Since the earliest days of the iPhone, there have been a segment of users that are not content with running their phones by Apple’s rules. By and large, these users love the hardware and software of the iPhone for the obvious care and attention given over to their design.
What they’re not as pleased with is the closed ecosystem that Apple has created to block the installation and use of applications outside of its own App Store and the limited amount of control over settings and appearance given by iOS.
These users are collectively known as the jailbreak community and although they are a minority of iPhone users, they’re a vocal one. Many of the features that we now see on the iPhone and that are coming in iOS 5 first appeared on jailbroken iPhones because these users wanted to get the most out of Apple’s creation.
If you’ve been using an iPhone since the beginning, then you’ll remember just how limited that first offering in 2007 was. There were no apps, no copy and paste, no video recording, no MMS offering and no way to tether the iPhone’s data connection to a laptop. All of these features and more were first offered by apps that would only run on jailbroken iPhones. For better or worse, heavy adoption of an app or tweak by jailbroken users has been a precursor to seeing it show up in an official iPhone software release since the early days of the device.
While the initial efforts to jailbreak the iPhone were centered around gaining access to the file system and the ability to run unofficial apps, there was also another major driving force behind the movement, unlocking.
What they’re not as pleased with is the closed ecosystem that Apple has created to block the installation and use of applications outside of its own App Store and the limited amount of control over settings and appearance given by iOS.
These users are collectively known as the jailbreak community and although they are a minority of iPhone users, they’re a vocal one. Many of the features that we now see on the iPhone and that are coming in iOS 5 first appeared on jailbroken iPhones because these users wanted to get the most out of Apple’s creation.
If you’ve been using an iPhone since the beginning, then you’ll remember just how limited that first offering in 2007 was. There were no apps, no copy and paste, no video recording, no MMS offering and no way to tether the iPhone’s data connection to a laptop. All of these features and more were first offered by apps that would only run on jailbroken iPhones. For better or worse, heavy adoption of an app or tweak by jailbroken users has been a precursor to seeing it show up in an official iPhone software release since the early days of the device.
While the initial efforts to jailbreak the iPhone were centered around gaining access to the file system and the ability to run unofficial apps, there was also another major driving force behind the movement, unlocking.
No comments:
Post a Comment