Rooting and Jailbreaking

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poadeleted20

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Some folks here had discussed the idea of "jailbreaking" one's iPad and "rooting" one's cell phone to create a WiFi hotspot so one could get online with one's iPad without paying AT&T $30/month. I bounced that idea off my Best Buy Geek Squad son, and got this response:
Although it could give you hotspot access, it completely voids both warranties and makes it entirely possible to brick one or both devices.
Click to expand...
I gather that "bricking" a device means turning it from a useful electronic device into a useless chunk of matter.

Comments?
 
Would that be a 91.13 violation if caught by the manufacturer????

:D
 
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Ron Levy said:
Some folks here had discussed the idea of "jailbreaking" one's iPad and "rooting" one's cell phone to create a WiFi hotspot so one could get online with one's iPad without paying AT&T $30/month. I bounced that idea off my Best Buy Geek Squad son, and got this response:
I gather that "bricking" a device means turning it from a useful electronic device into a useless chunk of matter.

Comments?
Click to expand...

The risk of bricking is pretty small. Almost all Android devices have a bootloader mode you can boot from (most phones its "Hold Camera and Power during boot"), which allows you to restore to the original settings.

But, if you brick it, your warranty will almost certainly be void, which is crap IMHO, because its a hardware warranty, not a software warranty, but I digress. A voided warranty means you're on the hook if something breaks and you can't restore back to the non-rooted state (which, again, is not very common).
 
Ron Levy said:
... I gather that "bricking" a device means turning it from a useful electronic device into a useless chunk of matter...
Click to expand...
Yes, but not in a way that actually damages the item, more that the unit will not boot on its own and you will not be able to restore the unit back to operational software using the mechanisms available to you. The manufacturer's service guys should have the ability to bring it back to life, but there's the threat that if it got into that state by you doing something they don't want you to do, that they might refuse to revive it for you.

I don't know that I've heard a lot of horror stories along these lines, it's sort of a bogeyman threat to discourage the faint of heart from straying from what the manufacturer considers to be the straight and narrow.

The question to ask yourself is whether you're better described as "user, expects the thing to work" vs "hobbyist, dabbler, happy to make a hobby out of maintaining the thing".
-harry
 
Ron Levy said:
User, expects things to work.
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Ron, all jailbreaking and rooting is, by its nature experimental. In aviation vernacular, you've become a test pilot.

Crap and all that aside, when you mess around with the thing in a way that goes beyond its built-in protections, you are accepting the risks of doing so.

I'm a bit of a geek but I was put off by most of the stuff I read about jailbreaking an iPad and, especially since I have no prior experience with Apple products, came to the decision that the risk of causing a problem with it was too high for me. OTOH, I feel much more confident about the rooting process for the my far less expensive and linux-variant Droid.
 
Not to pick on your son, but the flying pig is right: the chance of a problem is very (very) small if you're careful. The problem is that you sound non-technical, and that creates the big risk.

Personally, I tell the "average" user to not do something like this. Not that it can't be done, but it's generally not wise due to increased probability of user error causing a problem.
 
I don't think you have to jailbreak iPad to tether it to Android phone.
Once you enabled tethering on rooted Android phone it becomes Wireless Access Point that you connect to. At least that the way it works on Verizon iPhone when you enable "Personal Hotspot".
Can someone who has Android phone confirm that?
 
Artiom said:
I don't think you have to jailbreak iPad to tether it to Android phone.
Once you enabled tethering on rooted Android phone it becomes Wireless Access Point that you connect to. At least that the way it works on Verizon iPhone when you enable "Personal Hotspot".
Can someone who has Android phone confirm that?
Click to expand...
Yes. I can. The "hotspot" software you use (there are a number of them in the Market) on the rooted Android phone generally lets you name your wireless hotspot what you want to and the iPad finds it and connects to it with no problem.

The idea of using the android phone as a hotspot is to avoid jailbreaking the iPad.
 
I bought a PDAnet for my wife, it tethers over USB cable, using a debugging backdoor without a need to jailbreak. This avoids the issues with having a WiFi, both security and performance, esp. in case of heavy EMI in 2.4GHz from e.g. a nearby microwave owen.

The comparison with test piloting completely misses the point. It's not like the device cannot do what you ask it to do (after jailbreaking). It's just the carriers set up these barriers in the software in order to fleece consumers.
 
Ron Levy said:
Some folks here had discussed the idea of "jailbreaking" one's iPad and "rooting" one's cell phone to create a WiFi hotspot so one could get online with one's iPad without paying AT&T $30/month. I bounced that idea off my Best Buy Geek Squad son, and got this response:
I gather that "bricking" a device means turning it from a useful electronic device into a useless chunk of matter.

Comments?
Click to expand...

Artiom said:
Just want to make it clear - no need to do anything with iPad if Android phone is rooted and provides hotspot capabilities.
Click to expand...

This is correct. However, I agree with nick in the fact that the warranty is on the hardware. It's not too hard to "go back to stock" if something does go bad with the phone (hardware wise). I did this with my previous iPhone when the gps chip went south.

But, I've always been a tinkerer with my electronics and do fix things like broken screens myself instead of taking it in to a shop.

I do love my CyanogenMod 7 HTC Aria with its hotspot feature. Very nice to tether the laptop through wifi or usb when on a roadtrip. It has also been very stable - my not so tech savvy girlfriend has been running it without issues on her HTC Incredible.

Maybe someone can help you root your Droid, Ron?
 
