I have Jailbroken my iPhone, now what?

What exactly should I do with it now that I have jailbroken it?

Head for El Ray Mexico. Just don't stop at any biker bars along the way.

PDANet or MiWi, MobileTerminal, Winterboard, MxTube, various emulators. But mostly PDANet or MiWi.

Winterboard I got. I don't need PDANet, no need to tether.

What's MiWi?

Undo the jailbreak, that's what. Presumably you didn't buy an iPhone to have the same sluggish and unstable experience you would've had with any other phone. Apple designs the software to run clean and smooth on a particular set of hardware. Likewise, it carefully selects third-party software to run clean and smooth on that set of hardware.

If you can't get it on Apple's App Store? You shouldn't run it on the iPhone. It's that simple.

You just took a Rolex, unscrewed the back and replaced one of the parts with something out of a goddamn Timex.

Undo it.

I would like to know moar!

Not constructive.

Skin's being completely sincere. Jailbreaking your iPhone? About the equivalent of hackintoshing a PC. If the software you want to run was meant to run on that hardware? You could run it on that hardware legitimately. There's more than just profit motive behind the reason why it doesn't. So, for the sake of your experience -- not for the sake of Apple's profit margin -- don't.

Like PDANet, but it creates the ad-hoc network, so you can tether to devices that can't create networks. Like an iPad. Really worth it if you had an old $30/month unlimited data plan.

Not buying it.

Its just a machine. And if I break it I can afford a new one.

I'm a semi-conductor engineer*, for fuck's sake. I don't need some corporate scrub at Apple making these decisions for ME. Clueless yuppie scum can and should be locked out of root access to the machine, not me.

Besides, I didn't buy the iPhone for the "experience". That's some faggy shit. I bought it because in late Spring '09 it was the best smart phone currently on the market (strictly IMHO).

My next phone will be Android based.



* That's actually a complicated topic.

Not quite. It's closer to this:

Remember the guy who thought an old woman with a hearing aid was a time traveler? He's a PC. James Cameron? He's a Mac.

But this "Mac is teh ghey" thing really brings to mind for Skin a backwoods cousin-marryin'-mullet-wearer's reaction to looking up from the engine block of his 1983 Camaro to see an Audi R8 go roaring past, after which he brags to his club-footed six-thumbed toe-headed buddeh that, "Ah c'd beat 'at gay citeh-bwah inna rayce."

Well, no. Ya can't. You might've built your hot rod out of scavenged barbed wire and rat droppings, and Skin's sure that makes you feel real peachy, there, Jim-Bob -- but that patchwork crap collection is gonna get just as outperformed, pride and all, by a system that's whole and seamless from end to end. That means Apple is teh winner. And winners fuck the prom queen. That leaves you and your home-built failbox in second place. And in second place, all you're left with is that toe-headed buddy of yours. Guess who's ghey then?

So Macs are style over substance? They're a creator of mind numbingly shallow computing experiences?

Oh shut the fuck up already.

Keep it up with THAT shit and you may convince me to toss the iPhone on the shitpile and head to the Verizon store for a Droid X.

They're "Android: Professional Edition." They are, in short, not amateur hour.

Then shouldn't you know better than most that if you want smooth, reliable performance from your equipment, you run it according to the manufacturer's guidelines?

Skin will retract his caution against running non-approved software on it, knowing that you know the risk of failure that invokes.

You must not know very many engineers, I reckon.

Know many fat doctors that smoke? Know many auto mechanics that drive fucked up beaters? Know many carpenters that have lots of unpainted patched drywall holes in their own house? That shit goes the same for engineers.

Like I said, if I brick the fuckin' thing I'll chuck it in the trash and head to the store. It's just a damn toy.

At this point one can only assume that Muad keeps that picture readily available because he uses it for less than purposes...

Well, it might've fit once. Doesn't anymore. See, it used to be that the artsy-fartsy beret-wearing latte sippers -- you know, the trendy assholes who like foreign films and music by Bjork and, in general, anything that is both incomprehensible and sucks, and like it just because it's not popular -- were Apple users.

You'll find now, though, that -- once Apple became popular -- the tech company that gets them all moist in the panties is...

Google.

Complete bullshit, and fully indefensible. It's also logically inconsistent with your stance that the average user can't be trusted to treat it like it's pro gear.

The iPhone and Macs in general are most definitely designed with the novice in mind.

That's why real pros jailbreak them. They are just dumbed down too far to be particularly well suited to a power user.

^ What exactly is a power user of a fancy telephone?

You do realize it's basically a handheld computer, right? It just happens to have a telephone in it.

Yes, but what are you going to do with it above and beyond the standard uses that the software allows that would make you/me/anyone a 'power user'??

No flash porn = no deal.

For starters, and this is the biggest one yet, it allows you to install apps that were not Apple approved and do not appear on the iTunes App Store.

Hey, I'm just pointing out the gayness of the iPhone.

Like it's not obvious.

How so? Being expert in using a piece of technology doesn't require someone to also be expert in modifying it. Granted, the latter often accompanies the former, but not exclusively or even necessarily so.

Now that's not at all accurate. They're designed to be extremely intuitive, but that isn't nearly the same thing. By that reasoning, anyone who can pick up a hammer and chisel should instantly be a world class sculptor; after all, a hammer and chisel aren't unnecessarily complicated, either.

The real pros select the piece of technology that does what they want it to do by design, ISHO. If you want to win a street race, you don't bring a tractor, no matter how much you souped it up.

Quiet! The thrill of jailbreaking (it is called "jailbreaking," after all) far excedes its practical value.

Bah. Skin never understood the "thrill" of taking a machine that performs adequately and assraping it with c0d3-k1dd13 h4x0rz until it performs at a subpar level JUST so he could run amateur-hour halfassed software on it that there were better legitimate versions of for it already. Guess it just comes down to the fact that not all of us can afford such a luxury item, and to see somebody wrangle one into a state of FUBAR just out of boredom is a touch appallin'.

But hell, if that's what makes a man happy, ku-doze. But advice was asked, and Skin's given advice. Over 'n' out.

EDIT: One last note: CD, you and Skin are in roughly the same neighborhood. If you DO end up bricking that puppy, Skin will gladly give you a little green for it, reset it to factory spec and consider it a sweet deal. If you're willing to render it half-assed anyway, and really don't care that much about it, Skin's got a whole zoo of uses for it.

If CD manages to brick it other than by trying to unlock it, and he can't restore it himself, I doubt very much you'll be able to either.