Connect with us

Mobile

iPhone 4S Jailbreak: Why Not to Jailbreak

Published

on

So, you may have heard. The untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S (and the iPad 2), called Absinthe, has finally arrived courtesy of a “dream team” of hackers/developers. And if you own an iPhone 4S, you might be thinking about taking the plunge. We don’t blame you, but there are definitely some reasons why you might want to think about holding off from doing so.

Read: Ultimate iPhone 4S Jailbreak Guide

If you’re not familiar with the term jailbreak, we’ll break it down for you real quick. We know for a lot of you, the iPhone 4S represents your first iPhone, so there is no reason to be ashamed.

Jailbreaking means exactly what you’re probably thinking it means.

iPhone 4S

It unlocks parts of your phone that Apple has locked down with its software which in turn allows you to customize your phone and install applications that you can’t find through the official iOS App Store.

For a lot of you, this will be a dream come true. Others may end up wishing that they didn’t jailbreak.

We’re here to help make that decision as easy as possible and so we wanted to point out a couple of pitfalls that come with jailbreaking your iPhone 4S.

Keep in mind (trolls, I am looking at you), not all of these will happen in every use case. But just because something didn’t happen to you, doesn’t mean it won’t happen to someone else.

So, with that, let’s take a look at some reasons why you may not want to jailbreak your iPhone 4S.

CydiaYour iPhone 4S May Lose Stability

While the developers of Absinthe have gone to great lengths to provide as seamless of an experience as possible, jailbreaking is still a hack and there are unexpected things that could happen because of that. It’s possible, after jailbreaking your iPhone and installing applications via Cydia – the unofficial App Store, your iPhone 4S may become buggy and slow.

It may even crash.

Now, for power users and those willing to troubleshoot, this probably won’t be too much of an issue. However, for the average person, it can and probably will become a headache.

For many of you, having a stable iPhone 4S will be more of a priority then having a customized one.

Updating Is a Pain

While the stability issue might not be one that affects everyone that jailbreaks, the pain in the rear end known as updating your jailbroken phone does. If you’re the kind of person that wants the latest and greatest software right off the bat, jailbreaking might not be fore you.

When Apple releases an update, you will have to wait for the devs to either release a patch or a new jailbreak for your iPhone. When it comes to smaller iOS updates, it’s usually a fast process.

iPhone 4S

However, when it comes to larger updates like iOS 5.1, it takes awhile. So, if you’re the impatient type, keep this in mind.

And once you get the update, your headache might remain as you’ll need to re-install the jailbreak and all of the apps that you downloaded from Cydia. There are definitely tools out there that can help you restore, but it’s still going to take some time.

In other words, it’s not the seamless process you might expect from an official update.

Factory Resets Aren’t Fun

Loss of Genius Bar Support

If you run into a problem with your iPhone 4S, you might decide to take it to the Genius Bar in an Apple retail location. Well, if you’ve jailbroken your phone, chances are, the Genius will refuse to help you.

Suggestion: Don’t mention that your phone is jailbroken.

You can also un-jailbreak  your phone but if you find yourself bringing it in on a semi-regular basis, you’re going to start getting annoyed with doing that over and over again.

A factory reset will work as well but that will wipe everything from your phone.

Fun.

Loss of Warranty

Back in 2012, jailbreaking your iPhone became a legal thing to do. Seriously, this was illegal at one point. But just because it’s not legal doesn’t change the fact that it will void your iPhone 4S warranty with Apple.

So if your phone starts acting up, even it has nothing to do with the jailbreak, you more than likely won’t get the support that you need to get the issue fixed.

That means that you’ll have to factory reset.

Again, lots of fun.

So yes, it’s possible to avoid both of these, but for many of you it won’t be worth the hassle.

Now that you know some of the risks involved with jailbreaking, you can make an informed decision. And if interested in going through with it and freeing your iPhone 4S from Apple’s chains, you’ll want to read our How to Jailbreak the iPhone 4S to find out exactly how to do it.

