(v2.05 updated 3/09/2009)

Introduction:
So you have your 2.0 iPhone and you can install thousands of apps from
AppStore. What’s all this commotion about jailbreaking? Why would you
need to jailbreak? What does it offer? In this post, I will cite some
of the most compelling reasons to jailbreak your iPhone. I will
continually update this post as changes occur.

Why Not Appstore:
Simply put, Apple’s rules for AppStore are way too limiting. The apps
listed in the sections below are not possible to be in AppStore since
they break one or more of Apple’s rules. These rules keep control of
the iPhone platform in Apple’s control. Some of these rules include:
patching system files such as SpringBoard, allowing apps to run in the
background, running apps out of the “sandbox”, and simply doing things
Apple decided that they don’t want you to do often for reasons to their
benefit, not yours (such as tethering).

Risk Free:
Jailbreaking is not unlocking! It is risk free. Everything that works
before jailbreaking continues to work after. Jailbreaking only adds
features. Jailbreaking is risk free and cannot void your warranty. You can simply restore in iTunes at anytime to get back to a factory state. You are not alone, many people are doing it. There are over 2 million jailbroken devices now! For understanding of jailbreak vs unlock read my terminology post.

How To:
If you decide after reading this that you wish to jailbreak, head on over to our guides section and find the guide or method that works best for you. I recommend one of the pwnage methods.

Reason #1: Winterboard + Customization
Winterboard allows you to do this:

Or this:

or this:

This is just the “tip of the iceberg”. There is so much more you can
do. You can have web content as your background. My theme consists of
350 images that rotate every 15 seconds in a slide show. Here is a
sample of some of these images:

You can even have video playing as your wallpaper.
Reason #2: Copy / Paste

iPhone does not have copy and paste. But if you jailbreak, this can be solved with Clippy and also hClipboard. Check out Clippy:

Here is the text, then mark the text.

Copy the marked text, then paste the text, in this case, I pasted into safari.

Reason #3: Jailbreak to fix Apple’s bugs
There are bugs in iPhone OS. Jailbreakers can fix some of these. Some examples:
1) Mail app crashes after restoring backup from iTunes. Apple’s
solution is to not restore your backup. That’s right. Lose all your
contacts! If you jailbreak, bossprefs “fix user dir permissions” button
solves this.
2) iPhone will not boot after installing too many apps and you have to
restore. There is a way to fix this problem by editing some files in
SSH. Soon the entire issue will be solved.
3) Camera fix as described here.
4) You are limited to 9 pages of apps. After that, your appstore
installs just don’t show up and there is no way to run them. If you
jailbreak, you can use QuickGold, Categories, or other launchers to
launch your apps. You can even put them in folders (more on Categories
below).

Reason #4: Tethering & Voice Over IP (Unlimited Minutes)
Tether your iPhone to your PC and use your iPhone as a modem. This is
possible using the “Modem” app in Cydia. Appstore removed the only
tethering app and will not allow this. You can use this to tether
either EDGE or 3g. Tethering 3g gives you a nice broadband connection
for your PC.

As for Voice Over IP (VoIP) this allows you to make phone calls over
the Internet, and incur no voice call charges or use your minutes. Now
you may be thinking that this is already available in Appstore. Fring
is the VoIP app, and it works well. Unfortunately, due to Apple’s
restrictions, you can only use Fring over WiFi even though there is no
technical reason that it wouldn’t work great over 3G. Once you
jailbreak, you can install an app called VoIPover3G.
This allows you to use Fring anywhere that you have 3G. That means in
most metropolitan cities, you can get unlimited minutes via Fring and
3G! Only to jailbreakers.

Reason #5: SBSettings – Fast Toggles
So you’re in Safari. You turned off your WiFi or your 3G to save
battery. Now you loaded Safari and it’s loading slowly with EDGE. Do
you close out safari, open settings, traverse the menus and reenable
the 3g? Or do you just live with the EDGE this time?

SBSettings solves this by providing fast toggles by swiping your
status bar. With SBSettings, you just swipe your status bar, enable the
WiFi or 3G, and resume safari where you left off. When done, swipe
again, and disable the battery draining wifi or 3G options. Simple!
SBSettings is must have.

Reason #6: Cycorder and Snapture
Cycorder is a free full featured video recorder for iPhone. Turn your
iPhone into a mini camcorder. The quality is ok at 15 fps with sound.
The recordings are stored in mjpeg compression codec so they can be
played back on a computer. (Not allowed in AppStore).

Snapture
is a fantastic camera upgrade that allows you to take multiple pictures
rapidly and in general makes your camera much easier to use. (Not
allowed in AppStore).

Reason #7: Launchers

There are now some fantastic springboard add-ons for iPhone. These
are OS level enhancements and are therefore, not allowed on AppStore.
Those that do not have these are really missing out.

Quick Gold – This is an amazing app that is just like
QuickSilver on OSX. You tap home once at springboard and type in your
search and it instantly finds what you are looking for. The search is
type-as-you-go and fast. In other words, if you type “B” it will bring
up all the results with B. If you now press “o” it will filter to “Bo”
etc. You can search apps, contacts, web clips and more.

This is a must have addition to iPhone OS. Note that this is
implemented as a mobile substrate plugin which means it becomes part of
springboard. There is no extra daemon running that drains your battery
or uses your CPU. Outstanding!

