this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Explain Like I'm Five
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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.
The argument is that, for most people, letting them do what they want with something they don’t really understand is not a good idea. In this case it also creates a support headache for Apple. At first, they kind of tacitly accepted that jailbreaking was just going to happen and didn’t really actively fight it other than to close exploits used to root devices. As more and more people did it, for the reasons outlined above, more people wound up with bricked, or otherwise malfunctioning iPhones. When they went to Apple to fix it, at first there was an effort to help (you know, to retain customers), but they had voided their warranty. Because of that, Apple wasn’t really interested in spending lots of time troubleshooting something when they didn’t really know the full status of the OS (b/c there were multiple ways to jailbreak, and most of the fools taking their rooted phones to support didn’t understand enough to tell them what all was done beyond, “my kid’s friend said this would be cool”). Eventually Apple washed their hands of the whole thing and started refusing any support for rooted phones. That part, I have no problem with. They also started actively working to stop folks jailbreaking. That part, I thought, was too much. Just tell them they void the warranty by jailbreaking and refuse support. They dug their hole.
FWIW, I use an iPhone for personal use and android (Pixels) for work.
Adding that I’m not saying anyone is a fool for jailbreaking. I think people should have that right. I was saying the fools are the ones who still expected Apple to support the jailbroken OS. To me, if you don’t like Apple’s walled garden on iOS and iPadOS devices, don’t use them.
A laptop is different. People use them from considerably more diverse reasons. Because of that they need to be more flexible.
Also, while all that may seem like BS from a consumer perspective, it’s not as much from a business perspective. If you disagree, take a look at how Apple’s doing these days. Whatever reason you think they’re doing well, they ARE doing quite well.
I agree that it's reasonable to refuse support to someone who breaks certain terms (i.e.
rm -rf /*... "pls help me apple support!")I also agree that actively working hard to prevent me from having root access to a device I buy is going too far.
This is all such bullshit and just justifies apple's locking down of their phones for their own profit. You have root access on your macbook, a phone is no different except that companies felt like they could force people to buy through their app stores. There is 0 difference between allowing people root on their phone versus on their computer.
To be fair, @d00phy did say that
I think it's fair to void support for someone that goes ham in the terminal and breaks a bunch of shit, at least if you explicitly state that doing so will void support. You have root access on your macbook, but I assume the average person using it knows more about what they're doing than the average person jailbreaking their phone (which was pretty much anyone as far as I can remember). Also: If you tell support that you opened the terminal and typed a bunch of stuff and now your macbook is broken, I assume support is likely to tell you "tough luck..."
I think voiding support is only reasonable if it's directly related to the jailbreak. Not fixing a hardware issue because you rooted is total bullshit
I am super scared that they eventually start locking down macOS too. I agree that it makes little sense that they do it for one platform and not the other, and I don’t see them ever backing down on it for the iPhone, so.. hopefully they never feel like making that consistent across OSes.
I can definitely see them leaving macOS alone though. I can't imagine anyone would buy a macbook to use for development if they don't have root access, while, as far as I know, nobody buys iPhones or iPads to develop anything. If they do it would only be for testing purposes, which I assume should be fine without root access, as you're developing for an end-user that doesn't have root access.
I guess it's about the difference audiences. Developers are a decent part of Apple's MacBook customer base and without root access they're not even gonna look in your product's general direction.
Absolutely right! But large tech companies have been on a trend of getting a little too greedy and daring, lately. Let’s hope they know better.
I would agree with this. I think the canary in that particular coal mine would be Apple working to kill off Homebrew or Macports. So far, I haven’t seen any indication that this is on the radar.
Fi used to work desktop support, and the “average user” probably has no idea what “root access” even means. I’ve seriously had someone point to my open iTerm window and ask what I was hacking. Always remember what George Carlin said about the average person.
Apple disagrees hard with that, they think they are the only ones who should ever have full access. It's easy to see why: If you have root access, you can get rid of their tracking and other data collection and avoid the ads that are shown in built-in apps like the app store.
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.
You rely on security exploits that grant access to low level stuff, which then allows for jailbreak. As security vulnerabilities get more and more discovered and fixed there’s just less opportunities to have root access.
I guess I should introduce you to Louis Rossman's YouTube channel...
Got a link?
step 1: head to YouTube
step 2: click/tap on the search bar
step 3: type in the name "louis rossman" and hit enter/search
... and Bob's your uncle!
This is the reason why I will never buy an iphone, way too limited. On android I don't even need root access to install alternative app stores und custom apps.