72 Comments

72 Comments

  1. Willrock999

    01/20/2012 at 12:19 pm

    Lots of mistakes in this article. I’ll be jailbreaking anyways to get cydia.

  2. AmirSadra

    01/20/2012 at 12:32 pm

    Well, I’m really in doubt! Because I won’t jailbreak my 4S because of ability to install cracked apps! I just want JB for having SMS delivery notification and Bluetooth file sharing! Two important points for me is those. I have bought my desired apps from App Store. So, there is no problem for me to upgrade OTA. But warranty, that would slip me in my doubts… I don’t know will they find out my device is jailbroken in sometime (like a log) or not… If they do, so, factory reset isn’t working!

    • Sinnedangel

      03/27/2012 at 2:48 am

      I Can tell you personally Apple has no way of knowing your iphone is jailbroken unless you tell them. Now iTunes will attempt to remove all of your cracked apps from time to time when you sync, this is intermittent. As long as your not stubborn and an A** to people jailbreaking won’t damage your phone, and it certainly won’t damage it permanently. Software is always repairable, however hardware isn’t. So just don’t drop it or throw it.

    • Alex

      04/16/2012 at 2:44 am

      “because of ability to install cracked apps!” NO wait.. don’t mislead people, jailbreaking has not the pourpouse of installing cracked apps, the purpouse of cydia is giving user the ability to “choose” many other options for apps despite the ones that are not “apple approved” there are infact a lot of apps, which costs money on cydia too

  3. Inde

    01/20/2012 at 12:32 pm

    jailbreak works great, never had any problems with my iPhone

    • Timothy Durbin

      08/24/2013 at 1:12 pm

      I’m thinking of jailbreaking my iPhone 4S, has yours been slow or acting up

  4. RhythMystic

    01/20/2012 at 12:37 pm

    There are indeed pros and cons to jailbreaking and it is definitely not for everyone. That said, this article is so heavily biased that it is of little value, and obviously was just written as search engine bait. 

    If you’re debating a jailbreak for the first time Google at least 2 or 3 other articles that weigh in on the pros AND cons.RIght off the bat, the warranty issue is pure fear mongering. As pointed out right above that, you can easily un-jailbreak the phone which leaves NO traces behind, fully allowing Genius Bar and full warranty support. As for the hassle of doing so when you need to visit the Apple store often with your iPhone? It takes all of 15 minutes tops, and in 3 years of iPhone ownership I’ve had to go to the genius bar all of one time. Restoring to squeaky clean factory condition took 10 minutes, and reloading my entirely customized phone to it’s previous state took an hour or so. So 1 hour and 10 minutes “trouble” for 2.5 years of enormously enhanced features and customizability? No brainer. 

    • Al17di

      01/20/2012 at 2:14 pm

      how did u restore & get your phone the way it was 

      • Anonymous

        01/20/2012 at 2:18 pm

        iTunes does it for you. Just google ‘iTunes iPhone restore”

        • Al17di

          01/20/2012 at 10:10 pm

          yeah i know that lets say i downloaded a app from the app store not cudia & i back my jailbrocken iphone to itunes do i get that app & the cydia app or am i wrong here?

          • What?

            07/20/2012 at 2:49 pm

            English?

      • Anonymous

        01/20/2012 at 10:39 pm

        In answer to your question below

        Google:
        Best Cydia Apps to Backup Your iPhone

  5. Anonymous

    01/20/2012 at 1:08 pm

    Hmm. These reasons all suck. Gonna go get my jailbreak on before I sell this wee little phone and get a man sized Android device.

