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Can You Really Unlock Your Iphone?

By Marisa Choate


To put it succinctly, jailbreaking an iPhone refers to unlocking the phone with special jailbreak software, and thus freeing it from any restrictions that Apple has put on the device.

The iPhone is a good product. But it's far from perfect. As a result, millions of iPhone owners have looked to the best jailbreak software to unlock their phone so that they can then improve the iOS. The iPhone suffers from a severe lack of customizability, lack of privacy, and more. When you jailbreak, though, you can fix these problems and many others with apps, patches, and plugins available in the Cydia marketplace.

Cydia and Installer are the unofficial "App Stores" of the Jailbreak world. Developers create apps and tweaks and different utilities and upload them to these package managers, which organize everything into categories.

The best way to understand the difference between these two sites and the official App store are, first, that there is no real app approval process, other than to ensure that the apps are not filled with spyware. Second, there are no limits on what functionality the 3rd party apps can provide your phone.

What is the point to jailbreaking your iPhone?

First - It removes any and all restrictions that Apple puts on your phone. Of course, you still might not be able to use the phone as a deathray, but if someone created an app for that, you would be able to install it even if Apple didn't want you to. Want to customize your icons? Create a custom, homebrewed app? Jailbreaking is the only way to do it.

Secondly - Join the jailbreaking counterculture! There is a whole community of people who are intrigued by the idea of open source development for the iPhone. You'll meet all kinds of cool people who want to free the iPhone from Apple's restrictive grasp.

Third - Using the phone on carriers other than AT&T. Let's face it. Apple has given ATT a monopoly with trying to tie all users who buy the iPhone to ATT. When you jailbreak, you've then got the option to unlock the phone and use it with whatever carrier you like.

Reasons NOT to Jailbreak Your Phone

1st)Apple, as a company, generally knows what it is doing. There are certain features that the iPhone is capable of, but that they have not enable. And this is usually for a reason. For instance, when you multitask, it is a huge drain on the battery. By using the default configuration, you'll know that your iPhone will just work. Period.

2)There is the slight possibility that jailbreaking could brick your iPhone. This is where the jailbreak process gets messed up, and your phone is frozen until you restore it to factory defaults. Huge pain in the butt.

3)Every iPhone update from iTunes disables Jailbreak. Every time Apple comes out with an update for iPhone, they find a way to prevent hackers from cracking the code again. Hackers then scramble to Jailbreak the iPhone again and release the new methods.

4)Jailbreaking completely voids out your warranty on the phone. If you have a problem with your phone; if you drop it; if it gets bricked - you're out of luck.




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