Pros and Cons of Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad

Most phones that are imported into Zambia do not have support for most of their features hence the need to jailbreak them, in this case we are specifically referring to iPhones and iPads.

Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad allows for you to bypass the restrictions on it that were installed by Apple during production to allow you to run third party applications on your phone.

Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad should not be confused with unlocking an iDevice as unlocking only refers to the breaking of a SIM lock on the phone to allow the use of a SIM of any mobile provider, not just Apple approved network carriers while jailbreaking is overriding the entire operating system’s restrictions.

What this means is your iDevice is now no longer under Apple’s security and you lose your warranty on your iPhone and iPad. You also have to consider the fact that jailbreaking an  iPhone/iPad can totally destroy it and there may be no way of restoring it to its normal state again.

There are some pros though. You get to install a wider variety of apps that are limited by Apple on iPhones and iPads and are not available on iTunes. Some iDevices do not even allow you to tether and allow them to be used as internet modems but once jailbroken it’s easier to do so with another device such as a PC. Jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad also allows you to get more themes not available in the iTunes App Store and personalize it the way you want

Another advantage of jailbreaking  is you get exposure to the operating system and how it works so you can then connect it to your computer and then install programs/games using your PC that are not in the iTunes store. Perfect for all gamers, right?

Once you jailbreak your iDevice you can unlock it to allow access to other mobile network carriers. So for example, if your iDevice only allows MTN access, you can unlock it to allow access to Airtel and Zamtel as well. Jailbreaking doesn’t mean your phone is automatically unlocked, but you always have to jailbreak the iDevice first to unlock it.

Now we look at the cons of jailbreaking. Firstly your iPhone/iPad will get more exposure to malware because those applications you might install are not screened by Apple’s security software and you may be downloading them from harmful websites.  There are very few anti-virus options for Apple products because the software is secure but once you jailbreak an iDevice these security measures are broken down and your iPhone/iPad may get a virus.

Every so often Apple updates its iOS and when you upgrade the phone, the updated version immediately erases your jailbroken apps. That means you have to jailbreak the iDevice once again and install the jailbroken apps and pray they still work on the updated iOS.

The worst that could happen is that the jailbreak may crash your iPhone/iPad completely making it a ‘brick’, but since an iBrick is not what you want, you should think twice about jailbreaking at all.

If you are going to overlook all the cons and are still considering jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad, then make sure you research the apps that you install. Read the reviews they have from people and make sure they are legit and don’t bring malware to your gadget.

Picture credits: iJailbreak, GizMag, iDownloadBlog