    • Irunonrockstar

      01/20/2012 at 3:53 pm

      Androids suck they freeze constantly and open tons of shit when you reboot

      • Arthur Brownlee IV

        01/21/2012 at 1:18 pm

        That’s because our phones do more than fart and sometimes make calls :) 

      • Motorcyclep8nt

        01/28/2012 at 9:41 pm

        Not true just like jail breaking, there’s rooting for Android. An just check the fast boot box there’s not tons of things either. I have an HTC EVO 3D and and 4s. There’s problems with all phones, all services,all brands, phones are like relationships love hate. Don’t stress there will be new phones to outdate your current phone in a couple months any way

    • BizMommy68

      02/13/2012 at 8:14 pm

      Agreed (though I’m a chick).  I was an Android user for years and decided to try the iPhone 4s.  There are 100 reasons I can name to use a droid (i wont bother too, once you use one for a while it’s blatantly apparent).

  6. Superjew

    01/20/2012 at 2:07 pm

    The jailbreak works perfect, this article should not even be taken into consideration. Jailbreak, now. You won’t regret it

    • Bradallwright

      03/04/2012 at 8:43 pm

      jailbreaking slows everything down and when you try to close out apps it freezwes and loading things takes a long time and i wouldnt do it becuase the secound you drop your iphone  or ipod or whatever your warrant is valid becuase you jail broke your iphone or ipod or ipad so dont do it unles you want to spend more money than you would and if it is the iphone you jailbroke you would have to pay a fine for jailbreaking or so i heard

      • LilMsTiffie

        04/25/2012 at 8:12 am

         Paying a fine for jailbreaking? they can’t do that because it’s legal.  So what you ‘heard’ is definitely wrong =)

  7. Anonymous

    01/20/2012 at 5:24 pm

    Once I read the first line about jailbreaks hurting stability, I stopped reading because I knew this blog post was going to be stupid.

    • Biggerp3niis

      01/20/2012 at 7:51 pm

      well, biggiep3n!s, you’re obviously a moron. Jailbreaking can indeed affect stability and just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it isn’t so! Please get a bigger p3n!s next time before you comment, because yours clearly isn’t b!g enough yet. 

      • Justice

        02/18/2012 at 5:19 pm

        Your clearly the patronizing moron because all a jailbreak does is let you run unsigned scripts… which scripts you choose to run thereafter, including ones that affect stability , is your fault not that of the jailbreak

  8. Raiin247

    01/21/2012 at 6:56 am

    What a biased troll!! Booooo

  9. Raiin247

    01/21/2012 at 6:58 am

    How much did apple pay u to write this jiberish crap?

  10. Anonymous

    01/21/2012 at 11:37 am

    Here is a How to Jailbreak Iphone 4s and Ipad 2  on windows pc 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTqMMedbC8Y
     

  11. Klamzone

    01/21/2012 at 1:33 pm

    I love how your article before this was “How to Jailbreak iPhone 4S”. Sharp contrast there buddy!

  12. Mathew Giljum

    01/21/2012 at 3:16 pm

    All of these reasons are quite misinformed and come with the presumption that the user is totally unfamiliar with restoring the software and is incapable of very, very basic troubleshooting. If you’re new to the jailbreaking world, it is definitely not an irreversible process as the author suggests.

  13. Freez

    01/22/2012 at 3:12 pm

    I’ll jailbreak just because apple does not alow to download files over 20mb from the AppStore (STUPID) even if you have a unlimited data plan. JAILBREAK ALOVES YOU TO DO THAT. And mooooooore.

    • Freez

      01/22/2012 at 3:18 pm

      Over 3G :)
      soz got excited and a bit angry.
      But I hope apple starts to get their shit together after this awesome jailbreak.

  14. phonefixer

    01/22/2012 at 9:33 pm

    one thing left out of this is that after about 3 months in most cases apples idea of whats covered by warranty seems to change anyway so you cant really affect your warranty any more then you will through general use.
    as mentioned above doing a simple update or a restore wipes all traces of jailbreaking.
    but it is an each to their own thing personally im a big fan i like the little tweaks and add ons that make my phone different to the next guys but if that doesnt matter to you then dont do it 

  15. phonefixer

    01/22/2012 at 9:37 pm

    also in regards to affecting stability… yes jailbreaking can affect stability however since 3.1 in my experience they have had addons etc that have actually improved stability more often then hurting it. the jailbreaking community had a patch for the PDF long before apple ever bothered to correct the mistake. no matter who you are and what level of knowledge you have read all about what your doing before you do it.

