Questions About JailBreaking

[Brian Miller]

• Is it illegal?
  
• Dies it violate the Apple Case cover?
  
• Can Apple detect the decide has been jail broken through their secret diagnostic protocol, that you can enter into Safari (not many people even know what this is!)?
  
• Can the iPhone silently report back to Apple that you have jail broken the device?
  

[Old Man Pickle]

1) It's not illegal (I may be wrong on this if anyone has better knowledge).

2) Apple will not fix or offer support of any kind for jailbroken devices. Any Apple warranty (standard one-year or with AppleCare) is void because Apple will not support jailbroken devices, and jailbreaking is a violation of your license agreement.

3) Some apps can detect that you are jailbroken and you may see a messages such as "We've noticed your device is jailbroken". The Sky Go app does this but can be bypassed.

4) Not to sure on that, it's technically possible.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

It's not illegal, but it does make the warranty void. I believe they can check to see if the device was jailbroken, but as far as I know they don't have the devices silently report on their state.

[BGM]

on the void warranty thing... i have had a previously jailbroken device replaced under warranty, just flash it back to stock

[Shadrack]

I think you have your answer. In general, yes it will void your warranty. As far as iOS "phoning home" and tattling on you I don't think anyone is really sure about that. If they are doing that, I'm not sure how they are keeping that a secret.

Here is what Apple had to say about Jailbreaking (notice that it was updated last Sunday).

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3743

So in general, if Apple has solid evidence that the device has been tampered with they can deny warranty coverage.

Now, in practice, there really is not a whole lot of chit-chat out there calling Apple a bleaping-bleap-bleap for denying warranty coverage because a device had been jailbroken. Most people who jailbreak realize that taking a jailbroken device with a big fat Cydia icon on the home screen into an Apple Store to ask for help will probably be shown the door and I'm sure the incident will be noted (they have to explain everything they do with everybody in their customer ticket tracking software I am sure).

If you need to cover something under warranty, you simply restore your phone (this removes the jailbreak) and take it in.

That is exactly what I did in October 2011 when I took a previously JB iPad 2 into an Apple Store to check to see if they would warranty the device. They looked it over. They plugged it into something that looked like a diagnostic device and it ran some checks for something (?) for sometime (?). My complaint was about a nasty scratch that had developed on the screen that I was claiming was caused by the poor design of the smart cover. My unproven theory was that a small piece of dirt got between the smart cover and the iPad screen and festered. They looked the screen over with a pocket UV "black" light and then replaced my iPad 2 with a referb.

At some point, Apple may decide to implement a system that prevents iOS devices that have previously been jailbroken from receiving any warranty support or any Apple Store support period. It wouldn't surprise me. But consider this, the estimate for the number of people who downloaded and jailbroke their iOS 6 device was more than 1.7 million and that was just yesterday. That may only represent a little less than 1% of the total user base, but that is still a WHOLE lot of customers (most of which are repeat customers) that Apple probably does not want to anger.

I think that for the most part they will just continue the cat and mouse game.

[Brian Miller]

Thanks everyone.

As a new iDevice user, I am scared. What if my phone got bricked, could I still restore the phone or will be be dead forever?

[+KibosJ Subscriber²]

Thanks everyone.

As a new iDevice user, I am scared. What if my phone got bricked, could I still restore the phone or will be be dead forever?

Over 4 million people have jailbroken their device since the release of evasi0n.

It says that if the jailbreak gets stuck you can boot into recovery mode and start again. Evasi0n has been tested quite well and the chances of it bricking your device are slim.

Unfortunately though, you are the only one who can do it to find out. It will make your phone 10 times better though, I say jump in :p You can always restore the device if you don't like it :)

[BGM]

i never bricked one of my devices.. if it goes wrong just reflash and start again :D

the key is to make good backups!

good luck.

[Zoom7000]

As a new iDevice user, I am scared. What if my phone got bricked, could I still restore the phone or will be be dead forever?

It is very difficult to software brick an iDevice as in 99% of cases you can just reflash it. Even it it crashes half way through an update or restore, you just simply reconnect it and start again.

If you're device is physically dead and won't come back on, you have nothing to worry about and they'll replace it if it is in warranty anyway.

I have previously had an iPhone 3GS replaced that was jailbroken and I just reflashed it before I took it to the Apple store. What was even more interesting is that the replacement they gave me had the old bootrom with the 24kpwn exploit, so it's jailbreakable for life! :D

[n_K]

Not sure about the US but in the UK there is a 'product warranty' and a 'parts warranty'.

If the device goes wrong as a result of you jailbreaking then they can refuse fixing it for you.

If the device goes wrong due to faulty manufacturing or the device having faulty parts, no matter what the state of the device, so long as you haven't damaged it beyond repair they have to either refund you, fix the problems for you or swap yours for a fixed device.

[Brian Miller]

When you access Skype for the fist time on a JailBroken device, it show an alert box with the message "This products is not permitted to work on a jailbroken device"

However, it still works. I wonder if they can disable Skype from connecting in future if they detect the phone is jailbroken. Bigger question, why do they care?

[Shadrack]

When you access Skype for the fist time on a JailBroken device, it show an alert box with the message "This products is not permitted to work on a jailbroken device"

However, it still works. I wonder if they can disable Skype from connecting in future if they detect the phone is jailbroken. Bigger question, why do they care?

It's possible. I have no idea while Microsoft would want to disallow JB iPhones from using Skype. Perhaps they are worried about a hacked version of Skype messing with their network. Or maybe there are concerns about recording conversations (there may be legal issues in some regions). It seems like a really incomplete thought. Like they started to implement something and only gotten as far as the dialog. It is strange.

The DirecTV and Comcast apps that stream video on the iPad will refuse to work if they detect a JB. I find less reason to JB my iPad than my iPhone. I JB my iPad with evasion but have only installed f.lux on it so far.

[jltech]

• Is it illegal? Jailbreaking your iPad is illegal, but jailbreaking your iPhone/iPod Touch is legal.
  
• Dies it violate the Apple Case cover? It will void your warranty, but you can restore to default settings and make it look like you didn't jailbreak.
  
• Can Apple detect the decide has been jail broken through their secret diagnostic protocol, that you can enter into Safari (not many people even know what this is!)? There are so many devices jailbreakon that it is almost impossible that Apple will find your one device.
  
• Can the iPhone silently report back to Apple that you have jail broken the device? There are no reports of this happening.