Jailbreaking: Is it Worth It? (2012 Edition)

Jailbreaking: Is it Worth It? (2012 Edition)

(From left to right: Deck, DashBoard X, Unfold.)

Jailbreaking is the act of exploiting bugs in software and/or hardware to override Apple's restrictions. Jailbreaking an iPad, iPhone and iPod allows for the ability to install third party applications from Cydia. This is another App Store. What’s on this new App Store? Frankly, a little bit of everything. From themes to apps to help you install said themes, to widgets, there’s definitely variety in Cydia.

Jailbreaking is, frankly, a ‘nerdy’ thing to do. It shouldn't be attempted by someone that has no experience with computers. Normally, I tell people who ask if jailbreaking is right for them, I say ‘No.’ I tell them to play with their iDevice for a few weeks. But it could be, but because it requires patience and learning. Get a feel of its capabilities-and limitations-and then decide for themselves. While the process is much easier than it was even a year ago, things can still go wrong. There is always a way to rescue your device (see below), but it may not be something that every user wants to experience.

There are some downsides, and the ones that are most noticeable are only there after you have installed multiple ‘tweaks,’ such as a Siri port, or running system intensive themes like video wallpaper or Dreamboard or tweaks that fetch data from the internet frequently like weather widgets. These programs use up your devices RAM (something you’ll want to watch on the iPod touch 4th generation as it has 256MB of RAM. While newer devices have at least a more spacious 512MB of RAM), as well as using more of the CPU. The side effects are sluggish performance, and sometimes drastic hit on battery life. So is jailbreaking worth it?

The Pros:

So your iOS device may not be getting iOS 6 this coming fall, thankfully there are some jailbreak tweaks that give you the best of iOS 6 on iOS 5.

• StayOpened: Will keep App Store open after updating or downloading an application.
• PlayAwake: Will allow you to use your personal music collection as alarm tones.
• iOS 6 Photo Menu: iOS 6 got a share sheet? So did iOS 5.
• AssistantExtensions + SiriSports: Siri learned sports on iOS 6, but she can also learn supports on iOS 5.
• AssistantExtensions +International Locations for Siri: Unlock Siri's power anywhere in the world.
• Pull to Refresh for Mail: Pull mail down to refresh it. Simple yet elegant.
• PhotoMail: Will make your life easier when adding attachments to emails.
• 3Gvenice or 3G Unrestrictor 5: Will give you the power to FaceTime or do practically anything over 3G.
• Fullscreen for Safari: Like the name suggests: full screen Safari along with many other features for the mobile browser.
• Safari Upload Enabler: You can upload files to popular websites now on iOS 6.
• BackForwardList: Holding down back or forward buttons in Safari will bring up your browsing history.
• InstaSocial for Notification Center: Tweet or post to Facebook or Twitter with this widget in Notification Center.
• BannerDisable: This tweak will allow you to disable all banner notification from all apps in one simultaneous motion.
• EmojiPro: Unlock iOS 6's new Emoji icons on iOS 5.

But jailbreaking isn't just about getting iOS 6's feature on iOS 5. It's more than that you can perform hefty system modifications like changing your carrier name from "iPod" to whatever you possibly wanted. Widgets are what we want on iOS, widgets are what we don't have on iOS. But it's just a jailbreak away.

Dashboard X - $1.99

Widgets don't need to be developed just for Dashboard X because a wide variety of widgets already exist on Cydia. Only because Dashboard X works with the widgets that were developed for use in Notification Center. So you can use your favorite Notification Center (check these out) widgets right on your iPhone or iPad's home screen.

To add a widget to your home screen press and hold the screen like you would to delete or move an application, than hold it again to see a list of widgets ready for your home screen. Drag the widget to wherever your heart desires, including a page full of widgets. Hit the home button to get started. Once placed you'll use the widget like you already would in Notification Center, no features have been altered whatsoever. Intuitive like they've been there all along.

When adding a new widget you have two settings: 1) Interaction 2) Auto Center Mode. With the Interaction feature disabled you will not be able to interact with the widget when swiping a page, this prevents accidents from happening. Auto Center Mode just allows you to center the widget directly on the home screen. (You wouldn't want a crooked widget would you?)

