Jailbreaking

funjunkie27

Just wondering what benefits there are, in terms of music, with jail breaking an iOS device. I have an iPhone 4, which is basically an iTouch now, since it's out of contract, and thought it might be fun to give that a try. Any advice would be appreciated.

boone51

In my experience, most people jailbreak so they can steal software. There was a time when it was very useful and I even did it myself. There were big holes in iOS at that time though, so it was useful for adding your own notification system or your own quick access control panel. Now that most of those things are in there the advantages of being jailbroken are more likely to be related to file system access, trying to circumvent Apple or the carriers restriction on having to pay to use your device as a hotspot, or stealing software. I'm certainly not saying everyone that jailbreaks is doing this. As I mentioned, I was jailbroken once and never stole one app. I'm sure there are lots of others out there that do it for their own reasons not listed here as well. I'm just saying that in my own very limited personal experience, the people I know that are jailbroken now are stealing apps. I'm not aware of anything other than that file system access I mentioned that could benefit a musician.

funjunkie27

Thanks @boone51. I certainly have no intentions of jail breaking to steal apps. I just thought there might be other benefits. I'm wondering if access to the file system might make sharing samples between apps more realistic. Also, with a jail broken device, can you access the App Store, or are you limited to 3rd party stores?

boone51

When I did it before i was able to still use the app store just fine. Keep in mind that was several iOS versions ago though. The other thing I was jailbreaking for was grooveshark (which was pretty darn close to stealing, but I paid them for the service so that's how I slept at night). I shouldn't have made such a broad comment about jailbreaking really. It would be naive of me to think that I completely understand all the reasons people jailbreak. For me there isn't any incentive today. Ultimately its your device though and if you wanted to jailbreak to make it do something (legal) that Apple didn't approve of I think you should absolutely be able to do that. It's just not for me anymore because it was a lot of trouble. Every time there was an iOS update I spent way too much time trying to find out where the next jailbreak was going to come from. When you do find them it feels like you're going to a website and installing a virus on your computer, so ultimately that whole insane dance turned me off. I realized that I like the walled garden with all its walls intact.

funjunkie27

Thanks again. I'm not sure that that's for me, given your feedback.

Munibeast

My main use of the jailbreak on the mini is that I can have way more apps per page which makes most sense on iPads I guess. But also iFile is great, SB Settings toggles, bluetooth stacks so I can use a trackpad and a gps module because I have a wifi only mini. I'm not sure if or how the stealing apps thing is still really going since they shut down the main tool for that called installous. I haven't checked at all for ages. I buy all my apps in app store nowadays and there are no problems with that. One more thing you can do with a jailbreak is you can create symbolic links to files so you don't need them double or tripple in the different apps you want to use them with. And you can also change just a tiny bit of text in an apps code if you don't ever want to update when functions got removed because of new app store rules... With iOS 7 the SB settings are not half as important as they used to be before. Just my 2ct.

funjunkie27

Thanks @Munibeast. The Bluetooth stacks and iFile sound appealing. More apps per page probably won't be too meaningful on an iPhone, I assume.

Matthew

I always found jailbreaking made my devices less reliable. In the earlier days of iOS there were some compelling reasons to do it, but things have matured so much that I can't see a reason to bother with it.

Marinus

Same experience as @Matthew: be prepared for some unexpected crashes. Don't do it if you don't really need it.

funjunkie27

I value stability, so I'm going to hold off. Thanks for the insight folks.

SaveAs

I've never had any crashes with my jailbroken devices.
If you're careful and not install every tweak existing out there, you'll be ok.
I can list you many examples of benefits for an iOS musician regarding jailbreaking:
1. Delete the stock samples of BM2 (yeah!!)
2. Import samples into Borderlands without using a pc
3. Mass transfer recordings at once from one app to another (Cubasis to Auria for example), again without a pc
4. Skin Turnado (LOL)
and the list can go on forever...
In general, I love to gain full control of a device I paid so much money for. I understand that Apple puts all these restrictions to protect the user from screwing up the device, but if you know what you're doing you'll never have a problem.

Nicebutfun

I have been jailbroken since day 1. On ipad2/3 and ipad mini and iPhone. There are no downsides. Just as saveas said, moving files around is easy. And you can Bluetooth your files from 1 device to another. All my apps are paid for. But occasionally I will try an app , if I am using it an hour later- I will buy it or delete it. End of. So removing bloat ware is a plus for me. You don't need to know too much, and navigating os file system is easy. I grabbed all impc samples and stuck them In audioshare without computer. Etc. etc. good reason to jail break I say