4 ms·

I used to jailbreak. I now use Android. When I did jailbreak, it was never about apps and rarely about high-level features (I did use NC settings before that w

I used to jailbreak. I now use Android. When I did jailbreak, it was never about apps and rarely about high-level features (I did use NC settings before that was an official thing, and I installed a torrent client and some emulators, I think). I jailbroke because I wanted to have access to a local terminal and write and execute arbitrary code on the phone - nothing major, mostly small bash and Python scripts and some C code when I was learning how to program. It was also a philosophical thing: I want to have full ownership over my phone, whether I need that on a day-to-day basis or not. I moved to Android when iOS jailbreaks started to become rarer and slower to appear, and more and more jailbreaks started to be tethered-only. There are only so many hoops I am willing to jump through when I can instead buy an Android phone that officially supports unlocking the bootloader and rooting it.

jiofih 6y ago
Moving to Android so you can jailbreak your phone to run a terminal sounds like a much, much larger hoop than just using a VM.
- opan 6y ago
  Android just has a working terminal without bypassing anything. You can enable one in developer options or just install a third porty terminal like termux. Android and iOS are really not equivalent here. Similarly you can install apps from outside the play store normally. No root, no unlocked bootloader, no funny business. Just a big difference in how each OS treats its users.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    You can also install a third party terminal in iOS, in fact the development options for coding on the go on iOS are much more mature than then hacky versions available on Android. Also termux is going to be a thing of the past, because its developers refuse to use the newer Java based APIs in recent Android versions, as Google is closing down the API space available to the NDK, as means to close down on security exploits.
- sgt 6y ago
  This is my personal opinion, but coming from iOS to Android must be an atrocious user experience. I can only think of one reason why someone would do this, and it probably has to do with the size of your wallet.
  - underlines 6y ago
    I am Swiss and for many countrymen the wallet is big enough, that we're even called an iPhone nation. But I moved to Android after iPhone 2, because I was fed up with the funny limitations Apple imposed on me, for "consistency" and "security", like: - forcing me to sync music in iTunes, with my 500GB personal music library crashing iTunes - no mms support, back when this was still a thing - no video recording - no file access - no copy/paste functionality later, owning a MacBook Pro in 2016, reminded me of those funny decisions Apple made for me, like no CMD+X for cutting files, no real full-screen button and regular kernel panics when connecting/disconnecting my multiple screens and MIDI devices for music production. I since completely turned away from Apple and I am happy. Not because of my wallet, but because of the freedom of choice I gained. As a plus, yes my wallet has more left for other stuff now.
    - sgt 6y ago
      I understand and appreciate your argument, but I would like to point out that those limitations are no longer an issue. I find it more annoying to help someone in the Android world to so basic things like finding an app or changing settings, because the UI is so bizarrely inconsistent across versions of Android and models and makes. To give a recent example, a friend could not figure out to toggle WiFi on/off on his Lenovo, because when swiping the screen from above, only other things appear. One has to swipe twice, then the status bar grows and shows the WiFi symbol.
  - Okawari 6y ago
    Guess its a matter of perspective. As an Android user having to help family members with their i devices from time to time, iOS devices frustrate me to no end. iOS might have a good user experience if you're already used to it. But as someone who is not familiar with it, but uses it from time to time, I find it an horrible experience. It looks good tho, gotta give it that.
0df8dkdf 6y ago
Same here. I jail broke the first iphone to use it as a handle held video camera. I need to jailbreak to get music off it. Lost the orginal itune laptop hard drive where the music is on. Don't want to install some no free iMyPHone type of software to do the extract, don't want to run them on my computer, seems a bit fishy. I really just need root access and then I can scp off the music. EDIT: iOS 10.x, old iphone.
jrsj 6y ago
I did this at one point as well but now I prefer not to have root access for security reasons. I'd rather have the ability to remote into a user with limited privileges on a more secure server, given how big of a target mobile devices are. That and it turned out I had no real practical reason to be fiddling with most of my devices -- I mostly work on server & web code, anything outside that the closer it is to 0 configuration the better it is for my sanity.

jiofih 6y ago

Moving to Android so you can jailbreak your phone to run a terminal sounds like a much, much larger hoop than just using a VM.

opan 6y ago
Android just has a working terminal without bypassing anything. You can enable one in developer options or just install a third porty terminal like termux. Android and iOS are really not equivalent here. Similarly you can install apps from outside the play store normally. No root, no unlocked bootloader, no funny business. Just a big difference in how each OS treats its users.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  You can also install a third party terminal in iOS, in fact the development options for coding on the go on iOS are much more mature than then hacky versions available on Android. Also termux is going to be a thing of the past, because its developers refuse to use the newer Java based APIs in recent Android versions, as Google is closing down the API space available to the NDK, as means to close down on security exploits.
sgt 6y ago
This is my personal opinion, but coming from iOS to Android must be an atrocious user experience. I can only think of one reason why someone would do this, and it probably has to do with the size of your wallet.
- underlines 6y ago
  I am Swiss and for many countrymen the wallet is big enough, that we're even called an iPhone nation. But I moved to Android after iPhone 2, because I was fed up with the funny limitations Apple imposed on me, for "consistency" and "security", like: - forcing me to sync music in iTunes, with my 500GB personal music library crashing iTunes - no mms support, back when this was still a thing - no video recording - no file access - no copy/paste functionality later, owning a MacBook Pro in 2016, reminded me of those funny decisions Apple made for me, like no CMD+X for cutting files, no real full-screen button and regular kernel panics when connecting/disconnecting my multiple screens and MIDI devices for music production. I since completely turned away from Apple and I am happy. Not because of my wallet, but because of the freedom of choice I gained. As a plus, yes my wallet has more left for other stuff now.
  - sgt 6y ago
    I understand and appreciate your argument, but I would like to point out that those limitations are no longer an issue. I find it more annoying to help someone in the Android world to so basic things like finding an app or changing settings, because the UI is so bizarrely inconsistent across versions of Android and models and makes. To give a recent example, a friend could not figure out to toggle WiFi on/off on his Lenovo, because when swiping the screen from above, only other things appear. One has to swipe twice, then the status bar grows and shows the WiFi symbol.
- Okawari 6y ago
  Guess its a matter of perspective. As an Android user having to help family members with their i devices from time to time, iOS devices frustrate me to no end. iOS might have a good user experience if you're already used to it. But as someone who is not familiar with it, but uses it from time to time, I find it an horrible experience. It looks good tho, gotta give it that.

0df8dkdf 6y ago

Same here. I jail broke the first iphone to use it as a handle held video camera. I need to jailbreak to get music off it. Lost the orginal itune laptop hard drive where the music is on. Don't want to install some no free iMyPHone type of software to do the extract, don't want to run them on my computer, seems a bit fishy. I really just need root access and then I can scp off the music. EDIT: iOS 10.x, old iphone.

jrsj 6y ago

I did this at one point as well but now I prefer not to have root access for security reasons. I'd rather have the ability to remote into a user with limited privileges on a more secure server, given how big of a target mobile devices are. That and it turned out I had no real practical reason to be fiddling with most of my devices -- I mostly work on server & web code, anything outside that the closer it is to 0 configuration the better it is for my sanity.