Introduction:
So you have your iPhone(5, 4s, 4, 3, 3gs) and you can install thousands
of apps from AppStore. What’s all this commotion about jailbreaking? Why
would you need to jailbreak? What does it offer? In this post, I will
cite some of the most compelling reasons to jailbreak your
iPhone(currently iphone 4, and 3 through Firmware version 6.1.2). I will
continually update this post as changes occur.
Why Not Appstore:
Simply put, Apple’s rules for AppStore are way too limiting. The apps
listed in the sections below are not possible to be in AppStore since
they break one or more of Apple’s rules. These rules keep control of the
iPhone platform in Apple’s control. Some of these rules include:
patching system files such as SpringBoard, allowing apps to run in the
background, running apps out of the “sandbox”, and simply doing things
Apple decided that they don’t want you to do often for reasons to their
benefit, not yours (such as tethering).
Risk Free:
Jailbreaking is not unlocking! It is risk free and totally legal. Everything that works before jailbreaking continues to work after. Jailbreaking only adds features. Jailbreaking is
risk free and cannot void your warranty. You can simply restore in iTunes at anytime to get back to a factory state. You are not alone, many people are doing it.
There are over 10 million jailbroken devices now! For understanding of jailbreak vs unlock read my terminology post.
How To:
If you decide after reading this that you wish to jailbreak, head on over to our guides section and find the guide or method that works best for you. I recommend one of the pwnage methods.
Reason #1: Winterboard (or BossPaper) + Customization
Winterboard allows you to do this:
or this:
This is just the “tip of the iceberg”. There is so much more you can
do. You can have web content as your background. My theme consists of
350 images that rotate every 15 seconds in a slide show. Here is a
sample of some of these images:
You can even have video playing as your wallpaper.
4.0 users: think apple’s new backgrounds kills winterboard or
bosspaper? Hardly. Winterboard lets you theme the whole UI. Bosspaper
lets you pick a folder of images and lets them rotate on any interval
you set in a slide show. How about your whole camera roll as rotating
backgrounds?
Reason #2: SBSettings – Fast Toggles
So you’re in Safari. You turned off your WiFi or your 3G to save
battery. Now you loaded Safari and it’s loading slowly with EDGE. Do you
close out safari, open settings, traverse the menus and reenable the
3g? Or do you just live with the EDGE this time?
SBSettings solves this by providing fast toggles by swiping your
status bar. With SBSettings, you just swipe your status bar, enable the
WiFi or 3G, and resume safari where you left off. When done, swipe
again, and disable the battery draining wifi or 3G options Notice also
the ability to add date and free memory to your status bar? The
processes button allows you to free memory and kill backgrounded
processes. Simple! SBSettings is must have.
Reason #3: SMS Quick Reply
The best feature of all SMS apps is the quickreply. When an incoming SMS
arrives, you normally have to decide whether or not you will quit your
existing app to respond or if you will respond later. With these apps,
you get quick reply. You can just reply, on the spot, without leaving
your current app or game. After you type your response and hit send,
your app resumes right where it left off:
There are three apps out that offer better SMS: BiteSMS, MySMS and iRealSMS 2.
In addition to landscape SMS, you can search contacts, search SMS,
forward SMS, send SMS to multiple people at once, enable / disable
keyboard correction. These are all features that are missing from the
stock SMS client.
Reason #4: Backgrounder + Task Switcher Mods
While it’s true Apple added multitasking, they did it in such a
manner that has some flaws. First, the app must be multi tasking aware.
Not all apps are. Or in some cases, the app is multitasking aware and
you wish it would just close and free up its memory when you hit home.
Backgrounder solves these issues by giving you full control over
which apps will background, how they will background, and if they will
background at all. You can have the app remain fully running using
native backgrounding method, or have it use Apple’s method if it is
available (a multi tasking aware app), or force it to close each time
you hit home. Just as it was meant to be.
Next issue, Apple has cluttered the task switcher with every recently
launched app, whether it is running or not. Also, if you want to close
an app, you have to hold the icon in the task switcher for a second to
get them all wobbly and only then can you close the app. How annoying!
