Member Avatar for GuyClapperton

iPhones, including the short-supplied iPhone 4, can now be jailbroken according to a new ruling by the . In other words never mind what Apple says you may and may not install on your phone, you help yourself.

On the surface this makes absolute sense. If I've paid for an iPhone - if indeed you could get them round these parts - it would be my property. It is absurd for Apple or any other manufacturer to tell me what I may and may not do with something which I own.

They can, however, make it a bit of a crazy idea.

There is nothing to stop me installing jailbroken software. Check. There is nothing to stop me putting it in a blender. I've seen people doing that online and probably so have a lot of readers.

There is everything to stop them honouring any warranty if I do any of those things. The blender's an absurd example but why should Apple honour any warranty when the customer has done something they explicitly agreed not to do when they signed the contract for the phone?

So you'll forgive me if I don't break out the champagne and jailbreak my iPhone just yet. I'm much too attached to the little guy working, and if it doesn't I find my right to jump up and down and invoke warranty agreements quite a comfort.

Of course, if you're technically competent and feeling brave there's nothing Apple can do any longer...

  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
  • 264 Views
  • 1 Month Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by brandonrunyon

Dani AI

Generated

Short answer, with context: is right to be cautious, and is right to flag Apple’s EULA — you can legally jailbreak in many cases, but the practical risks matter. The U.S. DMCA rulemaking has allowed exemptions for smartphone jailbreaking (the original, high‑profile decision was in 2010) and those exemptions are revisited on a multi‑year cycle, so the legal picture is shaped by periodic rulemakings and media coverage. (arstechnica.com)

Apple’s public position remains the same: unauthorized modification of iOS can cause instability, break services, and “may” lead Apple to refuse service for that device. At the same time, consumer‑protection law limits blanket warranty‑voiding language — regulators have warned manufacturers that they cannot simply void warranties without showing a modification caused the specific damage. That tension (Apple’s warning vs. FTC/Magnuson‑Moss protections) is what makes the choice non‑trivial. (support.apple.com)

If considering a jailbreak, reduce risk: make a full, encrypted local backup and archive it (so you can restore to a known good state), test on a secondary device if possible, read the jailbreak tool documentation for your exact iOS build, and be ready to restore via recovery/DFU if anything goes wrong. If the goal is just to run one or two apps outside the App Store, sideloading (AltStore, Xcode/developer mode, TestFlight/Enterprise workflows) offers many of the same benefits without kernel changes and with much lower support risk. (support.apple.com)

Practical rule of thumb: don’t jailbreak your daily‑driver if you rely on Apple support, banking apps, Apple Pay, or guaranteed reliability. For hobbyists who understand DFU restores, certificate signing, and the current toolset, a carefully documented, reversible approach on expendable hardware is reasonable — but check the current jailbreak compatibility lists before you start. Community trackers and guides are where you’ll find the up‑to‑date tool coverage. (idevicecentral.com)

Member Avatar for brandonrunyon

The exceptions made recently in the DMCA only make exceptions for Professors and students under certain conditions. Under those conditions, to circumvent the iPhone's default OS or software is still in breach of the Apple EULA which voiding the warrantee could be the least of your worries even...

The Apple store has recently been granting support to those who have jail broken their iPhones under conditions that they restore the phone to it's original default settings. The iPhone is yours, but unfortunately the software is strictly the property of Apple and do not extend to you the freedom to modify, circumvent, or disassemble in anyway.

There is an appeal from Apple to combat these kinds of acts despite what exceptions have been made in the DMCA through a possible patent on surveillance firmware.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/steve-jobs-watching-you-apple-seeking-patent-0

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.