Everyone has come across the word Jailbreak, at some point in their life, even if it may be a common Android or heck, a feature phone user. The meaning of the term, on the contrary, is relatively lesser known than its counterpart; Rooting an Android.

What is iOS jailbreak?

The concept behind both is nearly the same. What rooting is for Android, jailbreaking is for iPhones. Both of them grant “root” access to the system (hence the term root) or in simple words, allows a user to have full control over the device. While Rooting would perhaps always live on, Jailbreaking has become rather dead over the years, but not entirely.

The purpose of Jailbreaking your iPhone or iPad is plain simple. Over the decade, much has changed in the iOS, the operating system offered by Apple. Before the major changes, a person would rather be disappointed by the fact, that they couldn’t do much with their iPhones but rather just make a call or text or install a third-party app from the Appstore, which didn’t offer what Androids had already embedded in themselves.

With the likes of JailbreakMe, Pangu ,Taig and a few others, most of the Jailbreak community relied on these to feature a new jailbreak as soon as an iOS update was released, though it usually took months for a jailbreak to be released. There were times when people thought, Jailbreaking was done and dusted, but a developer Luca Todesco popped up with exploits leading to possible Jailbreaks particularly of iOS 10.

Jailbreaking has its own benefits. One can install many tweaks from the Big Boss repository itself inside Cydia or can add other repositories as well to benefit from a large variety of tweaks and modded apps and cracked applications available.

Though it’s not just restricted to that. You can even change your rather familiar “Apple” Boot Logo or opt for a different Carrier Name to be displayed. You can even set your own set of commands triggered by the physical buttons on the iPhone. One such tweak Activator would let you through a plethora of custom settings you can set your iPhone to.

It should be mentioned that it’s rather apparent that most of the iOS updates rather copy the most wanted jailbreak tweaks. For instance, the night shift mode introduced by Apple in iOS 9 is a jailbreak tweak by the name of Flux. The Overhauled Control Center in iOS 11 is in courtesy people installing tweaks to change their control center icons.

Some of the tweaks which need mentioning are:

iFile:

It’s the ultimate file manager what most iPhone users have always wanted to have. You have root level access to every iPhone folder even the system ones. So feel free to do what you want but bear in mind, system changes can lead to consequences as well.

Swipe Selection:

The tweak which I wonder why isn’t included by Apple already in its software. It allows you to move the cursor just by swiping left and right on the keyboard, and lets you select text as well by swiping from the extreme left or right on the keyboard. Therefore, it becomes easier to make a change rather than replacing a whole word.

Watusi:

Alas, the best Mod out there for Whatsapp. Not only can it help you hide your Online status, even if you have opened the App, but also lets you have custom settings for read receipts. This means that you can choose to see your recipient’s “blueticks”, but they won’t see yours! Also, you can opt for turning on your last seen on automatically when you open Whatsapp and have it automatically turned off when you close it. You would surely like to check out other tweaks included in it as well.

Activator:

This doesn’t need any mentioning since it is a must-have for any jailbreaker. It simply allows you to map any of your buttons to what you want them to do.

Safari Downloader+:

Ever wanted to download stuff from the internet to your iPhone, but couldn’t? Well, then this tweak would make sure that you can! You can then access the file using a file manager like iFile or Filza.

There are much more out there, you just need to search what you want.

Wow, that’s interesting, how to jailbreak then and is jailbreaking really dead?

As for now, since Apple has increased the level of security with every update, it has become harder to jailbreak than in the past. This has lead to some repositories like ModMyi shutting down, since the revenues generated weren’t simply enough to keep them up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Jailbreaking dead. It’s still pretty much alive. Developers are working day and night to try and find exploits in the Apple software.

Just recently a Jailbreak was announced for iOS 11.0-11.1.2 as well. Though iOS 11.2 and up users would have to wait a bit longer for a jailbreak to be released. The following is a list of iOS which currently support a jailbreak.

Now if you want to jailbreak your device, just search up the jailbreak name from the list above along with the iOS version you have, and follow the top links. Beware, though there are many scams out there too, which might ask you to pay or install their “fake” app. Always Remember; Jailbreaking is Free, and always will be!