In case anyone isn’t sure, jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad is not illegal, so there’s no worries about that rule. I just did it on my 4s and am interested in any great apps anybody else may have found.
I tried it, it just felt dirty so I restored it. Perhaps I will try again closer to getting my next phone. Till then I can count on the support and updates.
I jailbroke for **Hands Free Control **(activate Siri by voice instead of pressing the button) and **Siri Toggles **(Siri can launch any app for you, and change a number of settings). No problems so far.
I also installed Winterboard, which is a theming app, and downloaded a bunch of free themes for my phone.
And Barrel, which has a bunch of different transitions between home screens. Some cool, some not so.
Cool, thanks. I just went and got Siri Toggles. That sounds very useful. I got Dreamboard which is similar to Winterboard so I don’t think I need them both.
Two of my suggestions are paid apps, but offer tremendous functionality. I’ll put in a vote for MyWi, the tethering app. I don’t use it often (which is good, because high usage is what makes AT&T take notice and ask why you’re not paying for a tethering plan), but when it’s needed, it’s indispensible. Making amobile hotspot ofr my laptop can be a lifesaver on a business trip. It’s $20 for the app, but that one-time fee is what AT&T wants to charge every single month for sanctioned tethering. I’m just not that freuqent a user.
“Intelliscreen X” is a great enhancement to iOS 5’s notification center, and adds awesome functionality to the locksreen. Previewing emails and replying to texts without unlocking the phone is sweet. The “Messages+” feature bundled with it allows you to reply to texts without leaving the app you were using. The ISX bundle is $10, but I don’t regret a dime of it.
A third one, free this time, is OpenNotifier. It lets you add custom icons in the statusbar to go along with push notifications from certain apps. It’s cool to be able to look at the top of your screen (even the lock screen) and see a little “f” to let you know you have a Facebook notification, or a little speech bubble to indicate a missed message on Yahoo! Messenger. If you put your apps in folders, it’s a much faster way of finding out what that notification badge is indicating.
I’m very interested in MyWi, but I’ve heard that Verizon can detect it now. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I am grandfathered in to my unlimited data plan and I’m afraid of them busting me.
OpenNotifier is something I’ll check out, thanks.
BiteSMS - SMS on steroids. My #1 favorite jailbreak app
SBSettings (also get Rotation Inhibitor after installing SBSettings) - my #2 favorite. One touch access to WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, GPS, Rotation toggles. Great for preserving battery life
Dimmer - to dim the screen below what iOS allows, which is too bright for in-the-dark reading
Enhanced Tabs - for Safari. As the name suggests.
f.lux - removes the blue light and makes the screen color warm for bedtime reading
FakeCarrier - rename ATT to any string
Flashlight - simple flashlight
IntelliD - network based caller ID displays caller ID for unkown numbers
IntelliScreenX - kinda cumbersome UI, but there’s no other substitute. I preferred LockCalendar on iOS 4, but it doesn’t support iOS 5
MyWi 5.0 - wireless hotspot. With MyWi OnDemand it connects over Bluetooth to save battery life
Navigate from Maps - search in Google Maps, then send address to TomTom or other native GPS app
PhotoMail - attach multiple photos to email
RestoreTab - restores last closed Safari tab
Signal - shows you cell tower location and dB
StayOpened - does not kick you out of AppStore on every app download. Keeps it open so you can continue downloading more apps
Tab+ - removes 9 tab limit
TruPrint - allows wireless printing to non-Apple approved wireless printers
User Agent Faker - masks browser user agent, especially useful when websites force a mobile version when you want the desktop version
3G Unrestrictor - FaceTime etc. over 3G
Thanks! I’ll check some of those out.
Don’t know if I should start a new thread or ask here, but I’ll ask here. Can someone list the app or apps you currently need to jailbreak? I would prefer untethered if still possible. I have an iPhone 4 (not 4S) with iOS 5.0.1 on AT&T. I use a PC not a Mac. I’ve read up on it but thought asking here would be a good & reliable place to check. If you could include links that’d be even better.
A couple questions:
[ul]
[li]Is there much chance of this ‘bricking’ my phone?[/li][li]Is there much chance of Apple updating the OS to mess with it?[/li][li]How does this effect iTunes regular backups (or iTunes in general)?[/li][/ul]
Thanks in advance.
Hail Ants, there are multiple jailbreak apps out there. The one I used on my 4s (works with 4 as well) is Green Pois0n Absinthe. All the steps you need are on that site including the Windows download link.
Jailbreaking is pretty safe these days. That being aid, all the sites still warn that there is always a chance you could brick it. If you follow the steps it’s unlikely though.
If a new OS version comes out and you update, you’ll need to re-jailbreak afterwards. Jailbreaks usually become available within weeks (or months) of a new OS version.