Another feature allows for is Dashboard. Similar to Mac OS allowing for an overlay of widgets to be activated with Activator. To add widgets, again hold the screen down and a list will bestowed upon you. Dashboard X also has support for exclusive widgets with an upcoming Dashtweet widget that allows for tweeting right on the home screen.

ProTube - $1.49

ProTube is a Cydia tweak provides several of advantages over Apple’s stock YouTube application. For those YouTube fans this is a must have.

You can do all the normal YouTube activities that you'd regularly do on the native app but there's much, much, more. As you can completely control your account by viewing My Videos, your Favorites, Inbox. Downloading HD and SD video (up to 1080p) or audio of the video file. Of course you can completely manage saved videos by deleting, renameing, adding the video to your camera roll or send it off via email. There's so much more with ProTube like AirPlay support, blocked ads

Wake With Weather - $0.99

Set a alarm for the next morning dismiss it and you're personal assistant Siri will wake you with the correct weather forecast to your request. Even reading it to you while you fight the urge to lay back down.

• Siri will dictate the following to you:
• Weather's location.
• Today's Maximum Temperature.
• Today's Minimum Temperature.
• Today's Forecast Description.
• Tomorrow's Maximum Temperature.
• Tomorrow's Minimum Temperature.
• Tomorrow's Forecast Description.
• Current Temperature.
• Current Feels Like Temperature.

You can change the default question of "What's the weather forecast" to something more interesting like "What's on my calendar?" for your personal assistant to dictate your busy schedule. The questions are endless. All with Wake With Weather.

SwipeSelection - Free

Text editing is now done right with SwipeSelection. Holding the shift key down and dragging the keyboard will allow you to highlight text to be edited while one finger will allow you to move the cursor around like you normally would. Two-finger gestures will add a much speedier cursor than a one-figured gesture.

NotiPad - $1.00

Inspired by Growl, comes Notipad that brings...you guess it. Growl like notifications to your iPad. As part of iOS 5 tapping notifications will launch its respective app but double tapping, on the notification will dismiss it. You can change the animation style from fade or translation or disable animation entirely. You can also adjust to which side you'd prefer the notifications to prefer on screen (that's right or left).

Firebreak - Free

Apple has secretly added framework into iOS 5 for a panorama mode for the camera. Firebreak enables this native panoramic photo shooting mode. It simply adds a button to the Camera's options menu. To take a panoramic picture, simply slide the camera along a scene. It's all very self-explainitory, and seemingly flawless.

Quasar - $9.99

Quasar, though will allow you to run a windows manger on your favourite tablet like on your home computer. Applications run in adjustable and movable windows instead of launching as full-screen applications, of which you've grown use to by now. They also run side-by-side (think Windows Snap) and can be opened up in full-screen or sized-down in a jiffy. Windows have three buttons on the bottom left hand corner, allowing you to close the window, open the app in full-screen or change the orientation. On the right hand corner allows you to resize the window.

iPhone applications will be opened up in their native size - so you don't stretch them out losing image quality. Pedro managed to integrate this into iOS's app switcher, tapping the close button on an application running in a window will cause the application to be closed, you'll need to force quit the app because it's still running in the background. However, if you hold the close button down, the application will not only close but will be quit from iOS's multitasking. Tapping an link such as an App Store or YouTube link, opens the respective application, but you'll be greeted with a new window instead of full-screen app.

Fuse - $1.99

iOS 5 gave us social networking integration, expect it was only Twitter and not the favoured Facebook. Fusion, will fuse Facebook with iOS 5, and other popular social networks like Foursquare and MySpace. Fused with plugin, developers can add their own social networks to the list. You can also post to multiple social networks at the same time. Fused together with iOS 5's Tweet Sheet, users have the ability to compose status on the go, paired with Activator you'll never have to open any applications to post updates. Fusion has fused Siri with social networks, so you can update through iOS 5's voice assistant. Say "Post status to [network of your choice] saying [message]." Siri will handle the rest.

