A recent ruling handed down from the U.S. Copyright Office now legalizes the jailbreaking and unlocking of cell phones in the U.S. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of jailbreaking? This blog entry answers those questions with attention specifically directed toward the iPhone 4, which is the smartphone most affected by this ruling.

Let’s begin with the positives. Jailbreaking your phone allows you to download apps from anywhere, not just the iTunes App Store. This is important because Apple refuses to authorize certain kinds of apps. Specifically, there are no apps in the official App Store that let you customize the home screen or turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot for your laptop. However, such apps do exist elsewhere on the internet for jailbroken phones. Many suspect that jailbreaking may even allow for the development of apps that let you video chat over 3G networks; currently this feature is only available over Wi-Fi. Jailbreaking the phone will let you visit non-Apple websites to download these and other apps.

Unlocking a smartphone is also desirable for one important reason: it allows you to use your phone over any GSM network. The only GSM networks in the United States are AT&T and T-Mobile, which is bad news for those who want to unlock their phone and take it to Verizon or Sprint. However, the ability to legally unlock your phone is great news for those wanting to take the phone to T-Mobile.

So what’s the downside of jailbreaking your phone? As Apple was quick to point out following the government ruling, jailbreaking voids your warranty with Apple. This means if the phone turns into a brick—tech lingo that essentially means the phone is broken—Apple likely won’t fix it. In other words, jailbreaking could leave you with an expensive iPhone that can’t do anything. Furthermore, all iTunes apps are pre-approved for download by Apple while apps downloaded from other websites are often less likely to have been thoroughly tested and are more likely to contain harmful viruses.

Despite the potential harmful effects, many readers will still choose to jailbreak and unlock their phones. And remember, doing so is not illegal, though it should only be done with caution. So how exactly does one jailbreak an iPhone or other Apple device? The easiest way is to visit www.jailbreakme.com directly on the device you want to jailbreak. A prompt will pull up asking permission to download. You can then unlock the phone through a different program once it has been jailbroken. At this time we don’t know of any unlocking programs that are safe and reliable, but we will keep our readers updated on any good ones that we find.

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