One of the reasons Apple says you shouldn’t jailbreak your iPhone is because doing so will impact performance. But is that actually true, or is that just what Apple wants you to believe? This video holds the answers.
In the video, created by iAppleBytes, two 16GB iPhone 5’s running iOS 9.0.2 are compared. The only difference? One is jailbroken using the latest Pangu exploit, the other isn’t.
So how’d they do? The unjailbroken iPhone 5 booted up in 38.8 seconds, compared to 51.2 seconds for the modded phone. Launching an app for the first time, entering multitasking or invoking Siri also gives the unjailbroken device the slight advantage, although not to the same extent as in the boot-up test.
The takeaway? There’s a marginal performance hit for jailbreaking your iPhone. It’s mostly apparent in booting up your iPhone after powering down completely, but there’ll be a slight performance impact in pretty much every task. Whether that trade-off is worth it to you in exchange for advanced features and tweakability is up to you.
Source: Redmond Pie
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
17 responses to “Does jailbreaking your iPhone really slow it down? Yes.”
Dang it, rebooting my phone is something I do everyday so I need that to be fast… It’s one of the most useful features on iPhone…
who cares about bootup times? How often do you restart your device?
Cultofmac excels at writing articles that contributes nothing of impact.
Thought there were other metrics to point to… apart from bootup times, how many times do we really bootup in a day??????
But… why?
I think speed is not really a concern here. Security sure is though. Your phone is much less secure under jailbreak. You can pretend this isn’t true, but studies have been done (and not by Apple). If you jailbreak, make sure none of your personal, financial, or password information is on the phone.
That’s not true. For example: you can install patches months or years before Apple pushes a fix if you’re jailbroken.
Jailbreaking and rooting does make it easier for malware to access your internal system, but there is no security risk until you make the is mistake. For example, you would need to download a malware app.
CoM looking to get higher in Apple’s favoured tech sites list, I see.
Study is flawed and your title is incorrect. The title should read the “Pangu jailbreak on iOS 9.0.2” and not just se the word “jailbreak” as if this is the same for all jailbreaks. It isn’t. You cannot just lump every jailbreak result into the result of this Pang jailbreak.
Why on two, 3-year old, 16gb iPhone 5’s? Why not a pair of 64 or 128gb iPhone 6’s? Or 6s’s?
How much did Apple pay to sponsor this post?
“Does jailbreaking your iPhone really slow it down? Yes”
Incorrect. Depending on what tweaks are installed, the phone is not only no slower, but can actually be faster since some things (text editng, for example) will be faster. As is often the case, speed measurements alone do not tell the whole story.
You really are what your username says you are. The title is correct because the only difference between the two phones is that one is jailbroken. With no other differences, jailbreaking noticeably affects performance. Once you start adding jailbreak tweaks, it’s no longer a proper comparison. The point is that jailbreaking alone is detrimental to performance, which is absolutely proven here.
That you do not recognize the significance of my screen name attests to your young age, lack of education or both. In any case, you are absolutely incorrect in your assumption. If you were actually a jail breaker, you’d know that. Read more, pontificate less.
I don’t have to be a jailbreaker to use logic, something you clearly know nothing about. You also don’t understand how comparisons work. The only one clearly lacking in education here is you. Try getting your head out of your ass and actually use your brain for once.
Ah, so you’re •not• a jailbreaker, yet you’re commenting as though you know what you’re talking about… even though you clearly don’t. Niiiice. (yawn)
Tired of being an idiot? I’m tired of dealing with you ignorant retards who have no clue what they’re talking about. Try again when you know how to use logic.