DataDeposit - Free

Have you ever wanted to clean restore to a new firmware, but also wanted to keep game saves, or settings for only select App Store applications? Or maybe even worse, you don't have automatic backups set up on your device, and you have to restore; losing all your high scores you worked so hard for! iTunes doesn't allow you to pick and choose what to backup, DataDeposit does...right from your device. DataDeposit is linked with your DropBox account, which allows an easy, safe, cloud backup and restore of your apps at any time. Even better, you can back up an app on your iDevice and then transfer the data onto another iDevice.

Simply select the application you want to backup and DataDeposit does the rest. Once you’re ready on your new firmware or device, make sure to install DataDeposit from Cydia and choose the apps you want to restore. The process is very simple.

SuperMusic - $0.99

SuperMusic adds almost the whole iPod app to your lockscreen media controls, no more need to unlock your iDevice each time you want to play another song from your music library. Just double tap to bring up your media controls and you will have a list of all the songs you have in that playlist and you can select any song to play, or shuffle if you want to hear a new song and rewind or fast forward or read the lyrics without even unlocking the iDevice!

NoNewsIsGoodNews - Free

You either use Newsstand or you don't. And if you don't, it either sits around on your homescreen wasting space or you've glitched it into a folder, but that's still not completely getting rid of it. Cleverly named NoNewsIsGoodNews helps out. It hides Newsstand. Simple as that. Install, respring, and Newsstand is gone. And if you want Newsstand back, just uninstall.

Graviboard - $2.99

The home screen doesn't have much to do on it. Slide from page to page, and open apps and folders. Nothing too exciting or interactive. But, what if those apps and folders were to be free-falling around your home screen? A classic tweak that's been updated for iOS 5, Graviboard gives your home screen icons some weight. Toggled via Activator, it lets your app and folder icons move free, bumping into and bouncing off of other icons. Settings allow you to use your finger as a point of gravity, anti-gravity, or just to fling icons around. Also changeable is the amount of gravity acting on the icons, their bounciness, and the friction when they collide.

Anicons - $2.99

One of the inconveniences that plenty of jailbreak tweaks have addressed is how hard to get to Apple makes certain system toggles in the Settings app. Anicons is one of the best toggle shortcut-adding tweaks out there. It adds dynamic icons to your home screen that can enable, disable, activate, and even show information about system toggles, settings, and events. Airplane Mode, Bluetooth, Data, 3G/Edge, Orientation Rotation, Location, Wi-Fi, and Flashlight all have their own icons that can be used to enable and disable these features. Safe Mode, respring, and Apt Updater (Cydia sources updater) all activate a system event. The Battery icon, when pressed, shows a popup with a variety of batter information. All are very useful, and can be placed just like any other home screen icon!

iFile - Free/$4.00

This jailbreak application grants you full file system access which can function like a file explorer on your iOS device. This is free with limited capabilities, while $4.00 will grant you a full license.

FullForce - Free

FullForce for iPad is jailbreak app that will automatically format iPhone apps to the resolution of the iPad without the distortion of the 2x zoom. This is great for iPhone application which do not yet support the iPad.

RetinaPad - $2.99

Like FullForce for iPad which forces iPhone apps to a full screen mode for iPad, RetinaPad forces iPhone applications to use their retina graphics to look much, much better on the big screen.

Zeppelin - Free

Say hello to Zeppelin, this tweak that easily changes your iDevices carrier logo to a variety of things. Using it is simple. Once downloaded, go to settings and choose any of the carrier logos you want. No resprings needed; Zeppelin does it all on the fly. Not finding what you are looking for? There are dozens of add-on packs that you can find in Cydia, or you can make your own (add images into Library/Zeppelin).

BiteSMS - $9.99

This is an excellent feature-rich alternative to the native Messaging app in iOS, which has been updated with support for iMessage. A 14-day trial of biteSMS is available for testing the app, but a full license will run you $9.99. Features include a quick-reply/compose messaging pop-up, custom ringtone management, and much more.

CleanStatus - Free

The status bar can get to be a little clogged, and often with unneeded icons. CleanStatus will help "clean up" the status bar by disabling whatever default icons you want. Settings also include the ability to change certain icon's color, font, and strings.

