Despite recommendations from friends and colleagues, I’ve never seriously considered jailbreaking my iPhone. I don’t use a landline for work so my iPhone is my only voice communication tool. Why would I risk disabling it just so I could multitask or run a few apps Apple doesn’t want to sell? It’s just not worth it.
On the other hand, jailbreaking my iPad sounds very appealing to me. Why? First of all, I’m going with the wifi-only model. No 3G for me. I already pay AT&T too much every month for data service for my iPhone and the family plan my wife and kids are on. More importantly, if jailbreaking my iPad means I could tether it to my iPhone and tap into my existing data plan, well, how could I resist! My iPad won’t be as critical a work device for me as my iPhone and enabling 3G access for it without having to pay an additional monthly fee sounds like a great idea.
Yes, I know jailbreaking my iPad means I’ll void the warranty. But after repairing my daughter’s iPhone screen awhile back I’m much more confident fixing Apple’s devices on my own. And since we’re still a week away from the iPad’s release it’s hard to say whether the jailbreaking process will be easy or hard. I can’t wait to find out though!
P.S. – I’m hoping nobody at Apple is reading posts like this… Wouldn’t it be ironic if my iPad is the only one that doesn’t show up at the Apple Store next Saturday?
P.P.S. — I couldn’t resist the opportunity to embed the cover image of one of the greatest albums by one of my all-time favorite bands: Jailbreak, by Thin Lizzy!
Editor’s Note: the above is taken, with permission, from Joe Wikert’s iPadHound Blog. PB
The original poster could surely use some basic understanding of the technology he writes about. For instance, if he wants to connect his iPad to his iPhone for a ride on his 3G data plan, it’s the iPhone he would need to jailbreak, not the iPad – and tethering on his iPhone, not his iPad, is what he wants. Jailbreaking his iPad wouldn’t do him much. Why not take (with permission) some articles that do make sense?
That’s right. Jailbreaking the iPad for tethering would only work if you had a 3G iPad and wanted to tether other devices to its 3G.
There are also some other great ways to get mobile data access that don’t require jailbreaking at all. I wrote about some of them the other day.
so you guys are convinced there will be no way for any any type of smartphone to be connected to a wifi-only iPad where the iPad thinks the data is coming in thru the wifi port. its been a while since I’ve hacked this sort of thing but can’t you trick the device into thinking the data iss coming from another input port?
Yes, as the owner of a jailbroken iPhone, the lack of knowledge of many iPhone users about the jailbreaking process hits me really hard.
First of all, I don’t understand the common fear of the iPhone “being disabled” as result of jailbreaking it. The jailbreak is a totally reversible process in the case something goes wrong (which shoudn’t be the case, if you invest the time to know which version of hardware and software you have). And jailbreaking your iPhone doesn’t interfere with your carrier and the normal use of your device.
Second, many people think the only uses of a jailbroken iPhone are: a) installing pirated apps, or b) using a different carrier to the mandatory one (that is, the one having the exclusive contract with Apple; in Spain, that carrier is Telefonica). While it’s true that a jailbroken iPhone allows a) and b), there’s more, much more in the jailbreaking than that.
i’ve always heard jailbreaking your iphone means you won’t be able to get future OS updates. Is that a myth?
@Larry Thomas
Yes, it is a myth. You ALWAYS can update your iPhone OS via iTunes whenever you want.
The only problem would be that you will lose the jailbreak and all the content not installed via iTunes. Therefore, you will have to reinstall all the unofficial apps. That is why, for instance, I only update my iPhone when there are significant changes to the OS (in other words, I haven’t updated to 3.1.3 yet).
There are many sites with comprehensive information on jailbreaking, segmented by devices and the OS currently installed, so with a minimum care and preparation it’s very hard to screw anything up.
Actually, if you use the jailbreak app manager “Rock” instead of “Cydia”, it will keep track of what unofficial apps you have installed (tagging them with your unit’s device ID, I believe) so that when you re-jailbreak you can simply use Rock to re-install them all at once.
And of course it does mean you have to wait to update your OS until a jailbreak has been announced for it if you want to be able to jailbreak and reinstall those apps. Sometimes that can take several weeks.