If you're thinking about taking your device to the darkside, then I reccommend this article as a "how to" guide:
So why did I decide to jailbreak my phone? Well there a bunch of reasons but here are my main motivations for doing so:
- Access to applications that don't make the iTunes cut list
- Access to tweaks that let me customize the look and feel of my phone
- The ability to install apps that let me get more from my phone than Apple wants me to.
That doesn't seem like much of a list, but after using some of the tweaks and customizations for a while now, it seems hard for me to think about going back to the native iOS as Apple intended me to use it.
For instance, I now have a customized lock screen. My lock screen shows me notifications for things like - email, phone messages, and calendar appointments. It has the ability to show me even more if I wanted, which might include things like an RSS feed, news updates, sports scores, or twitter notifications. My lock screen also has a new "clock" icon similar to what you'd find on an HTC phone. It has a weather feature and calendar feature built right into it. Very handy. You can get these updates using an app called "Lockinfo"
I also have an app called "Mobilenotifier" that allows me to manage my pop up notifications better. Instead of being forced to deal with an SMS message in the middle of a game I can tap the screen to make it go away for a later time and then continue shooting Angry Birds at Evil Pigs. It caches unread notifications for me to deal with later so that I can don't accidentally miss something that requires my attention.
Another handy little app is one that gives me the option to do more with the folders that I create on my iPhone. It's called "Infinifolders" and lets me put unlimited icons inside my folders and even lets me nest folders within folders. The native iPhone folders functionality is fairly limited in comparison.
Have you ever been frustrated by how deep you have to go into your settings app in order to do some of the simplest tasks? Like turning on and off Bluetooth, or Wireless connections etc. I kind of wish I could make a shortcut for those functions right on my homepage of my iPhone. I would like to create these shortcuts the same way you can build a shortcut icon for webpages in Safari. Unfortunately that ability doesn't exist as a jailbreak app either. However "SBSettings" comes really close. It gives you a window you can drop down from the top of your screen with some toggle buttons already provided for you to accomplish some of those tedious tasks. There's a button for turning on and off airplane mode, for turning on/off WiFi, or Bluetooth, or 3G etc. This makes it much easier than digging through a ton of menus in the settings app to do these simple tasks.
A friend of mine was showing me a really cool app on his iPhone the other day. I wanted it and so I went directly to the app store from my phone to download it. However, as soon as I tried downloading the app, I got a notice saying that the app was greater than 20mb and that I would have to wait till I had a WiFi connection before I could download it (that or download it directly via iTunes). Now I have a 6 Gb data plan so downloading something bigger than 20mb is not a big hit for me. I've since installed an app called "3Gunrestrictor". This handy little tool fools my phone into thinking that it has a WiFi connection when I go into iTunes and thus lets me download my app. More than that however, it will also allow me to make Skype calls on my 3G plan or to even use Facetime without being on WiFi. Nice!
Those are only 5 of the apps that I make use of fairly regularly. There are a ton of other selections out there, so you can bet there is something for everyone out there or at least pretty close to what you are looking for.
Now before you go looking for these apps once you have freed your phone from Apple Prison, you will need to track down some new "package sources". It seems that app developers for jailbroken iPhones will make their apps available from a wide variety of "package sources". They are often called repo's. So when you find an app that you might like to try out, then make sure to find out what "repo" you need in order to download it. You can enter these "repos" into your Cydia app (basically the Jailbreak version of iTunes - but located directly on your phone). Not all of the jailbreak apps that are available are actually free either. These app developers want to get paid too and so some of the apps do come with a price tag. You will most likely need a paypal account in order to pay for some of these apps, otherwise you'll have to search for the "cracked" versions and take your chances with those apps.
Which brings me to the down side of jailbreaking. As you can imagine, when you open up your phone and free it from Apple Prison, you are also introducing a risk of instability to your device. Not all app developers code the same way and some of them take shortcuts or don't really know what they are doing. Some of these "cracked" apps will cause your phone too become unstable. You will notice that your phone will suddenly reboot at the most inopportune moments. Sometimes an app can lock your phone completely and you'll have to do a hard reboot to get it back. When this happens it can take a long time to troubleshoot what particular app is causing you grief.
I recently discovered that an app called "MCleaner" was causing my dialer to lock up my phone when I made or received a call. This is really ironic considering that "MCleaner" is meant to be used to uninstall problematic apps from your jailbroken iPhone. Once I removed this app I was back to normal again. Definitely frustrating though. Has that turned me off of jailbreaking? Not yet but it was certainly making me question the value of having tweaks if I couldn't use my phone like other normal iPhone users would. Now that I've solved the problem, I'm a much happier camper.
