4 ms·

I think 80% of folks I know who have iPhones have them jailbroken, most of these people are pretty non technical as well. It's been a long time since I've used

by myko 14y ago

I think 80% of folks I know who have iPhones have them jailbroken, most of these people are pretty non technical as well. It's been a long time since I've used an iPhone for anything other than development, but I don't remember it being very difficult to jailbreak, and pirating apps isn't a difficult step from there.

mtgx 14y ago
I would imagine, even if most users can't do it themselves, other family members or friends will do it for them, in the same way they've been installing Chrome on their computers before. This can quickly (a few years) lead to a large portion of the users using jailkbroken devices, and getting used to having their device jailbroken.
- cglace 14y ago
  If you are willing to help lots of nontechnical people jailbreak their phones you better have a lot of time for the thousands of support questions they flood you with.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  I'm pretty tech savvy, I work with very tech savvy people. Many of them write firmware, network routing systems, and spend hours a day JTAGing various spins of our NICs. I don't know how to jailbreak my phone, nor have my dozen or so google searches yielded anything useful, nor do any of my colleagues have jailbroken phones - despite being precisely the type of people who want to. Jail breaking used to be straightforward a couple years ago, but for anyone with a recent phone (I have an iPhone 5, colleagues have iPhone 4S's) - it's become pretty difficult. Any links or pointers appreciated though....
  - saurik 14y ago
    I doubt that most of the people who pirate have a recent phone: they probably have hand-me-downs from their parents or purchased the device second-hand off of eBay. In fact, if you consider piracy a feature, you probably purposely purchase an older phone: Apple still sells the iPhone 4, which continues to be trivial to jailbreak.
eridius 14y ago
I can use anecdotes too! Approximately zero percent of the people I know well have jailbroken their phones.
arrrg 14y ago
Huh, well no one I know has jailbroken their iPhone. Battle of the anecdotes!
awakeasleep 14y ago
Remember to place yourself in context! You and your friends are probably around the top 10% of people with technical skills on the planet.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Probably more like top 0.1% - technical people sometimes are truly unaware how niche their talent/knowledge/peer group is.
Steko 14y ago
"I don't remember it being very difficult to jailbreak" http://www.autoomobile.com/news/iphone-5-ios-6-untethered-jailbreak-35/10010783/ http://www.autoomobile.com/news/iphone-5-ios-6-untethered-ja... iPhone 5 & iOS 6 Untethered Jailbreak: Where Art Thou? 15 mins ago by Rick Berke It has been a few months since the rollout of iOS 6. In that time we have yet to see a successful iOS 6 untethered jailbreak for the two main smartphones in waiting – the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. iPhone 5 & iOS 6 untethered jailbreak progress report This has left iPhone 4S users on iOS 5 and iPhone 5 users left with no option but to remain locked down. So where is the iOS 6 untethered jailbreak? Let’s take a look at the progress so far. Starting off in September, we saw the first evidence of an iOS 6 jailbreak from chpwn, who gave us a glimpse of an iPhone 5 jailbroken and running Cydia. Then in October came news from @planetbeing of a tethered iOS 6 jailbreak under development, and the solution was usable but needed a developer account. Then it November @planetbeing returned and said that he was even closer to a public release but “missing critical pieces.” At the time he showed IntelliscreenX running on an iPhone 5. Then in December we were met with a number of hoaxes including a very convincing one from Dream JB. Lastly in the last days of the year, famed iOS hacker pod2g in an interview with iDownloadBlog said that he was, “very confident about the next 6 months” when it came to an iPhone 5 compatible iOS 6 untethered jailbreak. And that’s where the music has stopped. If so, it may be deep into the summer before the iPhone 5 will be jailbroken. We sure hope this isn’t the case.
- saurik 14y ago
  FWIW, this is all a recent development; the iPhone 4, for example, was entirely defeated: Apple can't fix it with software updates, they have to go back to their manufacturing process and start using new low-level bootloaders. There are definitely jailbreaks for the iPhone 4 for iOS 6, and there will continue to be when Apple releases iOS 7. Given that Apple then continues to sell the iPhone 4, and they continue to sell very well, you have to defend the argument that "DRM is working well for Apple" against "jailbreaking many devices are easy" even if not "jailbreaking all devices are easy". This is especially true given that these old devices not just sell, but sell well. http://allthingsd.com/20121018/older-iphones-still-selling-like-well-iphones/ http://allthingsd.com/20121018/older-iphones-still-selling-l...
mikeash 14y ago
Oh good, I didn't realize it was not hard to jailbreak. Can you tell me where to find a jailbreak for my 4S running the latest iOS? I haven't been able to find one.
- saurik 14y ago
  Just because it is hard for people who have the latest-greatest device, does not mean that it is generally hard: many users (I would argue especially the demographics that pirate) either still have or are newly acquiring older devices.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    A 4S is hardly "latest-greatest", and having to specifically buy a different (and inferior) device in order to jailbreak definitely qualifies as "hard" in my book.
    - saurik 14y ago
      Read: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4995559 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4995559 (this was posted by me in response to someone else 7 hours before your comment, but it directly addresses your argument: concentrating on anything but iPhone 4 is a very "I have a lot of both money and knowledge about technology"-focussed way of approaching this problem that loses touch with the actual demographics that are being discussed when you look at piracy...)
rayiner 14y ago
I don't know a single person with a jail broken phone. My wife, parents, and most kd my friends couldn't even articulate the concept. Then again my circle has a log fewer engineers these days than it used to.

