you also run the risk of turning it into a brick if a software update is incompatible with the jailbreak

its only something to do if you want to play with alternative software, and can afford the loss

a) find dark room
b) lie down:O

SWMBO's ipad has tempted me, but as an ignoramt soul, the future brick aspect is Apple's deterrent.

Meanwhile, if they paid tax in the UK, which they do not, I would feel happier about their monopoly pricing and tax dodging. (Sorry mixture)

the "future brick" risk only applies if you try to ***k about with it, normal use isn't a risk
if all you want to do is use it "as designed" then theres no problem.

Why would anyone want to jailbreak one anyway? I can understand and sympathise with the anti-Apple "I want my computer to be unrestricted" ethos, but when you get down to it, the things work as designed. Why bother risking breaking it? For most people they work well enough "as is"

Wageslave,

Rather simple really.

If you have to ask, you don't need to do it.

End of story.

AO,

Yeah bring up the same old boring rubbish why don't you. :ugh:

I've said it once and I've said it before. They are not the only corporate doing it, and there are many corporates doing the tax thing in a much more creative way than Apple (the Financial Sector for a start has a whole discipline called "Financial Engineering" in which many large entities have a division in, a great proportion of which constitutes looking at taxation elements). I can also name you many companies with monopoly pricing (a certain well known UK telecoms brand for a start :E)

So it is not fair to bemoan and single out Apple !

Simple.

Many people jailbreak ipads and iphones because they don't want to pay for the more expensive apps. An example of this is downloading tomtom sat nav which I believe is around £50 to buy. It's the same with Android, except you 'root' your smartphone and that's more complicated to do with bigger risks.

Now Piratebay is not available in the UK because of a court ruling, there will be a lot of disappointed people out there who will have to start paying.

And a good thing too. If the scum who insist on downloading or making available pirated software had any experience in the software development industry, they wouldn't do it. Infact their community service sentence should be to work for a software development company, ideally in level 1 support reading off a script all day !

Developing and maintaining quality software doesn't come cheap or easily.

As he said above: if you need to ask, you don't need to jailbreak it.

Apple claim it voids the warranty, but I doubt that's ever been tested in anger. If it doesn't work, they can't tell it's jailbroken. If it misbehaves, you can restore it to pre-jailbroken status.

Mine is jailbroken (as is the iPhone) because there is software I want to run that Apple don't approve of. The brick risk with those items is minimal. Messing with the innards may be more hazardous.

Please, don't remind me. I don't want to ever think about that again.....actually what was worse was taking the customer support overload calls during busy periods.



As for the PirateBay, my ISP either isn't blocking it or has been given the runaround. Blocking its a waste of time anyway - see
The Pirate Bay evades ISP blockade with IPv6, can do it 18 quintillion more times | ExtremeTech
Having said that, Mixture is totally correct when he talks about bootleg software

Technically yes, but social-engineering-wise no. If those who downloaded films and music 'for free' all day long were made to recognise the illegality of it all then it wouldn't happen. If you can, at a stroke, block the 99% of people who do it but don't know how it all works, you're much closer to a solution.

Yep the IPv6, address isn't blocked by BT, I've just tried it.

Do you really think they don't know it's illegal Mike? I suspect most of them do but since the possibility of being prosecuted are virtually zero they don't care.

I'm sure they know it's illegal, but they think they're untouchable. Start encroaching into that comfort zone and you'll watch a lot of illegality disappear overnight.

1. It is impossible to brick an iPad by jailbreaking it. A DFU-mode restore completely bypasses everything on the internal flash storage. Any software-induced system failure can be rectified.

2. Under UK consumer law Apple would have to prove that jailbreaking the device directly contributed to the reason for warranty claim.

3. Jailbreaking != piracy. Some choose to use it as a mechanism by which to facilitate it, but personally I use it to install the standard suite of Unix tools for work purposes. These tools are free and open source, hence you cannot "pirate" them. The pirates are usually children who can't afford them and hence would not buy them anyway, or adults who could afford them but would never pay because they're tight (I know plenty of these). Whilst I don't for 1 minute condone software piracy the same is true in that as it is of music; the vast majority of pirated copies do NOT represent a lost sale, a fact which content providers repeatedly ignore because it does not suit their extortion strategy.

Are you sure about that ?

I would argue that if Apple can demonstrate the device has been jailbroken, then they would be within their rights to make a case that the device has not been used in the manner for which it has been designed.

If you've altered the goods, which jailbreaking most certainly is, then you're deemed to have accepted them.

I think you might be on dodgy ground there Mixture, if you carry that to it's logical conclusion if you buy a PC that has, say, McAfee pre-installed and remove it you void the warranty. Besides eventually, if you take it that far, it would be the court to says whether or not it voided the warranty, they might decide for example the law of unreasonable contract applies.

gg,

I do not think it is correct to equate "jailbreaking" with the ability to install/uninstall software from a device.

One is a commonly understood and accepted mode of operation for most computing platforms. The other is a means of bypassing the commonly accepted mode of operation of a device.

Further :

Sale of Goods Act 1979, s14(2B)(a)
I would argue that jailbreaking is not a purpose for which the goods are commonly supplied.

One could also argue that Apple are using restrictive practices which reduces competition from apps writers and is therefore wrong.

I do appreciate why they do it though but I suggest they only get away with it because of their large customer base for whom they can do no wrong, if another company did it sales would probably be poor.

This discussion could go on for ever :)

Jailbreaking iphones/ipads is like expresso. If you don't know what it is, you don't want it.

Taking advice from those who never tried jailbreaking is not very useful. Many of those have fully bought the Apple mantra and has decided that it's dangerous/warranty breaking/illegal/unnecessary (take your pick). If you have used a jailbroken iphone and explored the possibilities, then a regular iphone feels very "square". Of course, if you are happy with what Apple tells you that you need then enjoy it!

I used to jailbreak my iPhone a couple of years back when the choice of Apps was restricted and it was the only way to enable tethering. But the hassle whenever there was an OS update was a bind.

Nowadays I don't bother, there's no "killer app" only available outside the App Store for my uses, so I'm happy to stay with the standard OS version.

Same with unlocking, O2 will unlock mine if I ask, but that's only useful if I want to install a local SIM if I go abroad, and I'm home based now and always pick hotels with Wi-Fi for the internet and have I have Skype installed for calls; so, again, happy with the baseline.