Dock 3.0 – This is an app switcher that is always available. It is hard to describe, so check out the video link for a demo. This is also a mobile substrate plugin so there is no extra daemon running on your device.

Stacks
- If you’re an OSX user, you probably already know what this is. But
it’s a neat way to put items onto your dock that you want to get to
quickly and have them pop up in a cool menu. Check it out.

Categories
- So I cant write this whole article without at least showcasing one of
my own contributions. So here is Categories. This allows you to make
folders on your springboard and move those pages of icons into folders.
Think Games, Apps, Networking, etc. Reduce 9 pages of apps down to just
1!

Reason #8: Backgrounder

There are severe limitations imposed on AppStore apps. One of these
is “no background processes.” This means that if you have an app, such
as an instant messenger app, every time you press home to go to
something else, the app is closed out. You are disconnected. You get no
messages, no notification, nothing.

Backgrounder is an attempt to fix this. Backgrounder allows you to
select an app that you want to allow to run in the background. Then
when you press home, that app will keep running. Perfect for an IRC app
or such that you do not want to get disconnected everytime you tap the
home key. This adds critical functionality that you cannot get unless
you jailbreak!

Reason #9: Cydia
There are many other apps available only for jailbreakers. These are
apps that Apple has either declined from Appstore for one reason
(usually they break one of their ridiculous rules) or the developer
doesn’t own a MAC or doesn’t feel like paying $100 to distribute their
app. For a list of what’s avaiable in Cydia, load Cydia. You can check
out what is in my repository here. Many of these apps offer functionality that is just not available in Appstore. For example:

Flashlight – Better than Appstore’s many flashlights because it makes the screen brighter. What good is a dim light? Sheesh.

BossPrefs
- Hide unwanted icons on your springboard. Dont use stocks or iTunes?
Hide it so you do not need to see it. Access quick toggles to handy
features such as bluetooth, wifi, EDGE.

Macman – A pacman like game only available on Cydia.

BiteSMS – A cheaper alternative to SMS for many countries.

iBlacklist – Filter incoming calls and SMS!

Reason #10: Take Control of Your System
Would you want to own a PC where only Dell decided what you could do
with it? Jailbreaking opens your device up to you deciding what to do
with it. You can install a BSD unix subsystem and SSH. You can use a
mobile terminal. It’s just like a real mini computer! I even used
iPhone SSH shell and iPhone GCC to compile most the applications I
released on this site!

Reason #11: Unlocking
Finally, and I almost decided to leave this out, but the only way to
unlock your iPhone and put it onto another carrier is by jailbreaking
it. The unlocking apps will require system level patching and
activation all of which can only be done via jailbreaking. At the time
of this writing, you cannot unlock an iPhone 3g. Note also that you
need not unlock to jailbreak. They are two separate things.

Reason #12: Phone Loss Tracking
iLocalis is an app that you can install onto your jailbroken iPhone and
using its GPS / location services, it will tell you where the device
is. If you have a 3g device with GPS, it will be pinpoint accurate. If
you ever lose the device you can log into iLocalis web site and track
the location of the device.

Reason #13: Enhanced SMS
There are two apps out that offer better SMS: MySMS and iRealSMS 2.
In addition to landscape SMS, you can search contacts, search SMS,
forward SMS, send SMS to multiple people at once, enable / disable
keyboard correction. These are all features that are missing from the
stock SMS client. But the best feature of all is the quickreply. When
an incoming SMS arrives, you normally have to decide whether or not you
will quit your existing app to respond or if you will respond later.
With iRealSMS or MySMS, you get quick reply. You can just reply, on the
spot, without leaving your current app or game. After you type your
response and hit send, your app resumes right where it left off:

Note: BiteSMS
also offers quickreply now. BiteSMS is an enhanced SMS client that
offers cheaper SMS rates for those on metered SMS plans in various
countries,.

Reason #14: TVOut
Developer Lance Fetters (ashikase) has created a mobile substrate
plug-in that enables TVOut on any app. You can enable it with the TVOut cable and this app.
It’s still a work in progress so compatibility may not be 100% yet, but
this is definitely a reason to jailbreak your device. You won’t be
seeing this sort of thing in Appstore.

Reason #15: (Swirly) MMS
The iPhone does not do MMS. It focuses on email instead. If you want
MMS, you have only one option. That’s to jailbreak and use Swirly MMS.

SwirlyMMS
is a native MMS application for the iPhone and is the de-facto standard
for sending and receiving MMS on the iPhone to and from any cell phone.
SwirlyMMS is successfully used in well over 300 operator networks in
over 120 countries!
The rich feature set includes among many:
* Sending and reception of MMSs consisting of pictures, video, audio and text
* Buit-in media viewer
* Mail-app inspired GUI
* MMS settings wizard to automatically get you started

Reason #16: Turn-By-Turn GPS
Apple, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that turn-by-turn GPS is not
allowed in AppStore. Now you can get a decent turn-by-turn GPS in your
iPhone using xGPS.
xGPS features full turn-by-turn guidance through the clever use of
Google Maps. It also features full voice directions (TTS -
text-to-speech) that try to pronounce the upcoming turn in full
detail (direction, street name, etc), a feature a lot of standalone
GPS’s do not have. This offers you one of the most updated GPS
available because you can easily download maps. You can download maps
on your iPhone xGPS software or with software on your computer (Website).
If you download the maps on your computer, you can setup a quick
wireless transfer and transfer the downloaded Google maps straight to
your iPhone.