Thanks for the explanations. I'll discuss this further with my son, as he'd be the one to help me "root my Droid" (not that I really understand what that means).
 
I wonder if they use the word "root" or "rooting" in this context in England/Australia. Or not.
 
Ron Levy said:
Thanks for the explanations. I'll discuss this further with my son, as he'd be the one to help me "root my Droid" (not that I really understand what that means).
Click to expand...
Ron,

"root" is a term from Unix. It is the name of the super-user account that has privileges to modify and install anything on a system. So, in order to make certain modifications to smartphones, many of which now run the Linux OS, root access is required.
 
jxdrl said:
This is correct. However, I agree with nick in the fact that the warranty is on the hardware. It's not too hard to "go back to stock" if something does go bad with the phone (hardware wise). I did this with my previous iPhone when the gps chip went south.
Click to expand...

This is true. If you do it correctly, you will be able to restore a jailbroken iPad to it's factory condition. I've jailbroken my iPhone 3GS and won't upgrade to the 4 or 5 until they can be jailbroken.
 
Interesting article in today's wsj journal about rooting a color nook, and turning it into a decent android tablet for under $200. Didn't sound like rocket science.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Interesting article in today's wsj journal about rooting a color nook, and turning it into a decent android tablet for under $200. Didn't sound like rocket science.
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Steve Jobs doesn't build "decent," he creates "insanely great!" :goofy:
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Interesting article in today's wsj journal about rooting a color nook, and turning it into a decent android tablet for under $200. Didn't sound like rocket science.
Click to expand...

I've done that to my Color Nook and it's turned into a nice little sub $300 android tablet. I use it all the time to surf the web, check email, play games etc as well as use the original Nook software to read ebooks. Plenty of videos and instructions on the web to do this. Here's the one I used.

I rooted my Samsung Captivate as well and have changed roms, returned it to stock, then reloaded another rom several times. No problems. After rooting and loading a new Rom, I now have a mobile access point on the phone without having to pay AT&T, and I use it with the Nook to surf when I'm not near wifi. Rooting is pretty easy to do if you follow the instructions carefully.
 
ausrere said:
I've done that to my Color Nook and it's turned into a nice little sub $300 android tablet. I use it all the time to surf the web, check email, play games etc as well as use the original Nook software to read ebooks. Plenty of videos and instructions on the web to do this. Here's the one I used.

I rooted my Samsung Captivate as well and have changed roms, returned it to stock, then reloaded another rom several times. No problems. After rooting and loading a new Rom, I now have a mobile access point on the phone without having to pay AT&T, and I use it with the Nook to surf when I'm not near wifi. Rooting is pretty easy to do if you follow the instructions carefully.
Click to expand...

Is the Nook Color a normal LCD screen, or does it have some variation on the "e-ink" technology thing that the black and white Nook has?
 
Radio Flyer said:
This is true. If you do it correctly, you will be able to restore a jailbroken iPad to it's factory condition. I've jailbroken my iPhone 3GS and won't upgrade to the 4 or 5 until they can be jailbroken.
Click to expand...


iPhone 4's are able to be jailbroken depending on age and software version. Before I jumped ship, they just weren't able to be unlocked which isn't a problem if you're staying with AT&T. However, I'm sure everything I've said is now changed somewhat since the iPhone modding scene moves very quickly.

I have a white iPhone 4 with two hairline cracks for sale...
 
jxdrl said:
iPhone 4's are able to be jailbroken depending on age and software version. Before I jumped ship, they just weren't able to be unlocked which isn't a problem if you're staying with AT&T. However, I'm sure everything I've said is now changed somewhat since the iPhone modding scene moves very quickly.
Click to expand...

I guess that's true too. I did upgrade my OS to 4.01 but no further becasue of the inability to jailbreak past that software release. At least with the method I used to jailbreak.
 
Ron,

What Artiom said should be emphasized: If you make your phone into a WiFi hotspot, you don't need to do anything special to the iPad at all to access the Internet on it through the phone. So, no worries about the iPad's warranty.

Radio Flyer said:
This is true. If you do it correctly, you will be able to restore a jailbroken iPad to it's factory condition. I've jailbroken my iPhone 3GS and won't upgrade to the 4 or 5 until they can be jailbroken.
Click to expand...

iPhone 4 and iOS 4.3 can already be jailbroken: http://www.macgasm.net/2011/03/10/long-ios-43-jailbroken/

I'm still on 3.2.2 on my iPad (likely upgrade to 4.3 tonight) and 3.0.1 on my iPhone (I still have free unlimited tethering without needing to jailbreak).
 
SkyHog said:
Is the Nook Color a normal LCD screen, or does it have some variation on the "e-ink" technology thing that the black and white Nook has?
Click to expand...

It's an LED-backlit IPS screen. I'm no expert in screen technology, but it looks great to me and doesn't seem to kill my battery like my Captivate does.
 
Ron Levy said:
Some folks here had discussed the idea of "jailbreaking" one's iPad and "rooting" one's cell phone to create a WiFi hotspot so one could get online with one's iPad without paying AT&T $30/month. I bounced that idea off my Best Buy Geek Squad son, and got this response:
I gather that "bricking" a device means turning it from a useful electronic device into a useless chunk of matter.

Comments?
Click to expand...

There's always a chance of bricking your device... although nowadays permanently bricking it is becoming a thing of the past since there's a whole community out there working on these things.

http://forum.xda-developers.com

-Henri
 
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