  16. Keith1212

    01/28/2012 at 8:10 am

    what a shity article.

  17. Eyedocmark

    01/28/2012 at 12:01 pm

    I’ve been waiting for jailbreak so that I could use PDAnet to take my laptop online. I used PDAnet for years with my Android Incredible and loved it.  Well, this week I was able to add it to my 4S, thanks to Absinthe. It’s not too fast, but it works. The only think I missed from Android was “drag and drop” when the phone is plugged into a computer. I haven’t looked to see if I can do that with the 4S now.

    • JG

      01/30/2012 at 10:16 am

      Look up iPhone Explorer. I think it’s called iExplorer now.  Gives you root access to drag and drop from iPhone to computer. And it’s free. :-)

  18. Ibrahim

    02/01/2012 at 4:42 am

    How to get £10 ITunes voucher
    1.download Junowallet from AppStore  
    2.Creat account 
    3.type in IS300289
    4.wait 24 hours
    5.enjoy!!!

  19. GHUA

    02/01/2012 at 4:53 pm

    Why use scare tactics? Are you an Apple store employee afraid hat if people can actually USE their phones full potential they won’t need you anymore?
    Void warranty??? Really? What a line of BS. Can’t void a warranty doing something legal.
    And did you forget to mention that if you f
    Find you do not like the new stuff after a jailbreak, or have any problems, you simply restore through iTunes….takes about 30 seconds….and it’s back to it’s imprisoned state.
    There is NO reason to be afraid of jail breaking….stop trying to lie Apple Boy.

  20. Elsoung

    02/07/2012 at 11:05 pm

    Hold off on the jailbreaking or at least hold off on the Absthein v0.4! It still unexpectedly quits application so you CANNOT run any apps.

  21. Urgay

    02/15/2012 at 8:28 pm

    People who dont jailbreak are pussies and idiots

    • Delva2545

      03/09/2012 at 9:56 pm

      That’s ain’t cool yo

  22. haha

    02/18/2012 at 8:27 pm

    this author is stupid

    • Melchior

      05/16/2012 at 2:03 pm

      I think this part applies to you : “Keep in mind (trolls, I am looking at you)” lmao

  23. Peter432

    04/14/2012 at 12:51 pm

    Your reasons are broad and without evidence to back up any of your fact. Your first point ” But just because something didn’t happen to you, doesn’t mean it won’t happen to someone else.” does not state the problem. Second, stability issue? You said something crashes… What is it? What crashes, system? Apps? I dont think so. Your third reason updating is a pain? It is the exact same process as an not jailbroken device. Plug in itunes restore.. Done.. Lastly warranty, NO one is retarded enought to walk in apple store with a jailbrolen device. Restore iphone, then go ahead to apple store to get the same service. The person who wrote this article obviously has no knowledge in the field of jailbreaking. You lost your argument before you started.

  24. Socallucy01

    04/16/2012 at 4:20 pm

    I want to jailbreak my iPhone 4s to make it customizable like change the sms bubble colors & make it all pretty but everyone has been scaring me that it will mess it up a lot and since my daddy pays for it I’m scared something might go wrong & have to pay to fix it, besides all I use my phone is to text, call and use twitter.. I can always change it back right?

    • Adam Jensen

      04/29/2012 at 2:48 am

      You have an iPhone 4s and all you use it for is texting, calling and twitter?
      I dont even know where to start…

      • Vinay Bharadwaj

        05/26/2012 at 7:35 pm

        Spot on! iPhone (As a matter of fact even iPod Touch) is such a powerful device and Apple has crippled most of its capabilities with its iOS. They’ve made it a device for n00bs when it is so much more capable..

