Why You Need to Get Your iPhone Jailbroken
All the while, I like my iPhone and satisfy with it. However, I decided to jailbreak it a week ago, see what a jailbroken phone can do. Now, I love my iPhone even more than ever! Now I got the world most advanced phone that can perform multi tasking, theme customization, directly sms reply and etc. All seem so minor and yet Apple didn’t allow users to do so.
Fortunate enough, I started the jailbreak before the releases of firmware 3.1.3. Up to date, there is no effective jailbreak software to use on iPhone 3GS yet.
A customized clock theme and more information on the lock screen.
Above is HTC Hero Cydget theme, but I did some modification myself by combining another theme with the weather feature. It is just pure html and javascript, no sweat at all. There are quite a lot different themes and add-on you can put on the lock screen. Add-on such as calendar, notes, or even tweets are all available on both jailbreak app stores – Cydia or Rock .
I installed an Android Lock, which require users to enter the key pattern to unlock the phone. Nevertheless, I later found this app not well integrate with the sliding lock yet. I will wait for an improved version before installing it back again.
In the home screen, I’m able to customize the wallpaper and apps icons I like. I even found a nice snowing widget that created animated snowing effect on the background. Isn’t this amazing?
It is often very dilemma for me to choose the 4 most important apps to put on dock. I use Infinidock. This app allows to put more than 4 apps onto the dock. You can set it response in page or scrolling snap.
Just swipe the top status bar, then the SBSetting box will slide down. It gives a quick access to phone functions I want to turn on or off, such as auto-rotation, auto-lock, Bluetooth and etc. These remind me how handy the time in Windows Mobile.
Orbit is a brilliant app directly brings out the Exposè style in iPhone. Instead of swiping across pages to find your app, why not just using this iPhone Exposè and do a quicker home screen fast switching?
BiteSMS fills up the missing SMS experience in iPhone. To reply a newly received SMS, you just directly reply it on the lock screen! Another nifty small app called Reminder, it notifies me by placing small icons on the status bar. The notification icons include missed calls, incoming sms, email, mms, instant messenger and calendar. You no more need to unlock your phone to find out for any numerical badges waiting for your responses.
The multi tasking feature is something not to be missed if you are using a jailbreak phone. Backgrounder + Proswitcher make the interface exactly look like the Palm Pre. I also found that running 3,4 apps in the background won’t really suck up all the phone memory.
Initially, I thought I will be heavily rely on multi tasking feature, however, I figure out that I need to run Twitter client and IM in the background. Guess Apple has done a good job making all app able to resume back to the state before closing.
My Verdict:
One thing I amazed is how great the UI of those apps able to integrate it so well such that it is like part of iPhone.
Almost every customization you can think of, there is always app for that. Modification such as mute the camera sound, adding more rows and columns in the home screen, 5 rows keyboard, extreme home screen customization etc all can be done. The reason I didn’t want to integrate it because the iPhone UI is attractive, haven’t prepared to give it a facelift yet.
With jailbreak iPhone, you are still able to use iTunes to download/purchase on Apple App Store. Thus, don’t worry you will miss anything from the original iPhone users. Anytime, you want return back to original iPhone OS firmware, you still able to do so. No reason for people who has jailbroken their phone go back either.
If any of you have anything you’d like to add, please contribute by commenting below. Thanks!