Jailbreaking your phone is not something you should consider without reading up on it. Make sure to do some research and see how much effort you'll have to go through in order to accomplish all the things you want to do. Definitely find someone who has done it to their phone so that you'll have someone to talk to about the challenges you may face. They can often guide you through some of the stumbling blocks that many people encounter when they try this for the first time. Even the process of jailbreaking can be intimidating and not everyone will be comfortable making sense of the steps that are required to get your phone jailbroken. Definitely make a backup you can restore to if you do decide to go down this path.
There are still tons of things that I have to learn about my jailbroken phone but I'm still pretty happy with the results so far. Who knows, maybe my next phone will be Android so that I don't have to hack it to get it the way I like it. :o)
I also have an app called "Mobilenotifier" that allows me to manage my pop up notifications better. Instead of being forced to deal with an SMS message in the middle of a game I can tap the screen to make it go away for a later time and then continue shooting Angry Birds at Evil Pigs. It caches unread notifications for me to deal with later so that I can don't accidentally miss something that requires my attention.
Another handy little app is one that gives me the option to do more with the folders that I create on my iPhone. It's called "Infinifolders" and lets me put unlimited icons inside my folders and even lets me nest folders within folders. The native iPhone folders functionality is fairly limited in comparison.
Have you ever been frustrated by how deep you have to go into your settings app in order to do some of the simplest tasks? Like turning on and off Bluetooth, or Wireless connections etc. I kind of wish I could make a shortcut for those functions right on my homepage of my iPhone. I would like to create these shortcuts the same way you can build a shortcut icon for webpages in Safari. Unfortunately that ability doesn't exist as a jailbreak app either. However "SBSettings" comes really close. It gives you a window you can drop down from the top of your screen with some toggle buttons already provided for you to accomplish some of those tedious tasks. There's a button for turning on and off airplane mode, for turning on/off WiFi, or Bluetooth, or 3G etc. This makes it much easier than digging through a ton of menus in the settings app to do these simple tasks.
A friend of mine was showing me a really cool app on his iPhone the other day. I wanted it and so I went directly to the app store from my phone to download it. However, as soon as I tried downloading the app, I got a notice saying that the app was greater than 20mb and that I would have to wait till I had a WiFi connection before I could download it (that or download it directly via iTunes). Now I have a 6 Gb data plan so downloading something bigger than 20mb is not a big hit for me. I've since installed an app called "3Gunrestrictor". This handy little tool fools my phone into thinking that it has a WiFi connection when I go into iTunes and thus lets me download my app. More than that however, it will also allow me to make Skype calls on my 3G plan or to even use Facetime without being on WiFi. Nice!
Those are only 5 of the apps that I make use of fairly regularly. There are a ton of other selections out there, so you can bet there is something for everyone out there or at least pretty close to what you are looking for.
Now before you go looking for these apps once you have freed your phone from Apple Prison, you will need to track down some new "package sources". It seems that app developers for jailbroken iPhones will make their apps available from a wide variety of "package sources". They are often called repo's. So when you find an app that you might like to try out, then make sure to find out what "repo" you need in order to download it. You can enter these "repos" into your Cydia app (basically the Jailbreak version of iTunes - but located directly on your phone). Not all of the jailbreak apps that are available are actually free either. These app developers want to get paid too and so some of the apps do come with a price tag. You will most likely need a paypal account in order to pay for some of these apps, otherwise you'll have to search for the "cracked" versions and take your chances with those apps.
Which brings me to the down side of jailbreaking. As you can imagine, when you open up your phone and free it from Apple Prison, you are also introducing a risk of instability to your device. Not all app developers code the same way and some of them take shortcuts or don't really know what they are doing. Some of these "cracked" apps will cause your phone too become unstable. You will notice that your phone will suddenly reboot at the most inopportune moments. Sometimes an app can lock your phone completely and you'll have to do a hard reboot to get it back. When this happens it can take a long time to troubleshoot what particular app is causing you grief.
I recently discovered that an app called "MCleaner" was causing my dialer to lock up my phone when I made or received a call. This is really ironic considering that "MCleaner" is meant to be used to uninstall problematic apps from your jailbroken iPhone. Once I removed this app I was back to normal again. Definitely frustrating though. Has that turned me off of jailbreaking? Not yet but it was certainly making me question the value of having tweaks if I couldn't use my phone like other normal iPhone users would. Now that I've solved the problem, I'm a much happier camper.
Jailbreaking your phone is not something you should consider without reading up on it. Make sure to do some research and see how much effort you'll have to go through in order to accomplish all the things you want to do. Definitely find someone who has done it to their phone so that you'll have someone to talk to about the challenges you may face. They can often guide you through some of the stumbling blocks that many people encounter when they try this for the first time. Even the process of jailbreaking can be intimidating and not everyone will be comfortable making sense of the steps that are required to get your phone jailbroken. Definitely make a backup you can restore to if you do decide to go down this path.
There are still tons of things that I have to learn about my jailbroken phone but I'm still pretty happy with the results so far. Who knows, maybe my next phone will be Android so that I don't have to hack it to get it the way I like it. :o)
No comments:
Post a Comment