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Newb: Why Jailbreak?

WinkWink726

WinkWink726

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 29, 2008
291
50
Pittsburgh Area, PA
For those who can/are willing to help...
I MRoogled, but all I found was "how to's" not necessary "why to's"

What does jailbreaking do, exactly (in layman's terms)?
I have a 3gs, is it worth doing? :confused:
 
WinkWink726 said:
For those who can/are willing to help...
I MRoogled, but all I found was "how to's" not necessary "why to's"

What does jailbreaking do, exactly (in layman's terms)?
I have a 3gs, is it worth doing? :confused:
Click to expand...

I think it's worth it just to customize it a little. After using a custom wallpaper and a transparent dock going back to the original theme is just bland and boring.
 
I so appreciate your response! :)
Do you think that someone who's never had experience with anything like this could pull it off?

Once jailbroken, does it look like it already did until you change stuff?
Is it easy to change stuff?
Are there pre-made themes and such that I can use from a website or something?

Sorry soo many Q's :eek:
 
WinkWink726 said:
I so appreciate your response! :)
Do you think that someone who's never had experience with anything like this could pull it off?

Once jailbroken, does it look like it already did until you change stuff? yes just a couple of new icons
Is it easy to change stuff? yes but it will take sme patience and learning
Are there pre-made themes and such that I can use from a website or something? many

Sorry soo many Q's :eek:
Click to expand...

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=2311
 
WinkWink726 said:
I so appreciate your response! :)
Do you think that someone who's never had experience with anything like this could pull it off?

Once jailbroken, does it look like it already did until you change stuff?
Is it easy to change stuff?
Are there pre-made themes and such that I can use from a website or something?

Sorry soo many Q's :eek:
Click to expand...

It's very easy to Jailbreak, its as simple as following instructions on the screen. Once jailbroken you will not notice anything (except one extra app) on the screen called Cydia ... this is like the App Store for Jailbreakers. It has a list of amazing apps that let you customize anything on your phone.

With regards to the pre-made themes ... yes, you can download a app called "Winterboard" from cydia (along with themes), and simply select the theme from within Winterboard ...... and you done!!!

Once you get the hang of Jailbreaking you should be able to easily ssh into your phone and change anything you like ... but you'll pick it up as you go along.

Hope that helps

:apple: KrayzieKray :apple:
 
WinkWink726 said:
I so appreciate your response! :)
Do you think that someone who's never had experience with anything like this could pull it off?

Once jailbroken, does it look like it already did until you change stuff?
Is it easy to change stuff?
Are there pre-made themes and such that I can use from a website or something?

Sorry soo many Q's :eek:
Click to expand...

macthemes for downloading and/or previewing themes. For SSH I have both cyberduck and Diskaid.

If you have anymore specific questions related to apps and such I suggest searching this forum. It worked great for me! ;)
 
This is my rule of thumb. Only jailbreak if you have a overwhelming need, desire that is not satisfied by Apple.

One reason for that is it voids your warranty I believe. If you need service, you will have to restore to factory. I don't know if Apple has a way of monitoring what phoned are jail broken or not. When the latest updates come out from Apple and you want the features you have to wait until a jail break team figures out away around it.

In my case, my desire was to run Slingbox on 3g. If not for the app coming out wifi only, I was perfectly content with a stock device. I have not installed any crazy ass themes, I have no need to ssh into the device, I only install the bare minimum of what was needed to get Slingbox working.

Just my thoughts, others may tell you different.
 
imo opinion if you are looking to jail break your phone, you should read as much forums and do as much research into it as possible. The reason I think this is because if something ever goes wrong, you can fix it without having to rely on someone else to do it.

Jail breaking is a wonderful thing because can it provide an endless amount of options. There is nothing to loose from jail breaking except for when something goes wrong and you have to restore, you might loose some things.

Remember software is never 100% reliable so something is bound to happen its just a matter of time, but it can be something small as just applying an update or you might need to download a new source.

Hope this helps.
 
sinsin07 said:
This is my rule of thumb. Only jailbreak if you have a overwhelming need, desire that is not satisfied by Apple.

One reason for that is it voids your warranty I believe. If you need service, you will have to restore to factory. I don't know if Apple has a way of monitoring what phoned are jail broken or not. When the latest updates come out from Apple and you want the features you have to wait until a jail break team figures out away around it.

In my case, my desire was to run Slingbox on 3g. If not for the app coming out wifi only, I was perfectly content with a stock device. I have not installed any crazy ass themes, I have no need to ssh into the device, I only install the bare minimum of what was needed to get Slingbox working.

Just my thoughts, others may tell you different.
Click to expand...

Which cydia app enables you to watch your slingbox on 3g?
 
I jailbreak mainly for:
SBSettings(invaluable),
Reflective dock,
Wallpapers on homescreens,
MY choice of SMS tones,
Safari Download manager,
iFile,
& YouRtube.
 
iGary said:
So you can brick your iPhone, and then come here and complain when Apple refuses to fix it.
Click to expand...

And when does happen so many leave such threads a more educated happy customer. What a great community promoting help and knowledge sharing.
 
I jailbroke because I wanted to:

1. Multitask. I do not want the phone program to terminate my program but merely put it in the background, so that when the phone call is terminated, I could resume from where I was. You need the Backgrounder for this.
2. Download files from the internet. You can use the free Safari Download plugin for this.
3. Have a file manager, to look at the file structure, navigate to them, view the view, copy, delete, move them, etc. I use iFile for this.
4. To be fee to use WIFI or 3G for applications such as VOIP, Applestore update. I want to download youtube in high resolution rather than low ones when using 3G. I use 3G-Unrestrictor for this.
5. To be able to download youtube videos (I use MxTube and YouRtube)
6. Battery Control - To display either the battery icon or the percentage. I don't need to display both as it takes up valuable real estate on the taskbar.
7. I want to display date and memory available at all times. I use SBSetting to do this.
8. I want photos for my contact list. I use Cyntact to do this.
9. I want to quickly navigate to anyplace on my Safari webpages and other large documents. Not just quickly scroll to the top by touching the taskbar, but to anywhere else. I use Quickscroll to do this.
10. To prevent/enable rotation on the fly, especially when I use the phone lying on bed. Rotation Inhibitor and SBsetting will allow this.
11. To hide program icon. Sometime it is for security reason. Sometimes for privacy reason. Sometimes because each of my springboard pages is for one category of applications and I've run out of space, so I like to hide the less frequently used ones. SBsettings lets you do this.
12. To be able to launched hidden application with Spotbright.
13. Spotbright also lets me quickly relaunch the most recently used applications. Very useful companion to Backgrounder before the rest of the backgrounder features are fixed.
14. Theme. I like to make the device interesing once in a while.
15. Trying out software before buying it. I'm not allowed to elaborate on this.
 
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