Jailbreaking is a process used to gain unrestricted root access to the iPhone’s Unix based filesystem. It allows you to install apps that are not authorized by Apple and/or not possible to develop given the restrictions of the Official iPhone SDK and its license agreement.
The only reason I ever even considered jailbreaking my phone was to gain the added functionality it provides.
Some added functionality you can gain by Jailbreaking include:
- MMS Messaging,
- Copy and Paste,
- Video Recording,
- Turn-by-Turn GPS
- Full featured SMS w/landscape view keyboard, message forwarding, etc..
- Better photo taking w/ digital zoom
- Multitasking
- System-wide search
- Ability to add themes (change icons, add wallpaper to Home screen, etc..) and much more!
Downsides?
- Jailbreaking voids your warranty, so if your phone needs service you must restore the original firmware from iTunes before taking it in.
- Jailbreaking is risky, and takes many steps that must be performed exactly or it will fail.
- Updating Jailbroken phones to a new OS version (say 2.2 to 2.2.1) is tedious and time consuming, the phone must be first be updated via iTunes which un-jailbreaks and wipes all jailbreak apps off the phone, then you have to repwn it and reinstall all your jailbreak apps.
- Apple has recently declared jailbreaking illegal because, in their opinion, it violates their copyrights by modifying their software without express permission.
Try at your own risk, but I couldn’t go back to the factory phone.
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