I heard alot of stories in the beginning about bricked phones but you don't see much about it anymore. My main reasons for wanted to jailbreak are summerboard and a few games. I'm on at&t and have no desire to unlock. I bought my iPhone about a month ago and recently upgraded to 1.1.4 and I'm not sure what to do. I've been reading about ziphone since that seems to be the easiest program to use. If I do decide to jailbreak, how easy is it to unjailbreak if I wanted to go back? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love my phone and would hate to do something to make it unusable.
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Is jailbreaking worth the risk?
- Thread starter arykmax
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There's basically no risk at all, so yes, it's very much worth it. I just did it a couple of days ago and couldn't be happier.
From what I've seen so far, jailbreaking is worth the risk only if you think you can fix any potential problems on your own without relying on outside sources for free tech. support. Sometimes the sources (forums, IRC channels, whatever) are reliable and sometimes they're not, but you don't want to take that chance with a expensive piece of hardware.
Certainly there are a whole lot of people that attempt it and get it right the first time but couldn't figure out how to fix it if they tried, but there are also a lot of people that attempt it, screw up their phone, and get stuck. Really, its up to you. If you run into a problem, though, don't expect to get reliable support from the community. A lot of times you will, but in the cases where you don't its frustrating.
Certainly there are a whole lot of people that attempt it and get it right the first time but couldn't figure out how to fix it if they tried, but there are also a lot of people that attempt it, screw up their phone, and get stuck. Really, its up to you. If you run into a problem, though, don't expect to get reliable support from the community. A lot of times you will, but in the cases where you don't its frustrating.
Wait till March 6, you never know what apple is going to do exactly. If they fix the software to allow 3rd party apps, then people might not even have to jailbreak. the problem with jailbreaking, is that not everyones results are the same. some have fantastic results, while some deal damage that cannot be restored. Also, not every app is trustable or stable. So again, i would wait till Thursday March 6 to see what happens. Im not making promises though, because there are reliable sources on both sides of the outcome that say apple will allow people to download the apps, but the other side says apple might be like a gatekeeper, and sell/distribute apps approved by apple through itunes. If apple allows downloads freely while fixing the firmware to allow it, then maybe jailbreaking and hacking will be a thing of the past (I Wish).
I haven't really heard of anybody causing any irreparable damage to their phones from just jailbreaking. I almost all cases, a simple restore will wipe the phone clean.
I think a lot of people get jailbreaking confused with unlocking. Much more risk with unlocking and all that.
I think a lot of people get jailbreaking confused with unlocking. Much more risk with unlocking and all that.
What risk? If anything, the phone runs the risk of being useless and boring if its not jailbroken.
So long as you stick with software hacking, there's really no permanent harm you can do. If you go mucking about with the hardware, then yeah, you can screw yourself over. Software-wise, there's nothing that five minutes with iTunes can't fix 
There is relatively little risk anymore, especially once you figure out how to resuscitate the phone if it is ostensibly bricked. My previous iPhone was "bricked" over and over, as I tried to hack it. My laptop was the problem with that, I tried on my wife's and experienced a 100% success rate.
There are myriad tools that will work to restore your iPhone, including iTunes itself. Jailbreaking is painless and quick anymore, and the applications and customization opened up, in my opinion, are worth the relatively small hassle.
Even if you can't play it in any real capacity, showing the gawk-eyed sales weasels at the AT&T booth in the mall that Super Mario Bros. can be played on your iPhone (this actually happened to me, they were freaking out) is worth it.
I personally don't use too many of the applications (besides Wallpaper and iSolitaire) too often, but I like the option of using different themes on my phone.
Of course, depending on how much Apple locks it down, this could all be moot March 6.
There are myriad tools that will work to restore your iPhone, including iTunes itself. Jailbreaking is painless and quick anymore, and the applications and customization opened up, in my opinion, are worth the relatively small hassle.
Even if you can't play it in any real capacity, showing the gawk-eyed sales weasels at the AT&T booth in the mall that Super Mario Bros. can be played on your iPhone (this actually happened to me, they were freaking out) is worth it.
I personally don't use too many of the applications (besides Wallpaper and iSolitaire) too often, but I like the option of using different themes on my phone.
Of course, depending on how much Apple locks it down, this could all be moot March 6.
Jailbreak has a risk factor of 0. Unlock has a risk factor of 1*.
*This is historical...using ZiPhone there is no risk.
I have Jailbroke my iPhone dozens of times from the most elementary (see takes 2 hours in Terminal) to GUI (see takes 2 minutes) and have a 100% working phone today.
*This is historical...using ZiPhone there is no risk.
I have Jailbroke my iPhone dozens of times from the most elementary (see takes 2 hours in Terminal) to GUI (see takes 2 minutes) and have a 100% working phone today.
I'd imagine these are people (including myself, you have to be somewhat careful about these things) who had previous jailbreaks, synced their phone (which appears to do an arbitrary backup of the entire preferences folder) and then restored, re-jailbroke, and then synced from backup, which creates permissions problems, especially between versions. I can't take pictures right now because I'm having that problem. I just don't feel like screwing with the Terminal right now.
Point is, none of these are permanent problems, none of them have any damaging effects on your physical phone.