by myko 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago

I would imagine, even if most users can't do it themselves, other family members or friends will do it for them, in the same way they've been installing Chrome on their computers before. This can quickly (a few years) lead to a large portion of the users using jailkbroken devices, and getting used to having their device jailbroken.

cglace 14y ago
If you are willing to help lots of nontechnical people jailbreak their phones you better have a lot of time for the thousands of support questions they flood you with.
ghshephard 14y ago
I'm pretty tech savvy, I work with very tech savvy people. Many of them write firmware, network routing systems, and spend hours a day JTAGing various spins of our NICs. I don't know how to jailbreak my phone, nor have my dozen or so google searches yielded anything useful, nor do any of my colleagues have jailbroken phones - despite being precisely the type of people who want to. Jail breaking used to be straightforward a couple years ago, but for anyone with a recent phone (I have an iPhone 5, colleagues have iPhone 4S's) - it's become pretty difficult. Any links or pointers appreciated though....
- saurik 14y ago
  I doubt that most of the people who pirate have a recent phone: they probably have hand-me-downs from their parents or purchased the device second-hand off of eBay. In fact, if you consider piracy a feature, you probably purposely purchase an older phone: Apple still sells the iPhone 4, which continues to be trivial to jailbreak.

eridius 14y ago

I can use anecdotes too! Approximately zero percent of the people I know well have jailbroken their phones.

arrrg 14y ago

Huh, well no one I know has jailbroken their iPhone. Battle of the anecdotes!

awakeasleep 14y ago

Remember to place yourself in context! You and your friends are probably around the top 10% of people with technical skills on the planet.

ghshephard 14y ago
Probably more like top 0.1% - technical people sometimes are truly unaware how niche their talent/knowledge/peer group is.

Steko 14y ago

"I don't remember it being very difficult to jailbreak" http://www.autoomobile.com/news/iphone-5-ios-6-untethered-jailbreak-35/10010783/ http://www.autoomobile.com/news/iphone-5-ios-6-untethered-ja... iPhone 5 & iOS 6 Untethered Jailbreak: Where Art Thou? 15 mins ago by Rick Berke It has been a few months since the rollout of iOS 6. In that time we have yet to see a successful iOS 6 untethered jailbreak for the two main smartphones in waiting – the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. iPhone 5 & iOS 6 untethered jailbreak progress report This has left iPhone 4S users on iOS 5 and iPhone 5 users left with no option but to remain locked down. So where is the iOS 6 untethered jailbreak? Let’s take a look at the progress so far. Starting off in September, we saw the first evidence of an iOS 6 jailbreak from chpwn, who gave us a glimpse of an iPhone 5 jailbroken and running Cydia. Then in October came news from @planetbeing of a tethered iOS 6 jailbreak under development, and the solution was usable but needed a developer account. Then it November @planetbeing returned and said that he was even closer to a public release but “missing critical pieces.” At the time he showed IntelliscreenX running on an iPhone 5. Then in December we were met with a number of hoaxes including a very convincing one from Dream JB. Lastly in the last days of the year, famed iOS hacker pod2g in an interview with iDownloadBlog said that he was, “very confident about the next 6 months” when it came to an iPhone 5 compatible iOS 6 untethered jailbreak. And that’s where the music has stopped. If so, it may be deep into the summer before the iPhone 5 will be jailbroken. We sure hope this isn’t the case.

saurik 14y ago
FWIW, this is all a recent development; the iPhone 4, for example, was entirely defeated: Apple can't fix it with software updates, they have to go back to their manufacturing process and start using new low-level bootloaders. There are definitely jailbreaks for the iPhone 4 for iOS 6, and there will continue to be when Apple releases iOS 7. Given that Apple then continues to sell the iPhone 4, and they continue to sell very well, you have to defend the argument that "DRM is working well for Apple" against "jailbreaking many devices are easy" even if not "jailbreaking all devices are easy". This is especially true given that these old devices not just sell, but sell well. http://allthingsd.com/20121018/older-iphones-still-selling-like-well-iphones/ http://allthingsd.com/20121018/older-iphones-still-selling-l...

mikeash 14y ago

Oh good, I didn't realize it was not hard to jailbreak. Can you tell me where to find a jailbreak for my 4S running the latest iOS? I haven't been able to find one.

saurik 14y ago
Just because it is hard for people who have the latest-greatest device, does not mean that it is generally hard: many users (I would argue especially the demographics that pirate) either still have or are newly acquiring older devices.
- mikeash 14y ago
  A 4S is hardly "latest-greatest", and having to specifically buy a different (and inferior) device in order to jailbreak definitely qualifies as "hard" in my book.
  - saurik 14y ago
    Read: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4995559 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4995559 (this was posted by me in response to someone else 7 hours before your comment, but it directly addresses your argument: concentrating on anything but iPhone 4 is a very "I have a lot of both money and knowledge about technology"-focussed way of approaching this problem that loses touch with the actual demographics that are being discussed when you look at piracy...)

rayiner 14y ago

I don't know a single person with a jail broken phone. My wife, parents, and most kd my friends couldn't even articulate the concept. Then again my circle has a log fewer engineers these days than it used to.