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Comment by rscott | Hacker News Reader

What's the draw towards jailbreaking these days, anything interesting?

These are my reasons, in order of importance:

- MyWi for tethering/mobile hotspot

- BiteSMS lets you send/respond to/view SMS messages without quitting your current app (press up on the volume control and then tap the volume icon to compose).

- Notifier, puts notification icons in the title menu and on your lock screen (notifications for email, missed call, voicemail, text messages, instant messages).

- SBSettings gives me quick one swipe access to turn off the phone, toggle 3G and other settings.

- Backgrounder + ProSwitcher for Palm Pre style multitasking

- 3G Unrestrictor for using Wifi only apps over 3G

- Netatalk/SSH access for custom theming

- MxTube lets me download and save youtube videos.

- Add vibrating haptic feedback to the keyboard

There are other reasons, but those are the ones off the top of my head.

Besides all the good things this man mentioned: - not having to use iTunes.

A strong +1 for Notifier & little +1's for MyWi, 3G Unrestrictor and Backgrounder.

It's amazing to me that Apple hasn't done anything to sort out the issue of notifications on the iPhone since day one. What's that? Your genre defining device requires me to swipe & unlock my phone just to see if an email's arrived since I was left it? Hmmm.

The only reason I can think of to jailbreak, in spite of your list of interesting tweaks, is to get a carrier unlock. Until thats possible with my iPhone 3G, I won't bother ..

Is AT&T able to detect you tethering? Or, if I tether, will I get a huge data bill even though it's "unlimited"?

I find it more and more difficult to believe that AT&T would be able to tell the difference without looking deeply at the traffic; the iPad loads full web pages and videos, so they probably couldn't tell from bandwidth alone.

Accessing YouTube, App store, maps and various apps should be pretty obvious.

Third party apps can access the network too. So they'd have to distinguish between traffic generated tethered from traffic sent in 3rd-party app store apps.

I was just thinking of plaintext traffic through port 80.

The big thing for me right now is tethering my iPhone to my iPad. Just saved $130 + $30/month.

Is this possible right now?

It has been possible for a long time- for folks with a jailbroken iPhone. I used PDANet. Completely forgot that in my list of reasons to jailbreak!

Not only is it possible, there's an app that allows you to turn it into a mobile WiFi hotspot similar to the Pre.

You can use PDANet or MyWi to turn your iPhone into a router

I don't know about any one else, but jailbreaking was a requirement for a fully-functional iPhone, at least for me. I used jailbreaking for: multitasking ala Palm Pre using multifl0w, scripting in Ruby and Python incl GUI, ability for me to setup an SSH tunnel so that I can get to my phone even when the phone is only EDGE/3G, being able to transfer files to/from my phone via SSH, ability to transfer music to my phone without using iTunes, manipulation of my SMS database, theming, and increased usability with tools like SBSettings, GRiP and many others.

Full control over a device that you have bought ?

Allowing apps from completely unverified sources full control over a device that you have bought ?

;)

Sure, like every other computer that I own.

That doesn't scare me in the least.

The apps underground, man! http://cydia.saurik.com/

What's the drawback to jailbreaking?

Jailbreaking voids your warranty.

Only if they know you've jailbroken. If you have any problems requiring you to take it in, make sure you wipe your phone back to a "clean" OS image.

I've only done it combined with an unlock so I could use t-mobile on my iPhone. Never could get tethering to work. Only app I found handy was a video recorder (I have the 3G).

http://www.junefabrics.com/iphone/index.php

Try PDANet

Besides the jailbreak-only apps, there is unlock, which allows me to choose the carrier, not vice versa :)

Multitasking, waiting for 4.0 for the iPad

You can get multitasking right now with Backgrounder + ProSwitcher. Palm Pre style.

SIM unlock.

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