Okay, seriously - it feels as though every time I've posted here about jailbreaking my iPhone, what I get from doing that, tips about how to do it, what apps are good, etc., someone seems to take offence at the idea I should want to adapt the iPhone or post about this.

Why is that, exactly? I'm really intrigued. What is it that offends people about me wanting to do this? It can't be personal, since none of you works as an Apple iPhone dev so far as I'm aware. So what's the deal?

I mean, this is an iPhone forum, jailbreaking is legal, reversible, useful to some, and above all, optional. What??

I think you're taking it wrong, or being a bit over sensitive. I don't see anyone taking offense towards you, just saying that they wouldn't do it to theirs.

How could we hate our little paddy.

Yeah, it's nothing personal.

I asked why because it seems like iOS4 does a lot, except for you all on the original iPhone/3G ones.

The only personal I have seen is where you say "I do it. You don't have to. So EOS." How is that exactly letting us know what jailbreaking brings to the iPhone for you? Why would someone else be tempted to do it if you don't explain what benefits there are to it?

That was in response to zwei, John, not to you - I thought he was being unnecessarily dismissive; you, I thought you were just asking a question, so I just answered it. Yeah, I am taking things too personally tonight . (Oh, and EOS was meant to mean 'end of story' - does it mean something else too?)

But this is a long-running saga - it seems like the first thing that happens when I write about jailbreaking is people respond by saying "I feel no need to do this" as if I was saying "you'd all be mad not to..."

It's starting to feel like a mac/pc battle. Don't want it. There are people who are interested in jailbreaking and what it has to offer and how to do it, and there are people who aren't.

Nothing personal

You do understand that Apple views Jail Breaking is a VIOD Warranty issue <-- thats about it. So really thats what those people are talking about

I'm letting go of this - I'm on antibiotics and overemotional at the moment!

That's pretty much the reason I don't play around with jailbreaking my phone -- it voids the warranty. Plus there's that update a while back that bricked some jailbroken iPhones -- I don't recall that being recoverable but I could be wrong.

Anyways, never saw a killer app that for me made the thought of risking the above compelling =)

But, to each their own -- I read lots of people who are thrilled with their jailbroken iphones. And as Pad said, it's not illegal or anything =D

I think it's mostly people who don't know what they're doing who brick the units. From what I can tell, you can always just restore back to factory settings. I think that jailbreaking is awesome; it's crappy how closed Apple is with the phone and the apps one is allowed to run on it. They make Microsoft look pretty good by comparison.

That said, I haven't jailbroken my iPhone. I can usually find an app to do what I'd like to do, and now with the unified mailboxes, app folders (?) and multitasking, I'm pretty Ok.

heh..you contradicted yourself there.

With this update, the only people I see benefiting jailbreaking would be 3G owners. Because from what I see, jailbreaking a 3Gs phone only really provides geeky stuff that the majority of iPhone users out there don't care about. Or they are gimmicks...like changing the 3G/ATT/Battery symbol to something else, changing lock screen, etc.

I guess there's always room for people wanting to customise the look of their car, phone, whatever - so just on that level, it seems to be worth it for some people.

I've currently got these JB apps installed and working in iOS4:

• LockInfo - displays Calendar, Mail, Phone, SMS info on the lock screen (also available anywhere else at the swipe of a finger - this is my favourite)
• Remove Recents - tidies up the Multitasking bar so that it only shows active apps, rather than every app you opened in the last few days
• SBSettings - a dropdown that gives you instant access to switches for e.g. Wifi, 3G, Location, Bluetooth, shows you what your IP address is for the phone
• Snappy - a dropdown version of the Camera app that appears instantly wherever you are on the phone (not entirely working in iOS4 yet)
• Wi-Fi Sync - sync your phone with iTunes without needing the cable (not entirely working in iOS4 yet)
• BiteSMS - a better SMS app that shows character counts, has a Quick reply/Quick Compose popup that also lets you pick a contact to phone
• iFile - a Finder for the iPhone, access to all the folders
• PKGBackup - a backup system for all of this!

Stuff I was using in OS3 that's not yet ready in iOS4:

• Safari downloader - lets you download pretty much anything from the net, and store it
• Action Menu - adds functionality to the cut/copy/paste bar such as copy all, dial this, clipboard history, favourites (i.e. templates), lookup online, TinyUrl this, Tweet this (if anyone should want that)
• iKeyEx and 5-Row Keyboard - a customisable 5-row version of the keyboard, so I can have all my most commonly-used punctuation in the top row, instead of having to switch layouts every time I want to add a comma or whatever (I'm missing this most at the moment)

I don't really care too much about UI pimping, apart from a desire for more green so I don't mind that Winterboard (the easiest way to add/change graphics, icons, fonts, ringtones, whatever) isn't working yet in iOS4.

So what I'm doing to my phone is pretty much what I do to my mac: I find utilities that make using it easier, and I add them so the phone becomes easier and more pleasant for me to use.

You might not want any of that, or need any of that (or all the other stuff that's available that I don't use because it's not relevant to me - god there's a lot of bad homemade graphics out there). For me, apart from the purely visual mods, I don't think any of what I'm using is 'gimmicks', it's just useful.

Some of this was free, some of it isn't - I probably spent around £15 altogether, trying out stuff (most of which I've kept using).

YMMV.