You can still backup with iTunes as usual, your jailbroken apps will not get backed up however (there is an app for that!)
I found it simple to do.
Also, be advised that “bricking” doesn’t mean you end up with a non-functional device. It just means you’ll have to do a restore, possibly by having to go into something called DFU mode. But the all-star hackers responsible for all the current JBs insist (and there’s no reason to doubt them) that it’s technically impossible to perform software operations and make an iPhone unrecoverable.
So while you can temporarily, and reversibly, “brick” a phone…you can’t actually turn it into a paperweight.
I bricked mine. Took me a couple of days of Googling and following bad advice until something worked. I now want to unjailbreak my phone, but I’m scared to plug it into iTunes.
“Bricking” a phone means there is no way to recover it; it is a brick. There is zero chance of bricking an iPhone with current jailbreak tools. You can always put your phone into DFU mode and recover in the rare event that the jailbreak gets interrupted or results in an error.
Absinthe, which Southern Yankee refers to, is only for A5 devices (meaning iPhone 4S and iPad 2). Absinthe does not support iPhone 4.
Untethered Jailbreak of an iPhone 4 (without unlock) is rather straightforward.
Steps:
Make sure your battery is sufficiently charged before you begin.
Use iTunes to upgrade to iOS 5.0.1 (unless you’re looking for unlock, in which case never do this)
(EDIT: You’re already on 5.0.1, so skip this step)
Sync with iTunes to backup current apps and settings
Download redsn0w from the iPhone Dev Team Blog:
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/ (search redsn0w 0.9.10 , current version is b5c)
Any site charging you for jailbreak software is a scam. Always check the above blog first. If it’s not linked there, it’s most likely a scam.
Install and run redsn0w and follow instructions to Jailbreak. The actual jailbreak takes under a minute.
Apple has not actively interfered with an already jailbroken iPhone, except by trying to disable iBooks, but the latest jailbreak fixes that too. OS updates are voluntary and user initiated, unless you set it to automatic in iTunes. A jailbroken iPhone can be restored to factory settings at any time with no trace of jailbreak by simply restoring in iTunes. This allows you to revert in case of a hardware issue that needs warranty service.
Jailbreaking does not affect normal iTunes backup, except that jailbroken apps will not be backed up. Everything else is backed up and can be restored as usual, including apps, music, movies, photos, messages, address book, notes, etc.
iOS 5.0.1 supports iCloud backup, which also works fine with a jailbroekn phone.
If you need additional step by step instructions, or encounter an error, feel free to PM me and I’ll walk you through it.
Jailbreak is entirely and explicitly legal.
Here’s how I explain it: Think of your iPhone like a computer. Think of jailbreaking as installing a special version of your Operating System. Regardless of how badly you screw up the OS install, you cannot screw up the hardware (except if your battery goes dead while updating the cellular radio baseband, which can only happen when unlocking, not jailbreaking; and that too has a practically zero chance). The hardware still works; you just have to follow special instructions (DFU mode) to start a fresh OS install. Just like formatting your hard drive will leave your computer useless, until you reinstall a fresh OS.
The closest I’ve come to screwing up my phone was when it went into a reboot loop after a failed Cydia app update (once in my 4 or 5 years of jailbreaking). DFU requires you to start with your phone powered off and plugged in, but my phone wouldn’t power off, it would only keep rebooting until the battery died. Scratched my head for a bit, and then figured that it was a matter of timing the start of DFU with the start of a reboot cycle, and I was live again in a few minutes.
PM me, or post here, and I’ll walk you through instructions. If your phone worked, it wasn’t bricked. It just went into a bad state.
That wasn’t my recent experience. An attempt to restore a jail broken 4S on iOS5 bricked it.
I honestly think Apple should love jailbreaking: it gives them the best of both worlds. They can claim to their sponsors that they’ve got everything locked up, but then people who want to use the device for more still can, and explicitly without any help from Apple. All Apple has to do is put on a facade of not liking it when people jailbreak their phones, when really they don’t care as long they sell more phones.
Did you try putting it into DFU mode to recover? Based on your previous post, it appears you were able to get your phone working again. If so, that is not considered a bricked phone.
Additional jailbreak apps:
A iOS Style SBSettings Theme (Green) - the nicest SBSettings theme I’ve seen
AssistantExtensions - enable custom Siri tasks, such as system toggles, app launches, etc.
MyAssistant - works with above
PasswordPilot - finally found a solution to the annoying AppStore password prompt every time I download or update apps. Saves and enters your iTunes/AppStore password for you.
Here are some official numbers on how many people jailbroke their phones within 3 days of the A5 jailbreak release:
And that’s just a fraction of the Jailbreak population.