Spire - Free

Spire, is used to install Siri on unsupported hardware like the works on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3rd and 4th generation, and the 1st and 2nd generation iPad. Since the tweak uses legal methods of connecting to Apple’s servers, you'll need to use a proxy server to insert info from an iPhone 4S.

Barrel - $2.99

Swiping through pages on your device's springboard can be boring. Barrel adds 3D effects when you swipe through pages. Flip, cube inside or outside, carousel, page squeeze. These are just some of the effect that barrel will give you when you swipe pages. In fact there are 18 different effects to keep you entertained.

FolderEnhancer - $2.49

This tweak allows you to open and close folders much faster, create multiple pages of applications in your folders, create folders inside of folders, and create folders directly on the dock. There are many other tweaks and apps available in Cydia that allow jailbroken users to achieve these very same functions, such as InfiniFolders, ScrollingBoard, and FoldersInFolders, however FolderEnhancer is a seamless tweak that combines all of these features and allows its users to change them with ease using a simple and friendly graphical interface. FolderEnhance really enhancers your folders.

PerPageHTML - Free

Something iOS is really missing is widgets. Notification Center ones don't count. I'm talking about widgets on the home screen. It's just apps and folders. Wynd Warrier, well-known for his other customization tweaks like Dreamboard, made PerPageHTML to add the first step in widgets for iOS. As the name suggests, the widgets included, as well as any other 3rd party ones for the tweak, are written in HTML, which is a much more basic language than any other iOS tweak is written in. The PerPageHTML app is pretty straightforward: tap on widget, assign to page, repsring, have widget. Included are an analog clock and a calender, both pretty useful, but there's more in Cydia. It doesn't seem to be too harsh on RAM, but the more widgets you use, the more RAM usage could stack up.

SBSettings - Free

This tweak that adds quick toggles like disable/enable Wi-Fi, an easy way to respring your device, and several other functions including monitoring free memory and hiding icons from the springboard. You can theme it to your heart's content as well as download add-ons from Cydia.

CameraWallpaper - $1.99

Standard picture wallpapers can get dull after a while. CameraWallpaper brings some diversity to your background by displaying the live camera view. The main UI is a nice dashboard with toggles for enabling the tweak, flashlight, pausing the image, switching between the front and back cameras(if your device supports it), and taking a picture. It can be brought up with an Activator event of your choice. Settings include setting the app icon transparency and, because it can be a big battery guzzler, power-saving options to timeout features.

WinterBoard - Free

WinterBoard is a very powerful theming tool, created by Cydia founder Saurik. Which is used to customize and transform the look and feel of the iOS into an entirely new device. WinterBoard handles anything from the basic themes, all the way up to complete themes defining a whole new system UI. If a full system theme isn't your liking, WinterBoard also has the ability to theme individual applications. Further down we've mentioned some great themes.

DreamBoard - Free

DreamBoard, is a dynamic alternative to the popular theme manager Winterboard. The app gives power to the theme creators and users in ways Winterboard cannot. It allows for theme makers to create themes without the worry of having their users bail on them because of the complexity in installing their themes. Dreamboard gets rid of third-party tweaks like Iconoclasm, iBlank, and many others. You no longer need to respring to apply your themes! There are some great themes listed below, made just for DreamBoard!

Zephyr - $2.99

Multitasking gestures have been a hit-and-miss for Apple. They require 4 to 5 fingers to use, which can be difficult on a iPod or iPhone-sized screen, and they've only recently become available to iPads exclusively on the latest version of iOS 5. So, the jailbreak community steps in to right Apple's wrong with Zephyr.

Zephyr is a great substitute for Apple's lackluster gestures, with a slew of settings to go with. Sliding up from the bottom of the screen with a changeable number of fingers (1 to 4) brings up the multitasking bar, and/or closes the current app (customizable in Settings). Swiping in from either side, again with changeable number of fingers requires, switches to the next app open.

