Jailbreak or not to Jailbreak

Introduction

In recent years, with the development of high tech devices such as mobile phones, tablets and gaming consoles; people have more desire and freedom to manipulate their own devices for personal use. Most of the hardware companies put a great deal of restriction on use based on each company's policy. Apple is one of typical examples. For many years since the appearance of iPhones, iPods and iPads, many users are still frustrated about the company's policy which has stopped them to unlock their iDevices. Also, if they want to use applications (apps) and games, the process of download must be done in Itune. They do not even have any choice to make any changes to the device such as changing fonts, ringtones and themes. Google's Android devices in the first place also had the same limitation that makes its users have to jailbreak their device to do certain modifications. Before taking a deep look into the advantages and disadvantages of jailbreaking, we had better know what jailbreaking is and how to do it.

What is Jailbreaking?

Jailbreaking is a hack that gains access to areas of the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad that users are not supposed to mess with. Typically, this is an immediate prelude to either installing cool programs, unlocking the handset for use with another cellular network, or both. Through jailbreaking, users are able to add additional applications to their iDevice. It allows them to do so by adding an application called Cydia to their iDevice. It also allows modding (changing) of your iDevice application icons, wallpaper, dock, status bar, chat bubbles, weather backgrounds, keyboard….etc

How to Jailbreak an iDevice?

To make it easier, we will examine the process to jailbreak an Iphone. Other devices can be done with the same manner, however it also depends on the firmware of each device. For the iPhone, when it boots up, it walks through a "chain of trust," which is a series of signature checks among software components always done in a specific order. It begins with boot ROM, moves on to loading low-level bootloader (LLB) software (which controls general data storage and transfer between computers and digital devices, in this case flash memory), then iBoot, then the operating system kernel, and finally the operating system kernel loads the user applications. As the chain of trust is executed, checks are being done for any unauthorized software. When one jailbreaks an iPhone, they are modifying, or patching the iBoot and operating system kernel in this process, rendering them unable to do the digital signature checks that evaluate and distinguish authorized or unauthorized software.

For Users On Stock iOS 5.0.1 (On iPhone, iPad, iPod touch)

Step 1: Download the latest version of Redsn0w (you can google it)

Step 2: Start Redsn0w, select "Jailbreak" then check "Install Cydia". Follow the onscreen steps to place your device into DFU mode.

Step 3: Wait for Redsn0w to apply the full untethered jailbreak!

Once done, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch will be rebooted into fully untethered jailbreak mode.

To jailbreak your iDevice on different version of firmware, you can follow many tutorials posted on the Internet. One example is http://www.redmondpie.com/

How to Jailbreak an Android device?

For Android device, people tend to use the term "root" rather than "jailbreak". Rooting enables users to have a root access to the Linux-based operating system, so they will have more control on the operating system or device they are using. Unlike jailbreaking an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, one can search for and download apps that require rooting directly from the official Android Market. The official market is generally more secure and contains less malware than some other third-party markets and other websites. In contrast, Apple does not allow apps that require jailbreaking to be listed in the App Store.

You can follow this tutorial video on Youtube of how to root an Android device: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m17KZmOMsR0

The risks of Jailbreaking and Rooting

After viewing either personal blogs or technical blogs, it has been noticed that there are always some people complaining about the jailbreak/root. Even though one can read the instruction of jailbreaking/rooting in any tutorials, it is not always easy to follow it without certain basic computer skills and some knowledge about the jailbreak software they use. There are many cases where people fail to jailbreak their device due to being unaware of version of firmware. Also, when they do it incorrectly, they could end up with a useless device, especially when installing a custom ROM. However, one can restore the phone to the factory settings if they mess it up. Nevertheless, this will wipe out all data and any apps that have been installed.

A more important concern is that jailbreaking/rooting can compromise the security and reliability of the devices. They are then vulnerable to malware and attacks just like laptop and desktop systems. Unofficial apps can contain malicious code, or they may just be poorly written and cause the device’s operating system to crash. When applications have root access, they can do a great deal of harm to the phone’s software. In addition, jailbreaking or rooting one device may void the warranty. Finally, some of the custom ROMs work the phone’s memory and processor harder, and this may result in decreased battery life or the phone runs very slowly.

The benefits of Jailbreaking and Rooting

In the case of the iPhone, jailbreaking is necessary if one wants to install any application that has not been approved by Apple, such as GV Mobile, which is an unofficial version of the Google Voice app that the App Store rejected.
One may need to jailbreak to add custom notification sounds and ringtones (depending on phone model).
Some apps are restricted by the carrier to work only when the phone is on a Wi-Fi network. For example, the iPhone only allows users to use Skype with Wi-Fi. My3G is an unofficial app (available through Cydia) that allows users to use Skype and other similarly restricted apps when connected to the 3G network.
Jailbreaking the iPhone is the first step to unlock it, so that it can work with another GSM carrier’s SIM card.
Rooting Android devices can drastically improve its performance if one installs a custom ROM that has been tweaked for performance.
With some phones, you may have to root in order to install programs on the microSD card. Android 2.2 adds that ability, but some carriers may disable it.

Apple Against to Jailbreaking

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a filing with the Copyright Office, argues that the government should allow iPhone owners to circumvent technical barriers meant to keep them from changing the phone’s software, a process called jailbreaking. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans people from defeating technical protections for copyrighted materials (such as the encryption on DVDs). The act requires the government to consider exemptions to this ban every three years. However, Apple filed an objection which is saying that jailbreaking a phone indeed violates copyright law and that no exception should be granted. According to them, "Apple’s goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.”

Conclusion

Despite of the consequence of void warranty or the possibility of having a broken device, millions of users around the world still choose to jailbreak and unlock their devices. Many people argue that when they buy a product, it entirely belongs to them. They have the right to do whatever they want on their device while Apple is just trying to make money out of them. Besides that, the jailbreak community is very diverse from country and country which is attracting people's contribution worldwide. More creative work including apps, games, tricks are done to make users' experience with their device better and more interesting. However, bad and good things always go together. There are some opportunity costs that users have to accept to have their devices to be jailbroken. Some of the primary drawbacks of an jailbroken device is its system's performance becoming sluggish, fast drained battery and security issue. If users think jailbreaking is more worth trying, then they just go ahead with it.

References

"Iphone Jailbreak - The ultimate guide" http://www.appleiphonereview.com/iphone-jailbreak/iphone-jailbreak/

"'Jailbreaking' Without Jailbreaking: The Introduction" http://appadvice.com/appnn/2009/08/jailbreaking-without-jailbreaking-the-introduction

"Apps to Jail Break an Android Device" http://jailbreakandroid.org/

"Jailbreaking 101: An Introduction From A Blind Perspective" http://www.applevis.com/guides/jailbreaking-101-introduction-blind-perspective

"Unauthorized modification of iOS has been a major source of instability, disruption of services, and other issues" http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3743

"Top 5 Reasons to Jailbreak on iOS–Should You Do It to Your iPhone, iPad?" http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/03/17/top-5-reasons-to-jailbreak-on-ios-should-you-do-it-to-your-iphone-ipad/

"Apple loses big in DRM ruling: jailbreaks are "fair use"" http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/apple-loses-big-in-drm-ruling-jailbreaks-are-fair-use.ars