Not Another Jailbreak Question (Yes or No?)

July 28, 2009 2:18 PM

I have a brand new 8gig ipod touch on its way in the mail. I plan on using it half for music and half for apps and mobile wifi browsing. Should I jailbreak it, or just upgrade to the 3.0 firmware and use the app store?

Also, if I plan on jailbreaking it, do I still need to upgrade to the 3.0 software for the new functionality?

Here are some more details: I'm your typical techie nerd college student who wants to take the internet with him everywhere he goes. I will probably use some sort of VNC app, and I'm wanting to stream music (video would be a nice bonus too) from my computer to the ipod via something like SimplifyMedia, or a similar option. I use gmail, google calendar, google documents, pandora, twitter, and facebook pretty often, gmail and google calendar wayyy more than the rest. I have a nice garmin gps, but wouldn't mind dabbling in the ipod gps options. Games are a nice bonus, but I figure there are plenty of good ones whether I jailbreak or not.

Anyway, my basic question is- for a techie college student nerd like me, do you think I jailbreaking my new ipod would be more stimulating and useful, or would I not gain enough to make up for apps that I would miss out on?

Oh, also I should note that I don't use itunes for my main media management, and half of the desire to jailbreak just comes from the open source mentality of it.

posted by kraigory to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Update: I thought I'd add that I would appreciate examples of cool apps for jailbroken ipod vs. app store, as well as thoughts on stability with jailbroken ipods and apps.

Thanks!
posted by kraigory at 2:22 PM on July 28

Well, the short version is that if you're not going to use iTunes, you have to Jailbreak.

The longer version is that I've had a 16Gig Touch, and now an iPhone 3GS, and I've never really "missed" anything. It does what I want to do, well, and there's tons of great free apps; UrbanSpoon, AroudMe, Shazam, Pandora,Seadragon, the WSJ and NYT readers and lots of really great games for under $5, off the top of my head I'd recommend Space Invaders Infinity Gene, Edge, Mecho Wars, iFighter, iDracula, Fieldrunners, 7CitiesTD, and Galcon.
posted by Oktober at 2:35 PM on July 28

you should really see what firmware comes with your iPod before deciding on anything.. if it's truly brand-new and hasn't been sitting on a shelf for a while, it may come with 3.0. if nothing else, it'll probably have 2.0, which has the App Store anyway. (the current Touch revision came out after iPhone 2.0, so you should at least have that. I don't remember if they put newer software revisions on current Touches, and, in any case, yours may have been sitting for a while.) on a Touch, it's not as worth upgrading to 3.0, but it can still be worth it just for speed increases and whatnot.

the Touch doesn't have a GPS radio, so you won't be able to use GPS apps even if you jailbreak (except for maybe the upcoming TomTom one, which is supposed to include a GPS receiver as part of the car kit). there are already VNC apps in the App Store, and most everything else you're after has an app anyway. it'd be worth upgrading to 3.0 just because a lot of apps are starting to require it - a quick look at VNC clients shows a few free ones that do, for instance - though you might be able to get around that with a jailbroken Touch and Cydia/modMyI.

you'd gain more tweaks and options with a jailbroken iPod Touch at the cost of ability to upgrade the base OS (restores from iTunes wipe out the jailbroken bits, and you often have to wait for the community to re-hack each upgrade before you can upgrade) and possibly stability. in any case, jailbreaking isn't permanent - if you don't like it, you can always go back to the normal iPhone OS. (this is important because Apple generally won't touch a jailbroken phone if it's broken, even if it's a straight hardware issue.) personally, I'd do the 3.0 upgrade and also jailbreak it to see if I liked it - jailbreaking costs nothing besides your time, and then i'd also have the faster Safari and the ability to run all the 3.0-only App Store apps too.
posted by mrg at 2:38 PM on July 28

my iphone is jailbroken, and I recommend it, for three big reasons:

5 column springboard, 5 icon dock, and SBSettings (the 5's do what they say, SBSettings makes all sorts of handy toggle and power options available from anywhere merely by swiping the menubar)

Supreme Preferences is also useful.

Themes and other UI enhancements (color signal bars, color wifi bars, battery percentage display) are all IMHO necessary (and are certainly in use on my iphone)

so in short - yes, I would jailbreak a touch and yes, you will need to upgrade to 3.0 first.

Once you've upgraded to 3.0, hit up your search engine of choice for redsn0w for jailbreaking (note that this voids your warranty and apply may refuse you service, YMMV, no warranty expressed or implied, caveat emptor, etc, etc...)
posted by namewithoutwords at 2:40 PM on July 28 [1 favorite]

Well, I suppose I could use itunes. I'm used to songbird on linux, so I was going to use that, but it seems you can't really work with an ipod touch with songbird. Bummer. Scratch that part then.
posted by kraigory at 2:43 PM on July 28

I'd do things the normal, non-jailbreaked way until you know them well, otherwise you'll end up taking a sixteen-step solution to a problem that didn't really exist. Also, at least you'll KNOW the regular Apple-approved way well, so you'll understand what it is you're breaking.

It's like... you probably only got into Linux after learning the ins and outs of Windows, and deciding you didn't like Windows much. If you'd just started with Linux, you probably wouldn't appreciate or understand it as well, because you'd be oblivious to the differences.
posted by rokusan at 4:20 PM on July 28

Jailbreaking in no way limits your options for buying apps (including free ones) from the App Store. I'm looking at one right now, just talked on Skype for 20 mins and will be playing with a rejected Google Voice app shortly.
posted by now i'm piste at 7:55 PM on July 28

I love my jailbroken iPod Touch. I can't think of any negatives or reasons not to jailbreak. Here are my thoughts on some of the perceived negatives.

Voids your warranty - if your iPod isn't completely messed up, you can always restore to the normal firmware before you take it in.

Stability - You might experience a little slowdown if you're using a lot of Winterboard themes. That is all. My iPod is completely fine.

Time - The jailbreaking process itself doesn't take long at all. The only difficult thing in my opinion is upgrading to new software without losing things, however there are workarounds, and new software doesn't come around that often.

These apps that you think you would be "missing out on" - there aren't any. You can get any app on a jailbroken iPod that you can on an unjailbroken one, plus a lot more.

The only valid reason I can think of not to jailbreak is the one mentioned above, that you might want to "KNOW the regular Apple-approved way well, so you'll understand what it is you're breaking." In my opinion, this means maybe playing with your iPod for a few days before jailbreaking.

Other reasons to jailbreak. Numeric battery. I have no idea why no other portable devices display the percentage of remaining battery. It is unbelievably useful. Also, if you fit the "poor college student" stereotype and are so inclined, there are ways to *ahem* get any application you want for free. (looks around) But you didn't hear that from me.
posted by N2O1138 at 9:34 PM on July 28

I bought an 8-GB iPod Touch earlier this summer, upgraded to 3.0 the day the update was released, and jailbroke it last weekend. So far so good! It's excellent to have Backgrounder, for example, so I can run Pandora while I open other apps (not possible without jailbreaking).

Echoing those who mentioned Summerboard Settings and numerical battery (and percentage WiFi strength, which is also awesome). You'll want Winterboard too. The best theme, IMHO, is Illuminated, which changes during the day and is aesthetically gorgeous.

Good luck! Don't be daunted, jailbreaking is a gateway to happiness and making other people jealous (my lockscreen slider is an image of the ship Serenity right now!)
posted by fantine at 7:46 AM on July 29