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.

By the way, I agree that a lot of the utilities I'm using are to get around the fact that the 3G phone is quite slow to use - so the SBSettings dropdown, for example:



saves me having to open up Settings, wait for it to load, go to the right page to switch the switch... and go back to the springboard to restart the app I was in before all that - it can just do it right where I am. With multitasking on faster phones, jumping straight to the Settings app is easier, but this is still less steps.

(Oh yes, forgot to mention the '5 items in the dock' app - that's a little timesaver too )

Not sure how to read this one ?

So are you saying that 225,000 apps are not enough ?

Anyone can make apps just they have to work to pass Apple quality control measures <-- nothing wrong with that either.

225,000 are not enough when the most important app missing is SBSettings that Pad notes above. and it could be the perfect app and Apple wouldn't allow SBSettings since AT&T wants to eventually make $20 - $30/month off of tethering. anyway, i just want to be able to share my 3G connection with my Wifi-only iPad. i have a 3G that i'll be jailbreaking very soon. it's not like i can void a warranty on a 3G iPhone that is not longer under warranty. if i end up bricking my iPhone and not being able to restore it then i'll just get a new iPhone. that's why i am waiting until the supply is better and the phones are readily available.

but even if i had a new iPhone 4 i would highly consider jailbreaking it to get SBSettings.

Well there ya go, write a SBSettings dohicky and make some money.

Just make sure it works

Lets all keep in mind that just because an app is not on the iPhone or iPad, it does NOT Mean the system is closed

Just want to rave a bit more about LockInfo - there are a number of nifty plugins for it to add options for weather display, rss feeds, facebook/twitter (yawn), but at the moment, the thing I'm most impressed with is being able to read new emails directly from the lock screen, and even delete them there - as well as see all my calendar entries.

And you can set it up so you can either pop all this info up from elsewhere on the phone (using a gesture, for example) or have it as a permanent extra springboard page after the spotlight page.

This is a really well thought-out app, down to how he's made it easy for others to write plugins for it. Not all of them work in iOS4 yet, and some requite Winterboard as well, but I think it's brilliant that here's this fairly new platform, and people are coming up with usability improvements like this. It shows what a well conceived platform the iPhone OS & SDK is in the first place.

(gush, gush... okay, done now )

I contradicted myself? How?

Sean summed it up pretty good there. Apple is the MOST closed computer maker. Especially when it comes to iPhones and such. For a shining example, look at the rejected Google Voice app. What happened there?

Um ... it was replicating the basic function of the iPhone? And taking money out of Apple's/AT&T's revenue stream?

I guess I don't understand the whole "closed" complaint. If you don't like Apple's restrictions, jailbreak the phone and run whatever you want on it. It's not like Apple is preventing anyone from writing an app for the iPhone and marketing it independently -- the SDK is out there and being used, obviously.

"Closed" to me means you simply can't write the app you want in the first place. In this case, you can write anything you want, but you may not get the marketing power of actually having it be approved by Apple.

Bold and italics. At least, it seems contradictory to me.

Ohhh.. I see your point. I'm not saying that the available apps are the end-all-be-all of mobile device technology, merely that. for me, I'm pretty well satisfied. That said, I think it sucks that things like the Google Voice app get denied. And that there's no support for wireless synching. Little things like that.

I'm just saying that I'd like to see something that's really open, at least as an option. I don't know if Android's the answer, but from a distance, I like it.

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPhone, and I'm scheming to get a new one.

Gawd, somebody else notices. Can't believe that there still isn't.

My Jurassic RAZR can even do that. I've been doing that for 7? years on my phones.

Then why do they allow Skype?

But yeah, I agree with you about jailbreaking. That's what I meant in my first post; if you don't like it out of the box, jailbreak that mofo and run it however you'd like.

***I typed this yesterday before I left work and never hit submit.***