Transitions are smooth and switching apps is nearly seamless. If certain apps require a lot of swiping that could be misinterpreted by Zephyr, you can disable left/right swiping, bottom swiping, or both in any app. Also, disabling certain gestures while the keyboard is present is an option. If you're a heavy
multitasker and want to reduce the wear on your home button, check out Zephyr!

Color Keyboard - $2.99

Color Keyboard is a Cydia Tweak that allows for customizable keyboard colors and themes. You can even make your own theme by using this guide.'

NCSettings - Free

This is a widget for Notification Center that allows quick access to the following toggles: Wi-Fi, Volume, Brightness, Lock Rotation, Cellular Data, 3G, Vibrate, Silent, Location Services, Auto-Lock, Flash, Private Browsing, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode, and Power (Power includes: Respring, Reboot, and Power Down). NCSettings is great because it allows you to fully customize what toggles you want to and don't want to see in your Notification Center. It also allows the user to customize how many toggles they see per "screen".

Forcecast - $1.99

Forecast adds a souped up version of the weather widget right on the lockscreen. It displays the current weather in a very iOS-looking fashion, along side the clock information that would normally be on the lockscreen. And just like the widget, sliding to either side reveals a day-by-day forecast.

Safari Download Enabler - Free

Safari Download Enabler adds the feature of downloading files to Safari in a very streamlined way. Instead of adding any new parts to the GUI, it replaces Safari's "Add to Reading List" button in the context menu (the one that's brought up when you hold down on a link) with a download button that will take whatever file is behind the link, be it an MP3 or even an HTML webpage, and uses Safari's native download UI. Another feature is the disabling of auto-playing media files, like songs or videos, so they can be downloaded.

Swipebright - $0.99

Given that our brightness level can either decrease or increase our battery level, we'll always want to have quick access to it right? This jailbreak tweaks allows you to adjust the brightness level with the swipe of the finger on the status bar. Swiping either left or right (horizontally) on the status bar the brightness will decrease (left) or increase (right).

There are several options to configure in the settings application like the ability to disable or enable Swipebright, restricting Swipebright only to the Springboard or even disabling it on the lockscreen. A cool feature that Swipe includes is the 'Deadzone' feature. This feature will prevent the accident adjustment of the brightness by setting a level of sensitivity. The higher the value the slider is set to, the harder it will be to adjust your brightness level and vice versa.

PersistentAssistant - Free

PersistentAssistant activates Siri after she's done talking, so you don't have to press her button every time. Pair this with MyAssistant's custom command to close Siri, and she becomes that much more hands-free. Or, using the chat bot built into AssistantExtensions, Siri can really maintain a conversation

MyAssisant - $0.99

MyAssistant adds the ability to specify custom commands for system toggles, Activator events, and custom responses. It even adds a few UI mods for Siri, like a custom background and shortening Siri's popup bar. MyAssistant also gives Siri the ability to compose Tweets, download files, and open apps.

TetherMe - $4.99

Internet has gotten much easier to bring with on the go. Data networks have gotten faster and wider spread, making the Internet just about anywhere you want it to be. Data networks are most common on smartphones. What if you have a laptop? You just have to hop from wifi hotspot to wifi hotspot, and if there aren't any around, you're out of luck. Phone network and producer companies have come up with a solution: share your phone's Internet via tethering (for a fee of $XXX.xx)! It's a great concept, but then there are all those fees.

Why can't you just use your data plan for what you want, instead of having to pay extra for little features? Unless you have a specific data plan that includes tethering, you can't even use the BUILT-IN tethering option on your iPhone. That's what TetherMe solves.

It works itself right into the native tethering framework of iOS, and hides tethering use from your carrier. No charges! (Unless you get caught, this is difficult because this tweak is designed for you NOT to get caught!) The only thing TetherMe really adds is custom APN settings for tethering, but the rest is just behind-the-scenes stuff for the native tethering feature. TetherMe is much cheaper than any tethering-including data plan.

CleverPin - Free

CleverPin allows you to make your iPhone ask for passcode intelligently: you can choose to automatically disable it while you're connected to your home network (more than one network supported, add the network you're connected to with only 1 tap), listening music or charging battery. You will never need to waste time again to disable the passcode (even decreasing your own protection), because you're iPhone will ask you for it only when it's actually needed. You can also choose to automatically re-activate the passcode after a certain time of inactivity.

