[Nassifer]

Hello all, I live in the UAE so I do not have to have my new iPhone 4 jailbroken like I did with my 3gs when I lived in the states. Now I want to do some things with my new iPhone 4 that I cannot do without it being jailbroken (theme, hidden features etc.). So my question is is it a good idea to have it jailbroken, I have the latest iOS 5 installed and just want to play with some of the features that I did with my 3gs phone, and no I do not want to go back to the 3gs.

Thanks.

[Gankdawg]

iOS5 is jailbroken - sort of. It's currently at a state of a tethered jailbreak, meaning if you need to reboot your iPhone, you'll have to connect it to your computer. There is an app in Cydia that allows for a semi-tethered JB meaning you can reboot without a computer but you'll lose functionality of many apps (until you get back to your computer to do a full reboot).

Check HelpMeJailbreak and Jailbreak for great info.

[Nassifer]

OK that is all well and good, but I still have the question of why jailbreak vs un-jailbreak. I want to be able to do so me of the things that a jailbroken phone does, but am not sure if doing a jailbreak will void my warranty with apple since my phone is less than a month old.

So I guess what I am asking in laminas terms is what are the benefits and the non-benifits of jail breaking.

Thanks

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by Nassifer 

So I guess what I am asking in laminas terms is what are the benefits and the non-benifits of jail breaking.

Thanks

You answered this question in your original post. To do things (i.e. install apps) that you can't do with a non-JB phone.

[Nassifer]

Yes I know this, but is it void the warranty that is my big thing I read online that apple will not touch a JB iPhone.

[The Godfather]

Benefits: themes, unlocking, emulators, more powerful callerid, 3G FaceTime, universal video mirroring, screen recording, VNC based remote control, Safari plugins such as AdBlock, photo-taking with the volume+ button, making your own apps in phone with Python, tethering, adding and managing photo albums, printing to many more printers than AirPrint supports
Cons: what other people have mentioned above
Apple will support your iPhone if you restore the iOS (any version) and not jailbreak it before you take it to the store. With problems that seem to be software related, the store will advice you to restore iOS first anyway.

[Big Mac]

I've found some essential add-ons that I wouldn't want to iLive without through Jailbreaking.

[Spheric Harlot]

Such as?

[Big Mac]

The newest one that I consider absolutely essential is Multifl0w. It absolutely blows away Apple's primitive switcher. I recently read on AppleInsider a post that said that maybe the next iPad with a quad-core processor would be capable enough to provide real multitasking. People (some people at least) actually think you need bleeding edge hardware for such a modest feature.

[Spheric Harlot]

Hey, that's pretty cool!

[Big Mac]

Absolutely. (Seems I was in love with that word yesterday.) And Apple has no excuse for not coming out with something comparable or better. It runs wonderfully on my 3GS. But I shouldn't have to jailbreak and buy a third party add-on to get a feature like that.

[The Godfather]

Why would tethered jailbreaks need a computer with iTunes?

[Big Mac]

Tethered jailbreaks require a computer with one of the jailbreak utilities to get them back to full functionality. It's kind of critical for an iPhone because if you have to reboot it and you have a tethered jailbreak, you'll be stuck at the iTunes connect screen until you get back to your computer, although now there are semi-tethered jailbreaks that allow you to reboot and only lose some functionality but at least be able to have calling functions until you boot tethered again. It has been the case that if you're patient enough and don't update to the latest Apple firmware all the time, you'll eventually get an untethered jailbreak, but that's changing because Apple's clamping down ever tighter on hardware/firmware/baseband security.

[Big Mac]

On another note, can someone with Mac programming knowledge explain to me why it seems that Jailbroken iOS is far more extensible by third party software than OS X ever has been? Many interface features of OS X have always been locked down, it seems, whereas with a jailbroken iOS you can extend/replace a great many aspects of the OS and core software.

For example, the Finder has only allowed a few limited customizations, in contrast to Springboard which gets extended by add-ons in many respects. The Activator add-on lets you create system wide activation gestures. I just installed a copy/paste extender that provides much more powerful copy/paste functionality. Little to none of this has ever been done comparably on Mac OS X, AFAIK, yet iOS is mobile OS X. Is there something about the iOS architecture as distinguished from Mac OS X that makes such extensibility more possible?

[Spheric Harlot]

There are several copy/paste enhancers for Mac.

And just outright replacing an application is something that has been available on Mac for quite some time.

[Big Mac]

Finder enhancements that alter icon arrangement? MobileSafari enhancements like pull to refresh (should be Apple standard)? Global enhancements to copy and paste? Maybe I'm making too big a deal of these add-ons, but I'm very impressed by what the JB community has accomplished since I didn't think many of these things were possible on an OS X architecture.

[Spheric Harlot]

Yes, there's several copy/Paste enhancement extensions.

There are outright Finder replacements for the Mac that do a lot more than just icon placement.

I don't know how this works on iOS, but I assume that due to the relative simplicity of those components, they are "simply" replaced outright, rather than skinned or modified through things like Windowshade or haxies.