Jailbreaking os4 - Pros vs. Cons

[Heineken77]

Hey Guys,

I'm not too sure what the pros/cons benefits/drawbacks are to jailbreaking the iPad. My version is os4. Could anyone please give me a bit of pros/cons in order to help me decide what to do.

Thanks!!!

 

[Pocobear]

The biggest con at the moment is that there is no untethered jailbreak out yet for iOS 4.2.1. If you have iOS4.1 or 3.x.x, jailbreaking is easy and fun.

There are so many pros you could write a book about. The biggest thing for me is, their are so many things that Apple kind of got half right, and jailbreaking makes those things whole, like they should have been from the start. Take Photos/Camera Roll, you can't put your photos into folders on the iPad, it has to be done on your PC/Mac, along comes an app in the Cydia store, the store for jailbrake apps, and fixes it with an app. Want to change the look of you home page, hundreds of apps and themes for that. And the list goes on, and on,.........

 

[speedlever]

I'd like to hear more pros/cons of JB the iPad. The main reason I wish to do so is so I can replace Safari as the default browser. But otherwise, I have no idea what benefits and negatives are associated with JB the iPad.

 

[Mike_73]

You can replace Safari with any other browser from the app store (well not replace, but add one that you like, like atom).
My main reason for JB was to get the hardware switch back for screen orientation rather than muting my ipad.
I downloaded a few other addons, too.
There's one that closes an open folder when I have the chosen the app I want to start.
Then there's one that lets me kind of open links in Safari in new windows and have Safari not switch to the just opened link.
Like stated by Pocobear, the list just goes on and on.
I think if there's something that annoys you with the iPads behaviour which cannot be changed by an app from the appstore, then jailbreaking is for you.
If you just don't like an app, there's surely some alternative in the appstore.
Jailbreaking is more about "System-settings" rather than apps (except for apps which cannot be found in the appstore).
But for me, it's more about tinkering with os itself. For the apps, I still use the appstore.

 

[speedlever]

Thanks for that. I suppose one question has to do with warranty issues. Does JB affect that?

w/r/t the browser, I like iCab, but from what I read, short of JB, I can't make it the default.

I'm used to a PC environment with Windows Explorer for file/folder access, etc. I use FireFox and Chrome on the PC. This Apple device is totally foreign to me.

That being said, I've loaded tons of apps on it already and am having a lot of fun with it.

 

[johnnypanic]

Jailbreaking does not invalidate warranty.

If you have a problem, just remove jailbreak and Apple would have no way of knowing that your device had been jailbroken.

 

[SweetPoison]

Jailbreaking does not invalidate warranty.

Exactly. It's not illegal.

 

[speedlever]

Thanks guys. Good to know. Now I need to look into exactly what JB will do for me.

I guess my question about warranty has to do with the fact that Apples seems to tweak the OS updates to prevent JB.. at least, for a short time until someone figures it out again. For whatever reason, Apple doesn't appear to like the JB option.

 

[DaveSt]

Thanks guys. Good to know. Now I need to look into exactly what JB will do for me.

I guess my question about warranty has to do with the fact that Apples seems to tweak the OS updates to prevent JB.. at least, for a short time until someone figures it out again. For whatever reason, Apple doesn't appear to like the JB option.

Apple has a couple of good financial reason to not support jailbreaking which I believe is the real reason they are constantly trying to make the process difficult.

 

[Mike_73]

Yes, it mostly gets down to profit-issues.
Closing down your ecosystem prevents others from earning money on your system.

I just don't know why apple is doing this. I jailbroke my ipad, downloaded a couple of addons from cydia to tweak my ipad to my needs, but I still go to the appstore to buy apps I want/need.
And if there are ways to get stuff for free, people who want it for free will get it for free. No matter how hard they try to protect their system. Think DRM.
I wonder why apple made a fuzz about non-DRM mp3s when they now close down their system like that. ??? It doesn't seem to fit together in my opinion.

 

[speedlever]

Well let me ask this: what happens if I JB my iPad and then another iOS update comes out that kills the JB. How exactly am I affected until/unless I pursue the option to re-JB my iPad when the gurus-that-be re-figure out the new JB'ing protocols?

 

[f4780y]

Well let me ask this: what happens if I JB my iPad and then another iOS update comes out that kills the JB. How exactly am I affected until/unless I pursue the option to re-JB my iPad when the gurus-that-be re-figure out the new JB'ing protocols?

Well its your choice, you either stay on the version you are on and enjoy being jailbroken OR you upgrade to the new version (with whatever new goodies Apple supplies), lose your jailbreak features and applications, and wait for a new jailbreak.
Nobody forces you to update.... You can always just ignore the prompt in iTunes. There are still lots of folks in this community that seem to be staying quite happily with 3.2.x for example.

Also, as long as you have started to save your SHSHs in Cydia or via TinyUmbrella, then you can always choose to downgrade and re-jailbreak if you think you made a mistake upgrading...

Hope that helps.

 

[deaffob]

Actually JB has been always legal even before the incident a few months ago, but it DOES violate your warranty with Apple. Steve Jobs made it very clear that it is your choice to jailbreak your device but Apple will drop the warranty of it.

 

[speedlever]

Thanks for the good info!

 

[f4780y]

Actually JB has been always legal even before the incident a few months ago, but it DOES violate your warranty with Apple. Steve Jobs made it very clear that it is your choice to jailbreak your device but Apple will drop the warranty of it.

But equally, if you restore your device to stock firmware there is NO WAY to tell whether it has ever been jailbroken, so the only risk is handing it in to an Apple employee obviously jailbroken whilst asking for a warranty repair...
Even then there are plenty of reports of sympathetic genius's who do the right thing... But why take the risk? If it has to go into the shop, restore it!