  25. Dreamchannel1

    04/20/2012 at 11:13 am

    I simply want to use my 4s on a local (cheap mins plus data) overseas net while I´m here. GPS won´t work with Sprint CDMA lock. Yuck. I gotta find a local pirate…

  26. will-i-am

    04/23/2012 at 7:07 pm

    Well if you don’t like the jailbreak just reset to factory and redownload your files and apps (which you should have backed up)

  27. JIGGYPANTZ

    04/28/2012 at 10:39 am

    ive been an iphone user for two years now since ihad my first 1 ip4 i jailbroke it using green p0ison on 4.2.1 now upgraded to ip4s 64gb the day i got it was the the i jailbroke it it hasnt slowed any thing down never crashes and looks awesome with the theme im running basicily the point is if you jailbreak it makes it YOURS  and not apples any more JAILBREAK JAILBREAK JAILBREAK !!!!!!!

    • Dexture3

      04/28/2012 at 7:15 pm

      Do you have the 5.1

  28. keif

    05/01/2012 at 8:46 am

    What’s hilarious – 99% of the times I take my iphone to the apple store, the *first* thing they want to do? Factory reset. Twice. Then I get a new phone.

    So – it’s kind of a moot point that factory resets are annoying – just always back your stuff up!

  29. Chit

    05/03/2012 at 11:12 pm

    How i know whether my iphone 4s was jailbroken or not?

  30. Ali

    05/23/2012 at 12:49 pm

    how would apple will know if we had jail broken the device or not ? i mean we can always restore it as a new iphone at take it to apple store for repair

  31. k

    05/28/2012 at 1:05 am

    i dont want the jailbreak anymore…. i tried resetting my iphone but it won’t turn on… if i press the lock button and the home screen and the same time it just restores… someone help

  32. James

    05/31/2012 at 5:22 am

    if your I device won’t turn on go onto google find out how to put it into DFU mode, iTunes will think its a device that has a problem then it will restore it. problem solved :) no matter what it’ll always be fixable

  33. Kashi

    05/31/2012 at 9:36 am

    Please do a little more research.

    “If you’re the kind of person that wants the latest and greatest software right off the bat, jailbreaking might not be fore you.”

    LOL, yeah I still remember upgrading my 3G to 4.0 to get the “latest and greatest” Turns out I should have waited on that one huh? The fact is, unless you’re running the latest hardware, you might want to wait a little while before updating anyway. Especially with no ‘legit’ ways of downgrading. So it sort of seems like even official updates may cause you to lose stability.

    “Back in 2012, jailbreaking your iPhone became a legal thing to do. Seriously, this was illegal at one point. But just because it’s not legal doesn’t change the fact that it will void your iPhone 4S warranty with Apple.”

    Illegal? Where? Are you confusing civil and criminal law? Breach of contract (EULA) is a civil matter not a criminal one.

  34. iCaleb

    05/31/2012 at 6:38 pm

    I’m not a troll so I’m not gonna break down everything said above but…this post is quite biased. As with anything there are always bad sides…such as even getting an iPhone has a few bad sides (battery!). And in the above post you took out “all” the bad parts of jailbreaking. Well firstly, a factory restore is not all that bad especially since you can still just transfer purchases, and boom no harm done…ooops i better stop cause I said i wasnt gonna break down everythimg said…bottom line=jailbreaking is worth it

  35. Zach

    06/07/2012 at 5:26 pm

    Jailbreaking is not worth it, And it’s really for people that have too much time on there hands. You don’t really need to customize and tweak things, It’s more of a want- Not a necessity

    • mysandie

      08/01/2012 at 5:24 am

      I want to eat….is that not a “necessity”?

      I want my high-priced iPhone 4S to work like it should! Therefore….JAILBREAK!

