I’ve read a lot of articles about Jailbreaking, but they all assume that the reader knows what it means to “jailbreak”. Seems like a silly supposition. Well, ever one to fill in missing pages, this is a brief explanation of what it means to Jailbreak an iPhone.
Until the next software revision for the iPhone (Slated, I believe, for June ‘08) there is no “API”. In programming, an API (or “Application Programming Interface”) is a means by which a first party developer (in this case, Apple Inc.) gives third party developers the ability to modify a proprietary system. I promise that’s the most confusing sentence in this post.
The proprietary system in question here is the iPhone. You probably aren’t surprised that some people didn’t like the idea of waiting until June of ‘08 to create programs for the iPhone. In fact, the problem wasn’t really with creating applications for the phone, since the phone is, basically, running the same OS that modern Apple computers are running. The problem was that no tool existed to install those programs on the phone, or integrate them into the phones operating system.
Enter reverse engineers. I don’t know how long it took, I’m sure it was impressively fast, but that’s not really pertinent to this discussion. Clever hackers found a way of installing whatever they wanted, by modifying the actual iPhone Operating System. Think of the phone the same way you think of your PC. The Operating System is MacOS or Windows. Now imagine that you operating system is in “Lock-down” and there’s no way of installing anything. These hackers re-wrote a part of the iPhone Operating System, and added a utility called Installer.app, which is a sort of package management system.
Installer.app looks at a few servers on the Internet and gets a list of available applications for your iPhone. With a few clicks (or, touches) you can download and install anything from that list. Applications are added almost daily by independant developers. A wide variety of applications, from programs that update Twitter to calendars that keep track of menstration (no lie!) are now floating around out there. There’s even an app that you can use to update your netflix queue. I know, right?
Sounds good, doesn’t it? So how do you get “Installer.app” on your iPhone? Remember, to have it you have to update your phones Operating System. To do this, you use an application called Jailbreak. It’s pretty straightforward. Download Jailbreak on your PC, connect your phone to your PC, and run Jailbreak. Your phone will restart twice and when it’s done Installer.App will be on your iPhone’s desktop. Easy enough, eh?
Now for the caveat emptor. This process is not supported by Apple. In fact, it is a direct violation of their End User License Agreement.
“But it’s my phone! I paid $400 and I can do whatever I want with it!” Believe me, I agree! Apple will agree with you, too. And that’s exactly what they’ll tell you if your phone stops working after you “Jailbreak” it, and you try to get them to fix it under warranty. They’ll gladly say “It’s your phone, you paid $400 then voided our warranty with Shenanigans. You can do whatever you want with it!” And if they’re really helpful they might give you some ideas of what, exactly, you can do with it. Like, use it as a paperweight. Throw it at people you don’t like. Perhaps a coaster?
I have never heard of the jailbreaking process destroying a phone. If your phone becomes unstable after you’ve performed a jailbreak, you can restore it to factory defaults which completely reinstalls the original operating system. I decided to jailbreak my phone, and I’ve had no problems with it. But there is a possibility of this process causing problems. It’s not a likelihood by any means, but it’s out there.