Sparrow+ - Free

Sparrow+ by FreeManRepo is a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to set Sparrow as the default mail client in iOS, replacing the official Mail app when you perform system mail functions. Sparrow+ also enables push notifications for Sparrow — like SparrowPush — something that the app’s developers did not include in the application when it was released on the App Store.

HeadphoneLauncher - $0.99

HeadphoneLauncher is a jailbreak tweak from Cydia that presents you with a list of applications to launch when you plug in a pair of headphones. When headphones are plugged into your iPhone or iPod touch, a number of app icons will be displayed on your device’s lock screen, configurable in Settings. As a bonus, HeadphoneLauncher will display the media controls on your lockscreen that would normally be accessed by double-tapping the home button. Music — and apps—to your ears.

Switchy - $0.99

Brent Caswell posted some concept for improvements to Apple's standard multitasking bar. Developer John Coates thought that it looked like a good idea, and worked with Caswell to create Switchy. The multitasking bar, as it is now, is a rather large waste of space. There's just one line of running apps at the bottom, and the rest of the screen is wasted. One of Caswell's ideas was to nearly triple the height of the multitasker to allow for another row of apps running as well as some more settings on other pages, like music controls.

With Switchy, the volume slider now shares a page with audio controls. A new "settings" page is added with a shortcut to the Settings app, along with a brightness slider, and another of Caswell's ideas. It's been featured in several other Cydia tweaks: a "clear all" button for apps running. It kills and removes all apps from the multitasker.

Activator - Free

This jailbreak tweak available in Cydia that allows you to assign gestures or actions to invoke applications and utilities. For example, you can set a double tap the home button to open Cydia, respring, or any other app of your choosing that has Activator support.

MyWi - $19.99

MyWi transforms your iOS device into a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing for its cellular data connection to be shared with laptops, smartphones, and other devices. Allowing you to tether over Bluetooth, USB or creating a Ad-hoc network. Providing you with 40 bit and 104 bit WEP security encryption. There's a free three day trial available.

Apple has limited the use of the iPhone to a select few wireless carriers. Unlocking a device will allow GSM users to insert any GSM sim card instead of the original carrier the phone was originally locked to. The iPhone must be unlocked before you can use any carrier of your choice. To unlock your iPhone will you need to jailbreak your iPhone. With a compatible baseband installing Ultrasn0w will unlock your iPhone.

Whited00r is a custom version of iOS 3.1.3 that has managed to implement, or mimic as close as possible, most of the features found in iOS 5. While there are no new notifications, Whited00r has just about everything from app folders and video recording to multitasking and reminders.

Whited00r, a free download, also still has direct access to the App Store, is also equipped with the the jailbreak equivalent Cydia. Which is full of apps and tweaks that are known to work with the custom firmware. You will need a jailbroken original iPod touch, second-generation iPod touch, original iPhone, or iPhone 3G to use Whited00r. Download here.

The Themes:

DreamBoard

Metroon Ultimate - $3

This is a fully functional Dreamboard theme with the goal of emulating Windows 8's Start screen, and it does an amazing job. It uses tiles that can be sized to normal or double, and can be moved around. Any app can be "pinned" to Metroon, and some stock tiles are included. Some are even live, showing realtime information, like the Music tile, which shows the name & artwork of the current song, or the Messages tile, which previews the latest text recieved. The "Desktop" tile instantly brings you back to your normal homescreen, and the theme and all its aspects, like a custom Windows 8-style lockscreen, seem to disappear. But a press of the home button on the home screen brings you back to the Start screen. It comes with a bunch of customization options, like changing the color of the little UI aspects, the background design, and the username shown on the top right.

OS X Lion Ultimatum - $3.50

This theme makes your device look and feel exactly like Mac OS X Lion that you may already be use to. With functional, Finder and Menus bars, don't forget Windows where you can access all your apps quickly and intuitively. Just like you'd expect on Lion there's Mission Control where you can quickly access the Dashboard for a Facebook widget and Twitter widget. To top it all off, there's a lock screen that resembles the real thing, tapping on the user will unlock your device.

