Why Jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch?

When you first hear about the ability to jailbreak your iPhone you are probably thinking, “Why should I do this?” Well, the two main reasons are to allow programs to run that Apple doesn’t approve of and to customize your device. I’m going to try and cover some of the best programs (apps) that you can run and best customizations (mods) you can do after jailbreaking your device.

Example Jailbreak Apps

Cydia Cydia is like the App Store, it’s lets you install applications right to your iPhone or iPod Touch with out a computer. Really, the correct way to say it would be the App Store is like Cydia because there was Cydia before there was the App Store. There was also an app called Installer but now Cydia has taken over as the best program to use to get jailbroken apps onto your iPhone or iPod Touch. Anyway, basically the App Store works just like Cydia. If you want to learn more about how Cydia works see this article.
Winterboard Winterboard is the application that allows you to change the look of things on your iPhone. We’ll use this a lot later when we look at modding your iPhone. Basically it lets you install different themes or visual changes to your device.

Example Modifications (Mods)

Wallpaper on your Springboard Apple lets you put wallpaper on your lockscreen but not on your Springboard (home screen). With Winterboard you can. Just check “User Wallpaper” and your wallpaper is now on both your lockscreen and Springboard. There’s also a “Dim Wallpaper” option if you want it to look more faded.
Change Your Dock Personally, I think the dock that comes on the iPhone is ugly. No problem! You can change it to whatever you want. There are a lot out there already created and most themes come with their own dock (I’ll get to themes later). And, if you don’t want a dock at all, just check “Transparent Dock” in WinterBoard.
Themes There are hundreds, if not thousands of themes designed for the iPhone. They include all kinds of visual changes to your iPhone including wallpaper, different icons, battery on the locks screen, docks and so on. There are many ways to install themes like through Cydia or manually uploading them to your iPhone through SSH. How ever you do it, themes allow you to customize your iPhone to look the way you want. Click here to see some of the themes we have listed.
Live Icons One thing I always wondered is why the Calendar icon changed to the correct date but the Weather and Clock icons were always static (not changing). Well, by jailbreaking your iPhone you’ll have access to some hacks that make these live. The clock hands move with the real time. Even the second hand moves. And, for the Weather icon, the current temperature and weather conditions update right on the icon! I’m not sure why Apple never did this themselves but thanks to Stimpy5050 for figuring it out!
Reflective Dock Here’s another thing that Apple should have done. They use reflections in a lot of their design and applications so I’m not sure why they left it out on the iPhone. Just see this article on how to set it up. It makes your icons in your dock have a fadded reflection. You use WinterBoard to turn in on.
Five Icon Dock This one’s as simple as it sounds. By installing this mod through Cydia, you can then drag a fifth icon the dock. See the full article here.
Five Icon SpringBoard If five icons on your dock isn’t enough you can try the Five Icon SpringBoard mod. It makes room for five icon in each row on your entire springboard. It’s also confirmed that it lets you install more apps since there’s more room for icons. You can read more about how to install it in these articles.
Customize Your Status Bar I love customizing my status bar so I can see what’s going on from any app. A big one is adding the date to the already existing time. You can do this through an app called SBSettings. This way I don’t have to look at the calendar icon to check today’s date. I also like changing the way things look. This can be done via SSH or just installing some changes through Cydia. Changing what the battery looks like is done with an app called Battery Control. This lets me remove the battery, just haver percentage, tap to change and more. There is a lot more like weather, status notifications and changing my carrier; just check the links for more info.

Example Hacks

Emoji (Japanese Emoticons) Hacks are things you can do to make your iPhone even better. They’re not always apps. For example, The enable Emoji hack turns on the Japanese Emoticons on your iPhone. It’s supposed to be only available to Japanese iPhones but now anyone can enjoy them. Just search for Emoji in Cydia or check out this article.
More coming soon…