What is Jailbreaking (iPhone)?

I have heard this term 'Jailbreaking' many times when many of my friends started to ask me whether I had done any jailbreaking on my iPhone. What I could gathered from this question is that this 'jailbreaking' is some kind of hacking to my iPhone. I tried to clarify and the answers I have gotten are pretty much incoherent and unclear. Basically, what I was told was that Jailbreaking will allow you to use paid Apps for free.

I started off in the quest to understand the term - Jailbreaking. My investigation reveals that it is actually a proclows Apple iPhone as well as iPod Touch users to run any code on their handsets as opposed to only the code authorised by Apple, the developer of iPhone and iPod Touch.

Jailbroken iPhone users are able to download any types of applications previously not found in App Store using third party installers. Some popular instances of such third party installers are Cydia and icy. Cydia and Icy are the unofficial 'App Store' in the jailbreak community. The most popular jailbreaking tool currently is blackra1n.

There are misconception by users around the wrong mixing up jailbreaking with unlocking. Unlocking is simply the process of unlocking SIM, allowing the devices to accept any SIM without any restriction on the service providers or network providers.

Having your iPhone jailbreaking practically relased your device into a word of limited possibilities like installing third party games, custom ringtones, phone background theme and so many more. It also opens the door to harmful structured programs.

The disadvantages of jailbreaking

#1 As you can gathered from the term 'jailbreaking', it is not something legitimate as far as Apple is concern. Basically it is not approved and the Apps that you will potentially be using are not sanctioned by Apple App Store and they could be potentially malicious or dangerous to your phone.

#2 When your iPhone has been jailbroken, its warranty is officially voided.

#3 There is a security issue with jailbreaking as this process will have your smartphone inevitably installying SSH also known as Secure Shell. If this is not uninstalled, your phone will be very vulnerable when using Wi-Fi (Unsecured wireless connection because everything in tour iPhone including your stored contacts and private datas can be recovered by users on the Wi-Fi network.

Is Jailbreaking a reversible process?

I have came across discussions among friends. There are actually 2 schools of thought: Some poeple say it is and some says it is not. So is this process really reversible.

The answer is yes. It is reversible. All you need to do is to use iTune to reset the device back to 'factory setting'.

Conclusion

If you asked me whether I will jailbreak my iPhone, my answer is a No. Because I like my iPhone the way that it is working. There are far many instances of jailbroken iPhone ran into technical problems like unable to start, unable to on and many more. Think twice before jailbreaking.

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