Switchermod solves this. With switcher mod, you can elect to have
only the running apps show up in the task switcher. Further, all apps in
the task switcher have the close X button on them without having to
hold anything down. Very nice.
Reason #5: Folder Enhancer
Apple copied Categories app on 4.0 and gave us folders. Great right?
Unfortunately, you cannot have folders in folders and are limited to
only 12 apps per folder. If you have 120 games, that’s still 10 game
folders, almost a whole page dedicated to just games. Still all the
clutter.
This is solved by folder enhancer. This removes the 12 icon per
folder limit. It also allows you to put folders into folders. In
general, it makes folders what it should have been.
Reason #6: Cydia
There are many other apps available only for jailbreakers. These are
apps that Apple has either declined from Appstore for one reason
(usually they break one of their ridiculous rules) or the developer
doesn’t own a MAC or doesn’t feel like paying $100 to distribute their
app. For a list of what’s avaiable in Cydia, load Cydia. You can check
out what is in my repository here. Many of these apps offer functionality that is just not available in Appstore. For example:
Springflash
– iPhone 4 flashlight that is enabled by holding power button. Just
hold power and the LED light turns on. Hold it again and the light turns
off.
Flashlight – Better than Appstore’s many flashlights because it makes the screen brighter. What good is a dim light? Sheesh.
iBlacklist –
Filter incoming calls and SMS!
Reason #7: Take Control of Your System
Would you want to own a PC where only Dell decided what you could do
with it? Jailbreaking opens your device up to you deciding what to do
with it. You can install a BSD unix subsystem and SSH. You can use a
mobile terminal. It’s just like a real mini computer! I even used iPhone
SSH shell and iPhone GCC to compile most the applications I released on
this site!
Reason #8: Unlocking
Finally, and I almost decided to leave this out, but the only way to
unlock your iPhone and put it onto another carrier is by jailbreaking
it. The unlocking apps will require system level patching and activation
all of which can only be done via jailbreaking. Note also that you need
not unlock to jailbreak. They are two separate things.
Reason #9: Phone Loss Tracking
iLocalis is an app that you can install onto your jailbroken iPhone and
using its GPS / location services, it will tell you where the device is.
If you have a 3g device with GPS, it will be pinpoint accurate. If you
ever lose the device you can log into iLocalis web site and track the
location of the device.
Reason #10: Quick Scroll
Quickscroll
from KennyTM
lets you get scrollbars in apps like safari. After installing it, just tap with 2 fingers and a scrollbar appears on the left or bottom that you can actually move. Imagine trying to follow a game faq while playing a video game or a long web page and having to finger down about 200 times to get to the end of the content. Now with the quick scroll you can just scroll there directly in a second. This is how things should have been done. Fully configurable in settings.
Reason #11: Music Controls
There are many music apps out in appstore such as pandora, orbmusic,
slacker etc. These apps all can stream music or play music from
different sources. Very nice right? The problem is that these apps don’t
integrate into your iPhone. If you get an email when listening to
music, you have to close the app, which stops the playback of music, to
check it. If you get an sms, you have to quit playing music to view and
respond to it. How dumb is that?
Music controls solves this by patching the controls directly into the
springboard. You can see what’s playing, stop, next track, just like
you do with the built in app. A must have for anyone that uses these
music services.
In addition, and the reason I love music controls, is that it adds a
statusbar view of the track that’s currently playing and lets you pause,
next, prev there. You can see this in the screenshot below that shows
musiccontrols going while I kick PDXGeek’s ass (from
iphonerepocenter.com) in a friendly game of chess.
Reason #12: Bluetooth Keyboards
With this app called BTstack keyboard from Matthias Ringwald,
jailbroken iPhone users can now use a bluetooth keyboard for text entry
in your iPhone. Great for college or taking notes in a class or meeting
at work! The app should work with most any bluetooth keyboard available.
For more details see Ringwald’s product page.
The keyboard is available for $5 on Cydia Store. Added to reasons to jailbreak!
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