Jailbreak your iPhone at your own risk
Quite a few geeks have jailbroken their iPhones so they can install third party software even though Apple warns you that you could brick your phone. This was driven home to me earlier this week when I was at the Genius Bar with my Mac and next to me was a woman who brought in her 15 year-old’s iPhone that would no longer make phone calls. I was listening to her exchange with the assigned Genius since I had nothing else to do and the issue was her son had jailbroken the iPhone and installed a lot of software. The Genius explained this to the woman and showed her a sign that indicated Apple’s official stance that they will not work on "modified" iPhones. He wanted to help her out anyway since it was her kid’s phone and she would be the one who ended up losing money on this so he worked for over twenty minutes trying to restore the phone to factory condition. He was surprised and called another Genius over to help when the phone wouldn’t restore due to something that had been installed and the end result was the phone was not restorable. It was a nice, thin, expensive brick and the woman was out the money. So be careful when you do this to your phone, Apple is not blowing smoke when they say the phone could be bricked by Jailbreaking it.
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A quick google search and reading of forums would resolve this quite easily, if you are prepared to spend a bit of time to understand how it all works then you can avoid these problems easily and enjoy the benefits that jailbreaking gives you.
Hmm, I wonder if he decided to try the good ol’ DFU (hold down power & home button) trick.
I have returned my phone to factory spec after the last jailbreak caused some phone issues for me. I was never sure if it was the last firmware or the jailbreaking that caused the lockup problems I used to have.
I figure I will wait to see what “official” apps are realeased before going the jailbreaking route again.
Just imagine if your MBP was a closed device like the iPhone and you had to jailbreak it to install software not blessed by Apple, or to use it with a WiFi router not sold by Apple…
Why do parents buy their kids such expensive toys?
Just imagine if it was Apple’s official stance that they wouldn’t work on “modified” MBPs, Oliver… meaning non-Apple software installed.
Pretty easy to imagine with what they do with the iPhone, really.
Ricky, but they (Apple) don’t go out of their way to prevent people from developing, selling/giving away and installing software on their Macs. My point isn’t really that Apple isn’t supporting device problems caused by 3rd party software (no hardware/OS vendor does that for free… and obviously can’t), but rather that Apple’s iPhone is a closed system, unlike their computers. Why do people put up with that?
This is kind of silly. The iPhone is a closed system (for at least a couple more weeks) an appliance if you will. This is no different than when you purchase a DVD player, game console, or television. I mean do you really think that Tivo should support people that hack their DVRs? If you hack something be prepared for the worst.
Apple also doesn’t take responsibility if you’ve crashed your MBP because you’ve installed a haxie (and nor should Apple). The point is that you’re free to use whatever device you’ve bought how ever you want. But if you use it in an unsupported manner, you shouldn’t expect support when you break it. This is true whether we’re talking about iPhone, MBPs, or any sort of Windows based device.
Of course Apple isn’t going to fix it… but regardless, what was the Mac Genius using to restore it? Ziphone? Independence? I’ve talked to plenty of people that have said they’ve completely restored their iphones from jailbreaks and even unlocks. Maybe it wasn’t restore-able through Apple’s standard iTunes restore, but the same apps that handle the jailbreak and unlock ca do a restore.
I’d say the story is incomplete, meaningless or at least misleading.
I think Travis touched on the real problem;
This woman entrusted a 15 year old – someone who is generally not permitted to make many contractual decisions – with a device that can be crashed through “I want” decisions that have real contractual ramifications.
Either she and others come to understand this and decide to permit/not permit a kid – her own in this case – to do so or she and others will remain clueless contributors to poor customer relations.
My jailbroken iPhone is INFINITELY more usable – streaming audio, IM, location based Twitter with pics, notepad, solitaire on flights, etc. I highly recommend it.
Most grief I’ve read about is not related to jailbraking, it’s related to phone/SIM unlocking. Regardless, I expect solutions to most issues can be found on the web. Probably where the kid figured out how to tamper with it to begin with.
I’m not surprised that the so called “genius” couldn’t unbrick the phone. The hackers are way more adept at that. Point is, if you user hacker tools to unlock then be prepared to use said tools to unbrick rather than sending mommy back to Apple.
I call FUD.
I find the hole bricking concept offensive. It shouldn’t be possible, just like bricking your laptop is not possible. (Perhaps it’s possible, but do you ever hear about it? It’s not something anyone talks about, because the occurance of it so low. There are no warnings about installing 3rd party OSs, and there are tons of them.)
My Nokie E61 was bricked by Nokia’s own software. It has nothing to do with third-party extensions.
It’s a crass engineering shortcut, on some phones, and now it’s being used as FUD against using your iPhone anyway you like. It’s a bug that you are being ‘warned’ about! How ridiculous.
wtf, please! please! please tell me someone understands the iPhone/iPod Touch Firmware has a recovery mode activated when attached to a computer with iTunes running while holding down the home button till the iTunes icon and cable icons appear on screen instead of booting.
THIS IS HOW YOU RESTORE IPHONES AND IPODS TOUCHES THE EASY WAY.
My friends iPod Touch was getting the BSD major 2, minor 2, minor 0 (can’t remember exact error name) issue after using Ziphone, worked to restore it like that like a charm.
I’m more concerned about the 3rd party software sucking up processor power and RAM like a black hole than bricking my friends iPod Touch.