BoxorHD - $3.00

This b-e-a-utiful DreamBoard theme for your iPad, was well..made just for the new iPad's retina screen. This theme consists of dedicated widgets such as Facebook and a live calender widget, a custom made lock screen and a nifty app launcher. There's so much more to this theme.

WinterBoard

Bookmark WiFi - Free

This isn't a full theme but a basic UI change that changes the Wi-Fi signal in your status bar to bookmarks. Each signal strength represents a different color.

iOS'86 - $2.00

This is a complete WinterBoard theme that may just remind you how good we have it here with your retina screen in 2012. 1986 used to look like this:

There are about thousands of themes and tweaks that really, the whole family can enjoy on a jailbroken device. We just mentioned a few of the noteworthy tweaks and themes.

The Cons:

Jailbreaking or installing packages will in no way harm your device. At worst, you will run into a problem that cannot be fixed by any means other than performing a restore in iTunes. This is not likely unless you do not do your research first on what you are installing. You should always install from trusted sources. It is therefore important to limit the amount of jailbreak tweaks that you install from Cydia. You may experience crashes from conflicting packages which in turn can slow your device down. Thankfully there is a safety net if you do experience a crash called "Safe Mode", which will install alongside Mobilesubstrate. And if you happen to be stuck in a boot loop caused by a Mobile Substrate addon, when your device is booting up, you can hold down the volume up button to disable Mobile Substrate altogether. Of which then you can troubleshoot your issue.

Jailbreaking iPhones is legal in the United States, based on an exemption made to the U.S. Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) allowing for modifications of this nature. Nevertheless, by jailbreaking your iOS device you are violating the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) with Apple, which means that your device's warranty will be void. However by restoring your device back to factory default settings using iTunes (see below), all traces of jailbreaking will be removed and your warranty will essentially be valid again.

The exploits used to enable jailbreaking are usually patched in the next update of the OS. This means that, if you want to keep your jailbreak mods, you will need to wait for the iPhone-Dev team or Chronic-Dev team (the jailbreak community) to release an updated jailbreak procedure. Sometimes this takes hours, sometimes this takes weeks, months. Once the jailbreak is released, updating generally consists of backing up everything, restoring your iPhone to the new iOS, re-jailbreaking, and reinstalling all of your jailbreak software. It is a far more involved process, on top of the already involved update process of the iOS. You will likely update the iOS far less than you would if you were non-jailbroken. Backing up your content to iTunes or iCloud, however, is still recommended as a precautionary measure.

There is one major reason why you shouldn't jailbreak, which most people don't know about:
Lack of security. Since jailbreak developers/jailbreaking disables a lot of security features, it will make your device a whole lot less secure. It will disable sandbox and a whole bunch of other security features and add more ways in which hackers can steal your data and do other bad stuff with your device. So just a caution for those of you who are paranoid about the security of your data. But be aware that jailbreak did patch exploits before Apple patched them in a software update. Like Jailbreakme 2.0 "Star" and Jailbreakme 3.0 "Saffron" released PDF Patcher and PDF Patcher 2 respectively.

But preserve recent mainstream jailbreaks (such as the ones available using redsn0w and Absinthe) preserve the important iOS security features like sandboxing. The security issue users should keep in mind is that tweaks are not limited by iOS security features such as sandboxing - tweaks can theoretically access/do anything they want - so it's important to stick to installing tweaks from trusted repositories by reputable developers.

If you ever came across the word "jailbreak" you may have already came across the work "tethered". A tethered jailbreak will require you to plug your device into your PC or Mac via USB, and you typically need to re-run your jailbreak utility — like Redsn0w — and choose the “boot tethered” option to restart your device. You will not lose any data. This may inconvenience you as you cannot reboot your device without the use of a computer and we may not be always near a computer when this happens. You may also want to familiarize yourself with an untethered jailbreak and an semi-tethered jailbreak.

