What
The act of "jailbreaking" your iOS device simply means enabling otherwise disabled features and gives you the ability to add applications that aren't in Apple's notorious App Store. For example jailbreaking your device prior to iOS 4 was the only way to run multiple applications, like Pandora, at a time.
The jailbreaking community is the largest phone/hacking network on the net with 100s of blogs receiving millions of hits from users looking for the latest news in customizing their iPhone iPod Touch, and now iPad. Saurik, author of Cydia, the most popular alternative to Apple's App Store, reports that Cydia receives over 2 million unique hits per month.
Why
So now that you know what jailbreaking is, let me tell you why the heck you'd want to do it! I know what you're thinking. "Cody I just got the new iPhone 4, it already comes with multitasking, and I have access to 250,000 sweet apps in the App Store, why would I wanna jailbreak my iPhone?" Easy.
Those of us who are still hungry to free our iDevices have many reasons. I myself, as written before, am crazy about SBSettings. It's an application that gives you an unobtrusive, drop down widget menu that enables you to turn airplane/bluetooth/wifi on and off with 1 touch. And because it's only available in Cydia, your device must be jailbroken in order to obtain it.
Other popular applications include Winterboard, an app that enables you to completely customize the look of your iDevice, emulator to play NES games, and MyWi that turns your iPhone into a wireless hotspot.
Unlocking is also a common reason people jailbreak their devices. Unlocking means removing the carrier lock on the phone to enable it to work with a different network. For example, unlocking your iPhone and activating it on T-mobile's network due to coverage or cost reasons.
Of course an iPhone can only be unlocked to a network with the same chip technology, in the States it's GSM. Anyways if you haven't picked up on the theme of the article, your iPhone has to be jailbroken to be unlocked.
There are some cool reasons to jailbreak, but it sounds really complicated. Wrong again! What started off as a complicated, combination of software/hardware hacks, has become almost as easy as plugging your iDevice into your computer, and running a simple application.
Thanks to hackers like The Dev Team and GeoHot, the jailbreaking process has become extremely easy. Although you always run the risk of causing damage to your device, and possibly voiding your warranty, most people jailbreak without problems.
When
Ok, so your sold on jailbreaking your shiny new iPhone 4 like a drunk man on another drink, what do you do now? Well, nothing for the moment. If you are looking to really customize your new iPhone 4 icons and lock screen, and get access to all of the above-mentioned apps, stay tuned.
There is a jailbreak for the iPhone 4 but it hasn't been released to the public yet because it contains some of Apple's proprietary code. But we should not have to wait too long, The Dev Team is usually pretty quick to respond to Apple updates.
If that doesn't satisfy you, George Hotz aka GeoHot was heard talking about an exploitable bootrom that will enable an iPhone 4 jailbreak at a French underground hackers conference. So check back here frequently as we will obviously have full coverage including tutorials and how to guides.
Who out there has an iPhone 4 and can't wait to jailbreak that sucka?