  36. NotaTroll

    06/08/2012 at 11:53 pm

    Lol. ICaleb, would you read the title for me? Well, it says “IPhone 4S: Why Not to Jailbreak” :)

  37. PaxOG

    06/20/2012 at 9:35 am

    Zach~
    just because you are willing to jailbreak your phone doesn’t mean you have too much time on your hands. It could just mean that you would like the customize your phone a little more than Apple allows. Maybe instead of going on a website and looking at articles like this then bashing people who enjoy jailbreaking you should get a real life. Stop hating on things you’re just too stupid to be able to do. Thanks, and go fuck yourself with a pitchfork.

  38. Dave

    06/20/2012 at 9:03 pm

    I bought my iPhone with the sole intention of jailbreaking, there’s just too much locked away not to do it

  39. Tcross

    06/22/2012 at 12:21 pm

    Here a question, I have jailbroken my iPhone 3G but it on 3.0 version, I want to update the version but I don’t know what will happen o all the data on the phone. What I mean is I have bookmark allot of sites and stuff ALOT so I don’t want to lose all the information. Plus I have tons of notes I put down as well, and photos. So by either restoring it or updating the jailbroke I might lose my dta. Is it false or can I still update without losing any information? ASAP

  40. zachy

    06/24/2012 at 10:28 am

    – Tcross if you update your iphone all the info should stay on it

  41. ipad lover

    07/22/2012 at 4:09 am

    this jailbraeking fuckedup my ipad 3 so do not jailbraek under any surcomstanses

  42. ipad lover

    07/25/2012 at 1:24 pm

    im a stupid apple user and don’t know what I am saying …
    awljlkfd oaighoqhwonao

  43. Jason Kaiser

    02/10/2013 at 2:30 pm

    I jail broke my 4S ios 6.1 and it was great for 4 days. Then I installed something from Cydia that caused an awful boot loop and my phone was useless. I could NOT restore I. DFU or any other way using ITunes. I am NOT A NOOB. I had to go to the Genius Bar and the reformat took 10 minutes. They didn’t care that I jail broke. That said, there is a lot that I liked, but that one single tweak messed me up good. Even changing the host file didn’t allow me to get around ITunes error 3194 and reformat. Again, I love the freedom, Iblacklist, Icaughtu, mywi, but the one minute, 2mb download set me back hours and a lot of frustration.

  44. 2x + 3 = HI

    04/20/2013 at 1:07 pm

    I have a jailbroken iPod touch 4th generation with the iOS 6 update and I’m using Redsnow 0.9.13 dev 4, which is a tethered jailbreak, and I just got lazy of booting it, so it just sits on my shelf, dead and uncharged, until I feel like booting it. Besides that, I do experience problems such as slowness, springboard crashes, etc. etc., but I would think it’s worth it if you have the patience to deal with it and if you are skilled and know what you are doing when you do it.

  45. Simon

    04/22/2013 at 10:44 pm

    Had jailbreak on 4s for 10 months running 5.1.1 I’ve had crashes all the time slow Internet , so yesterday did an update to 6.1.3 it’s fantastic now so fast :)

  46. Yomammasminecraft

    05/11/2013 at 5:16 pm

    Jailbreaking is the best way to truly use your I device. I have jailbroken iPad 2 ios 6.1.2 (bought before January 13th 2013) and there’s no problems with it. So maybe it’s slower by 0.4 seconds when it’s jailbroken. I don’t know but heres the pros of jailbreaking (for me):
    Mod your iPad games
    Change keyboard color (which is amazing)
    Amazing ass tweaks, like makeitmine, sbsettings, and iconrenamer
    Plus you can make a channel off your iPad because you can record your iPads screen with audio in HD quality.
    Shall I go on…

  47. Patrick

    05/27/2013 at 4:57 pm

    Simon where did you find a version that supports 6.1.3 I’m thinking of jailbreaking my iPhone 4S

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.