Jailbreaking Stunts Are Summer Fun at Apple Retail Outlets

Lonnie Lazar ()

At times, it seems, store employees fill many Apple retail outlets at a near one to one ratio with customers. Which raises a question about just what those employees are doing on the clock, for this summer’s favorite prank is quickly becoming jailbreaking Apple devices right under those employees’ noses — or behind their backs, as the case may be.

Perhaps it’s nothing more than bored kids on summer break with nothing better to do, but since our report Monday of a self-proclaimed “bored” anonymous prankster jailbreaking all the display phones at an unnamed Apple store, at least three more incidents of similar mischief have been reported.

The following video may be the first one to have hit the net; it went up on Sunday:

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About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in Galleries, Jailbreak, News, Retail Stores, Top stories, Video |

  • thec

    Oh boy sooooooooo cool ( not )

  • DCJ001

    What is accomplished by doing this in an Apple Store?

    Nothing.

    If/when you get caught, you’ll have some explaining to do.

    And it will be a big deal. If I were to catch you, I would not let you go.

    And I’m not even an Apple employee.

  • http://webstarts.com Dayne

    One of these is just a video of a kid changing the wallpaper to android images…

  • MODiFiEDZ
  • LG DACOM

    This is stupid but it does reveal the moronism of Apple Store employees. I haven’t met an Apple Store employee who wasn’t a GD’d toolbox since 2003 or 2004. They act pissy if I go into the store already knowing what I want to buy, or inconvenienced because I’m not a 17 year-old girl feigning interest in an iPhone.

  • http://www.fantastic-realities.com/studio_blog Samuriartguy

    It seems to me that while Apple fans love their little iOS running bricks of electric crack, they are not all that happy with Apple’s policies.

    And I agree with LG DACOM that the quality of Apple Store folk does seem to be slipping, at least at the (something-less-than) Genius Bar. But I guess you don’t need as much training to poke recaltriant iPods and activate iPhones.

  • Nebby

    I’m not entirely sure which apple stores you guys are going to, but the interview and training process is quite intensive. Although I will admit I’ve met employees that were not as up to par as they should have been. As for the amount of employees, I just left a store staffed with nearly 200 of us apple geeks and we were consistently juggling multiple customers at a time. We were always slammed.

  • Gizmoe

    You have absolutely too much fucking time on your hands…

  • http://www.fuzzypig.com Fuzzy

    Kids push boundaries, that’s what they do. Not saying this is right, indeed this is on the brink of criminal damage, but there are far more useful things they could be doing, then again there are far worse things for them to do.

    This is no worse than those planks who go into the local PC World/Costco and lock up the Windows screensavers, “for a laugh”. Most newspaper and convinience stores now have signs, “No more than 2 under-14s at once in the store!”, can see this will soon spring up in the Apple stores!

    I can appreciate though, this is not in the least bit funny if you work there, having to repair the damage at the end of each shift must be extremely frustrating.

  • Rob

    Lest they forget that Apple surveillance cameras watch them…
    And thanks cult for promoting the practice of jail breaking iPhones in store…
    Does C.O.M. pay submitters of these vids?
    Poor form.

  • LG DACOM

    I don’t know how much training Apple Store people undergo and I don’t care. My point is that they assume that every customer is GD’d moron who knows nothing about computers and nothing about Apple.

  • steven

    Fn clowns

  • Ryan

    What’s the point….?

  • http://www.ipod-to-mac.com/ karrysony

    Apple Store training is very perfect
    I used to try this with my friends

    http://www.ipod-transfer.org/

  • Truevoice

    Why didn’t you just change the wallpaper to “I only love apples in a pie” – loser !

  • Trospero

    It would be enlightening to examine the perpetrators motivation for doing this; I can’t help but conclude that there is some degree of sociopathy at work. From a legal standpoint this is an act of vandalism. It doesn’t matter that DMCA has ruled jailbreaking legal; if you go into ANY store and re-engineer store products to do things the manufacturer didn’t intend them to do, you are vandalizing store property. Such actions have potential consequences.

  • king

    still its fun
    in the end, I don’t see its too much damage done, you can un-do this can’t you?

  • trospero

    @king: the point is that it is “fun” at the expense of the Apple store employees, who have to run around and undo the damage. If this were YOUR job, I doubt you’d think it was so much “fun”.

  • Jim

    Oh come on, you run a restore and the thing is back to normal. this a) is less of a big deal than you guys are making it out to be and b) isn’t really worthy of an article…

    also what does GD’d mean?

  • Juan

    The repair of a jailbroken phone is not as extensive as you may think, all it takes is hooking the iphone up to a computer bringing up iTunes and hitting the Restore button. Just as quickly as you jailbreak it, it can be unbroken just as quickly. Granted, it’s annoying at best, but criminal damage?? That’s a bit extreme. Now, if you lock it, then we’re talking major problems, but none of these kids are going to that extent.

  • Jeremy

    Where are these mythical Apple Stores where employees are one-to-one with customers? I find Apple Stores to be the most miserable experience in the history of retail. Now that they don’t have cash registers, you have to get an employee on the floor to let you pay for anything, and it’s almost impossible to get one of them to talk to you.

    Last week I went, had the item I wanted to buy in my hand, and spent THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES trying to pay for it.

    I could easily have just walked out of the store with it without paying. I stood there talking to many other frustrated “attempted customers”, many of whom just put their merchandise down on a table and left. They, too, could have just walked out with it. There’s no way any employees would have noticed.

    The last thing they’re ever going to notice is whatever you’re doing on the display systems.

  • Scott

    Oddly enough, I’ve had positive experiences both times I’ve visited apple stores. The visits were to 2 different stores and I had 2 employees helping me at each store at one time! The store was busy too. Guess I just got lucky…