Jailbreaking doable? Desirable?

October 12, 2011 3:16 PM

Do I even want to attempt jailbreaking my ipod touch 2 for ios5?

I really like the features of ios5.

Unfortunately I only have a 2nd generation ipod touch. Ios5 is only for 4th gen and higher, I believe.

Is it possible to jailbreak and have ios5 running on my ipod touch smoothly, or should I just bite the bullet and buy a new ipod touch? (I really, really, don't want to plunk down 300 USD for a new one...)

I have zero experience jailbreaking, don't know how easy or difficult this is.

Thanks.

posted by The ____ of Justice to Technology (8 answers total)

No.

No no no no no no.

Even if you could do this (as earlier attempts to get iOS 4 running on the original iPhone attest), performance would be abysmal.
posted by Oktober at 3:35 PM on October 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

No.
Jailbreaking merely opens up the file system so that you can install apps that are not apple approved. It can not make the OS run on equipment that does not have the horsepower to run it.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 3:36 PM on October 12, 2011

And, if you're not happy with performance, it's very difficult to downgrade back to an earlier version.
posted by Oktober at 3:36 PM on October 12, 2011

Which features in iOS 5 appeal to you? You may be able to jailbreak and find some kind of approximation, although you won't actually be able to run the new OS (and wouldn't want to anyway, it would be awful).

I've not found jailbreaking to be very useful, personally. I only do it because my iPhone is unlocked so I have to.
posted by The Lamplighter at 3:40 PM on October 12, 2011

You might look at whited00r if your Touch is beginning to feel dated. It's a custom ROM that implements some of the iOS4 features on an iOS3 codebase, so performance is still snappy. It's also the only way I found to downgrade my Touch 2G from iOS4. They're now working on a version that adds iOS 5 features to older devices.
posted by unmake at 6:40 PM on October 12, 2011

Right, jailbreaking won't allow this.

IOS5 will run on a 3rd Gen iPod Touch. You can get one of those for way less than $300 on Craigslist. If you buy one with a cracked screen and replace it yourself you can do even better.
posted by chazlarson at 8:07 PM on October 12, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks for your answers, everyone. Looks like I'll look into a new (or used, for that matter) ipod Touch, or possibly even an ipad if finances permit. And thanks for the link to whited00r, unmake. I'll take a look and see if it's got the features that I want.

Lamplighter--to be specific, I'm looking at a way to update stuff like ical and notes wirelessly between my macbook and ipodtouch, WITHOUT the use of the cloud.
posted by The ____ of Justice at 1:55 AM on October 13, 2011

For now, there are apps that let you sync your calendar and notes wirelessly.

Calendar - Just use Google Calendar and add that account to your phone and iCal. Both will pull data directly from Google Calendar. Your phone and Macbook store copies locally so you'll still have access without an internet connection.

Notes - Simplenote is great for this. The iPhone version has the same name, and there's an OSX client called Notational Velocity.
posted by yodangson at 6:51 AM on October 13, 2011