Pros and Cons of Unlocking iPhone

U. S. Librarian of Congress ruled that you can jailbreak your phone and install third party apps which are not offered by the apple store. But you need to understand that unlocking and Jailbreaking and are not the same. Jailbreaking allows you to access and modify certain portion where are unlocking allows you to use your phone with another carrier. Question is it is advisable to jailbreak your iPhone ?

If you are travelling out of country and want to use your phone, you can call your carrier and explain that you need to unlock phone for international use. This is a special case where carrier will unlock your phone on request. But this unlock is only for international SIM cards. It means if you unlock your iPhone for international use and insert AT&T or T-Mobile SIM, your phone will not recognize it.

Jailbreaking will allow you to customize iPhone’s interface which Apple does not allows. For example, you can apply themes that will change wallpaper and its icons. You can record videos on older iPhone like that of iPhone 3G. Also, with the installation of SSH, you can access every part of the iPhone.

Its not difficult to Jailbreak your iPhone. There are few iOS vulnerabilities that will help you unlock your device by visiting jailbreakme.com. There you just have to slide a switch that jailbreaks device and installs a copy of Cydia. This is the easiest way to Jailbreak your iPhone.

But ,there are few cons too .

You need to Jailbreak device through trusted site. We don’t know what is happening in the background while you Jailbreak device. There is no guarantee that your personal data will not be exploited. so ,you need to be sure about it before you go further.

When you Jailbreak your device and install SHH, it is more accessible from other side. So, its very important that you change its password. You can learn how to change device’s password in Cydia.

Your battery life could get damaged.

Your iPhone becomes less stable due to quirky nature of the App Store’s approval process. There is no guarantee for Apps provided through Cydia that they will be stable.

Recently Apple released statement on Jail breaking risk is as quoted below :

” It is important to note that unauthorized modification of the iOS is a violation of the iPhone end-user license agreement and because of this, Apple may deny service for an iPhone, iPad , or iPod touch that has installed any unauthorized software. ”

If you Jail break your iPhone and expect any kind of help from Apple store, you will be turned away. its a simple logic, if you break warranty then you will not get any support from Apple.

These are few pros and cons of Jailbreaking or Unlocking your iPhone. So its upto you whether you want it or not. It is advised not to unlock your iPhone as it is against the law. If you unlock your device illegally then you will have to pay damage charges to the carrier along with the additional fee that may occur with lawsuit.