What does jailbreak mean

Mes1215 · Mar 9, 2012

I have seen a lot of post say you have to be jail broken what does that mean?

pianoman · Mar 9, 2012

Hackers find problems with Apple 's coding of their operating system and then they create a program to give us access to our phones to change the look, add applications that Apple doesn't sell, etc. it's also called "root-ing" your phone if you've heard Android users talking about it. You can change many things about your iPhone after its jail broken.. Different amount of icons per row and on your dock. Change the way the icons look. Many things.

Mes1215 · Mar 9, 2012

How do you do it is it an app?

prawns · Mar 9, 2012

As far as I understand things (and Im a noob keep in mind)

Jailbreaking simply unlocks the file system on the phone so that everything is now customisable instead of locked and restricted (jailbreak=unrestricted access to everything on your phone including system stuff normally locked down)

In a nutshell to JB mine I just plugged it into the computer, downloaded the JB program and ran it. Once it finished a few mins later I rebooted and thats it.

At that point nothing has really changed with your phones "look" or anything - But it allows you to change things from then on (like downloading cydia apps to fully trick out your phone - I just got one that makes facetime work over the 3g network instead of limited to WIFI

)

pianoman · Mar 13, 2012

Mes1215 said:
How do you do it is it an app?

Go to greenpois0n.com and download Absinthe and follow instructions carefully - IF you're jailbreaking an iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0 or 5.0.1 on it. If you have iOS 5.1 there is no jailbreak available for anyone yet. If you have an earlier phone, 4 or 3GS you'll have to ask someone else how to jailbreak those phones. After you're finished jailbreaking there will be an APP called Cydia on your phone where you can begin downloading themes for your phone to make it look different and also download different tools to help your phone do other things it couldn't before jailbreaking. Search on the forum here for 'Jailbreaking for Newbies'. There are many threads talking about taking your first steps into jailbreaking. It does NOT hurt your phone and if you don't like it - you can go back to the way your phone was before jailbreaking. MAKE SURE you do a BACKUP in iTunes of your phone BEFORE jailbreaking it. You have been warned.

zig9449 · Mar 13, 2012

I recommend anyone to avoid backups before jailbreaking and a fresh install of iOS. starting from scratch yields the most stable jailbreak always.

Tho in order to do a fresh install you'l have to dump blobs with iFaith (if you have an iPhone 4 or lower).

Of you have an iPhone 4S then stay away from restoring our device.

Mes1215 · Mar 13, 2012

I have the iPhone 4 with 5.1 so can it not be jailbreaked then I will do a search for the other threads now though thanks for your guys help! I am very new to the iPhone always had a droid I actually never owned anything apple not even a iPod lol

pianoman · Mar 13, 2012

Mes1215 said:
I have the iPhone 4 with 5.1 so can it not be jailbreaked then I will do a search for the other threads now though thanks for your guys help! I am very new to the iPhone always had a droid I actually never owned anything apple not even a iPod lol

No - there is no jailbreak available for 5.1 yet. You'll have to wait.

zig9449 · Mar 14, 2012

Mes1215 said:
I have the iPhone 4 with 5.1 so can it not be jailbreaked then I will do a search for the other threads now though thanks for your guys help! I am very new to the iPhone always had a droid I actually never owned anything apple not even a iPod lol

You can tether jailbreak if you want. It's not do bad.
But there "is" a jailbreak for iOS 5.1 on A4 devices.

pianoman · Mar 15, 2012

zig9449 said:
You can tether jailbreak if you want. It's not do bad.
But there "is" a jailbreak for iOS 5.1 on A4 devices.

Are you implying that there's a 'tethered' jailbreak for 5.1 on A5 devices? Or that the jailbreak for A4 devices for 5.1 is tethered? Your answer was a little confusing. How was there a jailbreak out within 2 days of 5.1 being released on the A4's? Are you sure?

Thomasjtsi · Mar 15, 2012

pianoman said:
Are you implying that there's a 'tethered' jailbreak for 5.1 on A5 devices? Or that the jailbreak for A4 devices for 5.1 is tethered? Your answer was a little confusing. How was there a jailbreak out within 2 days of 5.1 being released on the A4's? Are you sure?

He's saying that on the iPhone 3GS & iP4 you can used resn0w for a Tethered JB. This is due to the always existing limera1n exploit found in their hardware.

pianoman · Mar 16, 2012

Ah yes!! The hardware exploit. I didn't realize the extent of that means that you can get an immediate jailbreak (tethered) for any iOS update. Very handy if you're ok with tethered JB's.

Thanks!

zig9449 · Mar 16, 2012

pianoman said:
Ah yes!! The hardware exploit. I didn't realize the extent of that means that you can get an immediate jailbreak (tethered) for any iOS update. Very handy if you're ok with tethered JB's.

Thanks!

Actually, because of the new mobile substrate all jailbreaks are "semi-tethered" until an untethered is released.

So really the new redsn0w should be called a "semi-tethered" jailbreak.lol.

pianoman · Mar 16, 2012

zig9449 said:
Actually, because of the new mobile substrate all jailbreaks are "semi-tethered" until an untethered is released.

So really the new redsn0w should be called a "semi-tethered" jailbreak.lol.

?? I don't understand the distinction... If I have to involve my computer, at all, to get my phone to boot up after a full shutdown then the term is "tethered". What does "semi" imply?

zig9449 · Mar 16, 2012

pianoman said:
?? I don't understand the distinction... If I have to involve my computer, at all, to get my phone to boot up after a full shutdown then the term is "tethered". What does "semi" imply?

Semi-tether means that your phone will reboot and work fine in a "none-jailbroken" state. All tweaks and Cydia apps are disabled. And they will not work again until you boot tethered. Safari does not work either. Tho you can just use an alternate browser. I used Yandex Opera Mini Bowser, and Atomic Web.

But you if you install a package called "SemiTether" from a certain repo, it can patch Safari. The whole point of that package is to protect notification center widgets, but it has never works for me....so it's just pointless to install IMO. I'm fine using a different browser in a semi-tethers state.