An untethered jailbreak can be rebooted any time, anywhere, without having to connect to your PC. It works just like a non-Jailbroken device. Semi-Tethered: a semi-tethered jailbreak allows you to start your iDevice without plugging it into your computer however you will not be able to use your jailbroken add-ons until you boot from your computer using the jailbreak program.

Your device can function normally and take advantage of all of Apple's original features such as the App Store while jailbroken. But be advised that some applications will not run on jailbroken devices, some reveal a warning dialog which can be simply ignored. Direct TV for example will not run, while on the other hand. Skype's warning dialog can be ignored. Installing "xCon" from Cydia can solve this problem for a few applications.

What has an impact on your battery life is what you install when jailbroken and what time-saving or cool tweaks are currently running. There are a bunch of fun and useful tweaks on Cydia and it is definitely worth trying them out! Just be aware that everything is okay in moderation.

Any tweak that is always running and modifies your device is taking a bit more power than a stock device would. This difference is not great at all, unless you have your entire device modified using multiple tweaks. Don't be afraid to install all the tweaks your heart desires, just be aware. Once you start to notice a change in battery life, this may just be your limit. If you are comfortable with the change and it doesn't have an impact on your usage throughout the day then by all means, continue. It will not harm your device in anyway. You can't brick your device while jailbreaking. The only way to brick your device is if you are an advanced user and purposely try to brick it.

The Endgame

Jailbreaking has it's pros, and it has it's cons. What doesn't? It is very important that you know what you are doing when it comes to jailbreaking as you may have to restore your device if worse comes to worse. Forcing your device into DFU mode and restoring will suffice.

To force your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) mode, follow these simple steps:

1. Connect your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to your PC or Mac with the USB cable and turn off the device by pressing and holding the power button until you see the Slide to Power off option appear. Slide it to turn off the device.

2. Hold down both the Home and Sleep/Wake button for 10 seconds.

3. Release the Power button will still holding the Home button for another 10 seconds.

4. The device's screen should now be black, you are now in DFU mode.

5. Your PC or Mac may have already opened iTunes, if not you must now open iTunes to proceed.

6. iTunes should automatically recognize your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad in DFU mode. iTunes will prompt you to restore the device.

Your device's warranty will no longer be void as restoring your device back to factory default settings using iTunes removes all traces of jailbreaking.

Note: Restoring from a backup can put back some jailbreak data if the backup was made while jailbroken.

If you now wish to jailbreak your iOS device please check out iFans Jailbreak Wizard to find the appropriate jailbreak tool for your device. Once you've found your tool, you can use the free guides available here.

(From left to right: Color Keyboard, Barrel, SBSettings.)

Britta Gustafson contributed to this article.

Very nice job. I feel that this correctly expresses the pros and cons.
One thing...I'd like an example of a "hacker" who took advantage of a jailbreak (not just an exploit that was already present before, if not patched by, the jailbreak) to steal personal data. Now compare that number (be it either zero or one) to the number of exploits taken advantage of by hackers out for your data on an Android device, before it was even rooted (the reason there is even antivirus software existent for Android).
I am not at all trying to start an Android-iOS war, rather expressing the real security we have and are fortunate for, how little jailbreaking affects it, and how we so take it for granted.

First of all, don't bash on Android (even though I don't like Android) because it makes us look like fanboys (which I don't exactly want to be lol ). Second of all, jailbreaking does affect your device a lot. Just look at the IKEE virus/bug. Nobody really does that now, but they could if they wanted to. Also in the pwn2own (2009 or 2010 or 2011 I forget lol ) someone made an exploit that steals pretty much everything without bypassing sandbox. So yeah, you can steal phone numbers and messages and stuff on a vanilla iOS.

Two examples, that's one more than I expected And as you said, nobody really does that now. I'm not trying to bash Android, just saying that because of the simple fact that we are still running iOS, we have little to worry about security-wise. Hackers spend their time hacking Android devices instead (perhaps because it's easier?).

I guess. Hacking iOS is more fun though .

Ermm... how do you think we get a jailbreak? People exploit iOS. Luckily they're nice, and spend their own time to make us a program in which we can install third party apps instead of hacking us. lolz.