Apple Drops The J-Word (Jailbreaking)

“This article is about adverse issues experienced by customers who have made unauthorized modifications to the iPhone OS (this hacking process is often called “jailbreaking”). Issues that have been encountered include instability, disruption of services, and compromised security.”

This is the summary of a new support document posted on Apple’s website last week. I don’t know if you noticed but they clearly used the word “jailbreaking”. This is a first!

The document goes on and on about how bad bad bad bad bad jailbreaking is for your device. According to Apple, there are 6 main issues encountered by proud owners of jailbroken iPhones.

As much as I would like to prove Apple wrong, I have to admit that they are right on most of these issues:

Device and application instability: Frequent and unexpected crashes of the device, crashes and freezes of built-in apps and third-party apps, and loss of data.

Unreliable voice and data: Dropped calls, slow or unreliable data connections, and delayed or inaccurate location data.

Disruption of services: Services such as Visual Voicemail, YouTube, Weather, and Stocks have been disrupted or no longer work on the device. Additionally, third-party apps that use the Apple Push Notification Service have had difficulty receiving notifications or received notifications that were intended for a different hacked device. Other push-based services such as MobileMe and Exchange have experienced problems synchronizing data with their respective servers.

Compromised security: Security compromises have been introduced by these modifications that could allow hackers to steal personal information, damage the device, attack the wireless network, or introduce malware or viruses.

Shortened battery life: The hacked software has caused an accelerated battery drain that shortens the operation of an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch on a single battery charge.

Inability to apply future software updates: Some unauthorized modifications have caused damage to the iPhone OS that is not repairable. This can result in the hacked iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone OS update is installed.

What Apple failed to mention is how awesome jailbreaking is! For those of you still on the fence, you may want to learn more about what jailbreaking is, and what the reasons for jailbreaking are. If you’ve already jailbroken, check out the best jailbreak apps and add your favorite to the list.