Getting to the root of the matter
SSHed into my iPhone 4
Yes, the long-awaited iPhone 4 jailbreak is released. Even better, it is now definitely legal (although Apple will not provide warranty service to jailbroken phones…you gotta restore a stock OS before bringing it in for service)
It is both the best and worst jailbreak I’ve ever used.
It is the best because by far it was ridiculously easy to use. You visit a web site in Safari on the iPhone, and the jailbreak is done right there, in userland, no reboot required, no restore, no patched IPSW, just a minute of churning, and you are jailbroken with Cydia and ready to go. It’s an amazing piece of programming – an elegant exploit that I would be shocked if Apple doesn’t close in a hurry with iPhone OS 4.1 (which might make this a short-lived jailbreak).
It’s also rather buggy. The jailbreak killed Facetime (which I could care less about) and MMS messaging (which I really don’t care about either), so if you rely on these features, I would definitely hold off on the jailbreak.
Furthermore, a lot of the major jailbroken apps (like SBSettings) aren’t fully compatible with iOS 4 or the iPhone 4 hardware. Cydia crashes if you try “fast app switching” to it. Still, most things mostly work, and I was able to at least my all-important custom Legend of Zelda SMS tones and BiteSMS for instant SMS’ing from the lock screen installed.
I am also really looking forward to trying Notified which promised to bring the (much better then iPhone) Android-style notification system to the iOS.
And hey, it’s nice to have root on my phone.
Thanks Mike. I’ll hold off until they get MMS fixed for sure. Can’t live without that. Send me a txt when they do 🙂 (hehe)
Dev team had MMS and Facetime fixed by 3 AM when I checked (and fixed remotely). Haven’t tried SBSettings yet. What’s borked with it? I too am mostly soothed with my Bite SMS and custom sounds (plus my five-icon dock, obviously).