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Reasons to Jailbreak your iPhone

Now that you know a jailbreak is available for your iPhone, you might be having second thoughts about actually doing it. For lots of people there's absolutely nothing to think about. However, for those who are only just discovering jailbreaking, there are probably some questions they need answered.

Is it hard to jailbreak an iPhone? No, it's not. The whole process would take less than one hour, providing you follow the directions carefully, and ensure that everything's backed up before you begin.

What do I get out of jailbreaking my iPhone? And this is the most important question. In answer to that question, below are the 6 most compelling reasons to free yourself from Apple's control - plus a bonus!!


Rename And Reorganize Apps

It may sound childish, but it's really great to be able to rename your apps. Perhaps you prefer to change 'Spotify' to 'Music' or Sparrow to 'Email’. It's just a basic thing, and something we believe iOS should be letting you do anyway, by default. But unfortunately you can't. the only way you can is to jailbreak your iPhone.

Once you've jailbroken your iPhone you'll have complete freedom to organize your apps. You can adjust icon sizes, add additional rows of apps, and you can add more icons to the home screen's dock, which is actually pretty handy. There's a tool known as FolderEnhancer which allows you to create sub-folders, put them on the dock, and customize the way you want the folders to work and look. Are you wanting to get rid of Newsstand? Well, you can, because there's a Cydia tweak for that too.

Customize the Look And Feel Of iOS

It's true that Apple does a really good job of finishing off the way its mobile iOS looks, however that shouldn't mean that you, the user, have no options to change it to the way you want it to be. Once your phone is jailbroken you can do things like change the lock screen, change the logo that appears when you boot the device, or just overhaul the entire theme. If you every wished your iOS looked like an Android, well now it can.

There are some very well-designed custom themes out there, and yes, there are plenty of terrible ones too. There are heaps of themes on Cydia and it might not be so easy to find the best ones, so it might be a good idea to search the Web for theme options before you start.

Make The Most Of Siri

When Siri was launched by Apple back in 2011, jailbreaking developers discovered a whole new playground in which they could experiment. If you use the Siri tweaks in Cydia you can have Siri tell you jokes, install chatbots, integrate with third party apps like Waze and Spotify, and ask it to search YouTube for you. Proceed carefully with these because our testing proved that some tweaks resulted in Siri freezing.

Tether Your Data Connection To Your Laptop

You can now do this legally via your carrier, but phones that have been jailbroken can now tether their data connections to other devices. Apart from the cost of the app there are no additional charges. TetherMe and MyWi are both very popular options available in Cydia.

Using Only Wi-Fi Apps on 3G Networks

There are many Wi-Fi only apps, like Cablevision, DirecTV, Anywhere for iPad, and Bloomberg that can run on any 3G network using a jailbreak known as 'My3G', which basically tricks the apps into believing they're running on a Wi-Fi network.

'xCon' is another jailbreak tweak which can be used to bypass jailbreak detection in apps, enabling incompatible apps to run on a device that's been jailbroken.

Better Security

There are now better options for security and privacy on jailbroken devices, however it should be pointed out that not all of them are 100% reliable.

In Cydia, the security section provides tools allowing you to install key loggers, lock down individual apps and media files, remotely track and wipe your iPhone making it more difficult to access the device, and encrypt messages. You can also get tweaks that allow you to use facial recognition to unlock your device, or email a picture of whoever is trying to guess your passcode.

Catch a Glimpse Of The Platform's Future

Certainly, there is some junk in Cydia, but this jailbreak app store has become the home of some really impressive, useful and well-designed tweaks, apps, and themes. We know of some instances where Apple has hired jailbreak developers and stolen ideas straight from the jailbreak community. As an example, before we had the Notification Center in iOS 5, this was something that jailbreakers had been using successfully for quite a while. Other things, like copy/paste and multitasking were available via Cydia long before Apple implemented then into its iPhone.


By jailbreaking your iPhone you get an idea of what the future holds for iOS, even though it may be a little unpolished at the moment and still in an experimental form.