jailbreaken my iPod touch and iPhone with 2.2.1 program and using utube just type in “jailbroken steps” that east to do u only need 3 programz to download. I love getting The free apps an all and changing the page names are very helpful and I am on my iPhone now!!
June 18th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Mi, My question is, if I jailbreak my iPod touch, will the apps I bought from apple still work?
June 19th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Great thread! I see the 3.0 OS is now out – do you know if jailbreaking will be possible for this version?
June 28th, 2009 at 3:58 am
I think it’s useless to jailbreak your ipod touch. People tell me to jailbreak my ipod touch because we play various games, and those gameboy/NES games and bla bla bla. Who wants to play gameboy games in your ipod touch anyway? I have a hacked psp and I can play 10 times better looking games in my psp and some GBA games. If you like playing games then buy a psp, ipod touch is for music.
And that modem thingy that can connect your ipod touch to PC can be done without jailbreaking it. Just set up an wireless ad hoc connection in your laptop and you can share your internet with your ipod touch. And you can also freely download Yahoo messenger application from itunes app store too.