Joy of Jailbreaking

Originally Published April 2010

When I graduated college, some 20 plus years ago, I moved to Overland Park Kansas. The first weekend in town I remember going to the local mall. I was on the second floor and needed to go down to the first floor. As I approached the escalator I noticed that in between the up and down sides was a shiny unobstructed metal surface that lead all the way down to the lower level. While the mall owners did not intend to put a “slide” in between the escalator to me it was just too tempting – so I jumped on and down I went.  At the bottom I was “greeted” by a security officer who then promptly walked me out of the mall and told me not to come back. Over the next year I probably was escorted out of the mall a dozen times. The owners of the mall, I was told, just wanted me to stand there and let the escalator move me to the lower level – How boring.  Sadly today there are metal bumps in the middle to keep people from doing what I used to do.

 

When it comes to the iPhone and iPod touch you can have more fun than Apple wants you to, you just need to remove those “metal bumps” Apple put up to impede your fun. The process of removing those bumps is called “Jailbreaking”.  When Apple announced the new features for iPhone OS 4 they did not list any support for the 6.12 Million original iPhones and only limited supported for the roughly 20 Million iPhone 3G phones.  This means roughly half of all the iPhones in the market will not be able to take advantage of all the features in the new OS.  On the iPod touch side the 1^st gen iPod touch is not listed as being supported and the 2^nd Gen iPod touch is getting only limited support.  While Apple may be (probably is) hoping this helps get most users to upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone / iPod touch, it will also likely cause many for the first time  to consider jailbreaking. 

 

This article is not going to show you how to jailbreak – rather it is going to show you why you might want to.  (To learn how go to TodayiniPhone.com – http://www.todayiniphone.com - and on the left hand side at the bottom are links to tutorials on how to jailbreak.) NOTE: Do not try to jailbreak if you don't like when things go to (expletive). If you need your phone for your business and being without it for any period of time will cause you to loose your job - stop now.  If you get mad at your significant other at how they fold towels or put the toilet paper on a roll - Jailbreaking is probably not for your personality.  Sometimes things break and your phone will likely crash more often then if it was not jailbroken.

 

One of the key features of OS 4 that only iPhone 3GS and 3^rd Gen iPod touch owners will get to use is multitasking.  However there is an app on the jailbreak side called – Backgrounder – that unlike Apples multitasking, allows you to place any app into the background and it keeps the whole app running.  Combine this with the app – Multiflow – and you can then scroll left to right through all the apps that are active (in the background). 

 

In OS 4 there are folders to put multiple apps into, with jailbreaking there is an app called – Categories – that lets you place apps into folders.  And there is another app called – Overboard – that allows you to see all the apps on the 12 homescreens at once.  Another app that is a favorite of mine is called - FiveiCon Dock – which as it sounds lets you place five app icons in your dock.

 

With OS 4 Apple finally announced Bluetooth keyboard support for the iPhone, with jailbreaking the app – BTstack – has been providing that feature for quite some time.  Apple also said with OS 4 you could finally add / change the image behind the homescreen.  This is something jailbreakers have been doing for some time with the app – Winterboard – this app allows for customization of the background image and adds in themes for other images in the iPhone interface.  The app – Springlocker – allows you to lock down apps so you or someone using your phone cannot accidentally delete or even move an app, this is a feature missing from OS 4.  The same with the app – Lockdown – that lets you password protect specific applications from others.  With jailbreaking you can actually make your iPhone more secure then with Apples out of the box OS. 

 

There are many other great apps that allow you to do things beyond what Apple ever intended or wanted you to be able to do. There is an app called – MyWi – that turns your iPhone into a mobile Wifi hotspot. Which is very nice for tethering your laptop or iPad to your iPhone. A great app for those that do presentations is called – ScreenSplitr – that allows you to share / mirror your iPhone screen on a TV or a computer. Another very popular app is – 3G Unrestrictor – that makes the iPhone think you are connected to the web via Wifi and not 3G, thus allowing apps that were restricted to use just on Wifi to actually work on 3G.  And there are many many more great apps on the jailbreak side that add even more capabilities to your iPhone or iPod touch.

 

If you want you can step on to the metaphoric escalator and let Apple move you from point A to point B at their pace or you can jump in the middle of that escalator and feel the wind whip through your hair as you fly down that shiny metal surface.  I know which path I am going – well except for the hair part.