Apple has published a new support article outlining some of the issues believed to be associated with jailbreaking any and all of their mobile devices. I know your first reaction is probably to groan and look away, but let’s just hear them out. Apple has long been trying to protect their so called “walled garden” from jailbreakers, even recently filing a statement to U.S. Copyright Office which explained how jailbreaking could allow hackers to take down entire cellular networks. Now, to further drive their point home, they have gone to their own support articles. The headline of this specific support article boldly states, “Unauthorized modification of iPhone OS has been a major source of instability, disruption of services, and other issues,” which in and of itself may be enough to scare away some of the more tentative jailbreakers, but then the article goes on and on about the downsides of jailbreaking: Device and application instability: Frequent and unexpected crashes of the device, crashes and freezes of built-in apps and third-party apps, and loss of data. Unreliable voice and data: Dropped calls, slow or unreliable data connections, and delayed or inaccurate location data. Disruption of services: Services such as Visual Voicemail, YouTube, Weather, and Stocks have been disrupted or no longer work on the device. Additionally, third-party apps that use the Apple Push Notification Service have had difficulty receiving notifications or received notifications that were intended for a different hacked device. Other push-based services such as MobileMe and Exchange have experienced problems synchronizing data with their respective servers. Compromised security: Security compromises have been introduced by these modifications that could allow hackers to steal personal information, damage the device, attack the wireless network, or introduce malware or viruses. Shortened battery life: The hacked software has caused an accelerated battery drain that shortens the operation of an iPhone or iPod touch on a single battery charge. Inability to apply future software updates: Some unauthorized modifications have caused damage to the iPhone OS that is not repairable. This can result in the hacked iPhone or iPod touch becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone OS update is installed. At the very end of the article, Apple “strongly” cautions against installing any software hacks, even going as far as threatening denial of service for your device. Apple has every right to warn its users of the problems associated with hacking their device, but I sincerely hope and believe that all jailbreakers know exactly what they are getting into before they go about the process. It’s your device, you paid for it, so you should do what you want with it as long as you personally accept the results of your behavior. So, I guess it’s worth asking, have any of you jailbreakers out there had any of the problems outlined above? Related Posts Developer Fights Back, GV Mobile Already Available Via Cydia Want To Show Off All Of Your iPhone Apps Online? Try This Neat Dashboard Widget Apple’s Official MobileMe iDisk App Released, View And Share Files On Your iDisk From Your iPhone Apple Asks Developers For Keywords, Finally Find What You Are Searching For Yahoo! Messenger Updated With Push, Stay Signed In For Up To Two Weeks
