It’s Jailbreak Time!
I’ve had my iPhone 3G for nearly a year now and have thoroughly enjoyed owning it. The looks, the style, the interface are all second to none and the app store is fantastic, the fact that I haven’t jailbroken it by now attests to how versatile and useful it already is, and that’s a serious statement coming from someone who flashes the bloody firmware on just about everything he owns!
In fact, being the only one of my cohorts that works in IT, I regularly get the piss taken for it… “Oh, is that a new watch? Have you flashed the firmware on it yet?”… you get the idea…
So why do it? Well, my most used apps are all paid for and I’m a firm believer in paying for what you get, but I’m no Apple fanboy and there are certain features that I feel are lacking or missing entirely. The other, and possibly main, reason is curiosity, plain and simple!
Anyway, I thought I’d give it a go and oh my God is it easy.
I simply followed the guide from the iPhone Download Blog using the BlackRa1n tool and about 2mins later I was back up and running, my iPhone had become a new toy again!
The following is a list of the main apps I’ve found useful so far:
Cydia
This is where it all happens, it’s basically the app store for jailbroken iPhones. It also has great management tool as well as a useful little storage stats page.
SBSettings
Is a HUD interface that’s available from any screen that also displays the status bar at the top, so pretty much anywhere.Simply swipe your finger across the banner/status bar. The HUD will then smoothly slide from the top of the screen to give various different options such as turn Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G, whatever you like on or off, kill running processes, free up memory, you name it. Basically it’s a bloody handy little app.
Backgrounder
Does exactly what it says on the tin, allows you to run apps in the background.
SMS Helper
Not exactly groundbreaking but it is handy, it counts down your remaining characters in a text.
Cydelete
Allows you to delete Cydia store apps straight off the springboard as you would normal apps.
VoIPover3G
This is a simple little app that tricks your iPhone into thinking it’s on Wifi the whole time, thus getting round the whole streaming data over a mobile connection issue as seen in apps such as Skype etc.
Here comes the disclaimer:
Now I’m not condoning breaking Apple’s terms and conditions and I’m certainly not recommending you void your warranty or risk your device without knowing exactly what you’re up to so make sure you read around on the suject before deciding to do it.
