
Untethered Jailbreak For (Most) iOS 5 Devices Now Available - johnpaultitlow
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/untethered_jailbreak_ios_5_iphone_ipad_ipod.php#.TvnXuCZ9FjA.hackernews
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minecraftman
I jailbreak all of my devices. Not only does jailbreaking allow you to
customize your device in many awesome ways which Apple does not allow, but
there are also some things jailbreaking provides you with the option to do,
which make you more productive while on your device. It is also just plain fun
having all the options jailbreaking gives you.

For me, the must have things you can get from jailbreaking, are SBSettings,
Winterboard, Five Icon Springboard/dock, Mobile Terminal, and Lock Info. These
are all things I think are needed on every Apple device, jailbroken, and
nonjailbroken.

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alen
As a developer, jailbreaking is very important. My only device for a long time
was a 3GS and I always wanted to keep it up-to-date when new versions of iOS
were released. However, upgrading the iOS is a one-way street -- Apple do not
let you downgrade your software.

By jailbreaking the device, Cydia automatically stores the device's unique
SHSH blobs that allow you to downgrade.

Being able to downgrade made it easier to test my apps on iOS 3 and iOS 4
without needing two devices.

~~~
erjiang
You can save your SHSH blobs without jailbreaking by using desktop-side tools
like TinyUmbrella.

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bane
This is huge. I don't use an iOS product, but I can say that having this
ability on my rooted Android over the last year has gotten me (and various
other parties) out of several pinches.

Recently while traveling, we ended up at a hotel with almost useless wi-fi, no
jailbroken iPhones and thus almost no connectivity. Break out the Android,
turn on the hotspot, hand out passwords, and now my entire team is back up and
running at decentish speeds. Probably helped us land a contract in the meeting
the next day.

It wasn't perfect, the phone would drop connection every so often (hey, it's
not _really_ supposed to be doing this), and would run rather hot. But it
worked and got us out of a bind.

I'm letting the rest of my team know about this so that they might jailbreak
their phones and be able to use this when they are running around without an
Android user. Awesome!

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listic
As far as I understand, you didn't need jailbreaking for this, just unlocking.
There is unlocking without jailbreaking, isn't there?

Jailbreaking is useful of course, just your example is not very good.

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patrickk
I could be wrong, but I thought unlocking referred to unlocking the device to
all carriers, and jailbreaking to loading on non-Apple sanctioned software
(from Cydia primarily).

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britta
Right, that's the correct terminology in iPhone land.

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crcsmnky
Do any developers maintain statistics for their apps on jailbroken vs. non-
jailbroken devices? Do any developers take jailbreaking into account when
building their apps, or is it just an ignored segment?

It would be interesting to note trends in jailbreaking activity against iOS
versions and any potential changes to functionality for App Store apps.

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xsmasher
I work on social games for iOS, and it comes up in few places.

(1) Users ask "why am I getting this sandbox error message?" and we say "That
happens sometimes on jailbroken phones. We can't fix it."

(2) We have to step up our game re: preventing cheaters, keeping in mind that
jailbroken users can change their UDID, fake IAP transactions (but not the
receipts!) and modify files on the device.

In a single-player game we wouldn't care about (2) so much, but in a
multiplayer game we don't want them breaking someone else's game or polluting
our statistics. I don't have numbers, sorry; we don't count the number of
jailbreakers, just the number of cheaters.

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a2tech
I'm not sure that I see the need for the jailbreak anymore. I used to
jailbreak all of my devices, but Apple has removed most of the reason for it
now. They have legitimate tethering, its available on multiple carriers,
improved notifications, and pretty decent multitasking.

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w33ble
One word: unlock. Until the phone is on Tmo, the unlock is mandatory.

As far as software, for me, SBSettings is vital. Apple still doesn't have a
quick way to access Wifi, brightness, airplane mode and other settings, and
until they do, I wouldn't think about running without a jailbreak. I also
still prefer Lock Info to Apple's Notification Center.

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cstejerean
You can buy an unlocked phone directly from Apple now. It still won't do 3G on
T-Mobile though due to the different frequencies used.

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w33ble
Do their unlocked phones really work on non-approved carriers? I never really
looked in to it, it's pretty cost-prohibitive. Also, that doesn't help people
that want to buy used last-gen and save a few hundred bucks, or the people who
are now off-contract and are still happy with their phone but looking to move.

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rweir
> Do their unlocked phones really work on non-approved carriers?

yes, obviously. 'unlocked' = 'works on any carrier with which the technology
(ie GSM/UMTS, works on the right bands) is compatible'. note that since
tmobile almost exclusively uses an unsupported-by-Apple band for 3G (1700MHz),
you're getting EDGE at best.

