Jailbreaking iPhones: what exactly does it entail?

https://lemmy.world/post/2388966

Jailbreaking iPhones: what exactly does it entail? - Lemmy.world

I remember back in the day when people would “Jailbreak” iPhones, but never really picked up on what they were doing other than that it let them do stuff that those of us with “non-jailbroken” iPhones couldn’t do. Are they just booting another OS, e.g. android? Also: why haven’t I heard of it in a while? Is it not possible on newer iPhones?

It meant getting root access to the device, which means you can do anything you want. People would get apps for free, install ones that aren’t on the app store and customize their home screen in ways that Apple doesn’t allow (like placing apps where you want). It’s still IOS, just with the ability to screw around under the hood.

For Android, rooting is pretty much the same thing and it’s still common.

Ahh, that makes sense. How did you go about doing that? It’s not like you have a terminal to mess around in on an iPhone? Is the reason I haven’t heard of it in a while that it’s harder/impossible in newer iPhones?

Also: Why would apple prevent you from having root access? The way I see it, when I buy a phone, just like a pc, I should be allowed to do what I want with it.

Some of the jailbreaks could be performed simply by visiting a specific website. Bugs in the web browser in earlier versions of iOS would trigger something known as a buffer overflow. A very specially crafted web request could target a buffer overflow bug that could cause arbitrary code to be executed within iOS. It would require a lot of trial and error to figure out how to craft appropriate commands.