Jailbreaking is not Jailbreaking

Me and my dad are both proud owners of the iPhone 3GS. However, the difference between him and me is that I have jailbroken my phone, while my father is using it as it is. I really dislike the term “jailbreaking” because it has a negative connation and people often relate it to illegal acts. Due to this reason, my father refuses to jailbreak his phone and states he is using it the “proper and honest” way. I agree with him to certain degrees, but I think jailbreaking your phone will be better in the long run.

First of all, let’s explore the advantages of a jailbroken iPhone/iPod.

Winterboard: allows users to customize your springboard

My father’s iPhone consists of a generic black background and your wallpaper only applies to the lockscreen. With winterboard, you can apply themes (there’s tons of them out there) & make your iPhone stand out! Perhaps this is the most popular reason why users jailbreak their iPhone.

Categories: allows applications to be sorted and organized in folders

My dad’s iPhone has six pages of applications. It would take time to find a certain application you want to run. I have 73 applications on my phone, organized in just 2 pages.

Backgrounder: allows users to run multiple apps at once

This is especially useful for applications like instant messaging and Skype. With a normal phone, you would have to log in and get set up each time you want to get in. However, with backgrounder, users can skip the whole boring process.

Games: allows users to explore a vast world of games instead of being limited to just the AppStore.

I have an NES emulator which allows NES games to be run on my iPhone.

MobileLog: a problem with the iPhone 3Gs is that users cannot delete individual recent calls and messages. Mobile log fixes that.

Lockdown: allows users to lock individual applications

Other convenient applications that can be possible only by jailbreaking include BiteSMS, MxTube, etc.

If there are this many advantages, would there be disadvantages? Yes, there is a very slim chance that jailbreaking process might brick your iPhone/iPod, which means your iPhone freezes and does not respond to any action. However, this problem can be easily fixed just by simply rebooting your device.

Thus, jailbreaking your iPhone comes with huge advantages that you cannot experience with a pure iPhone. I strongly recommend jailbreaking. In fact, there’s a rumor that Steve Jobs himself uses a jailbroken iPhone.

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Posted in Random thoughts