Thursday, March 22, 2012

Jailbreaing DOES NOT "void your warranty"!

Recently, I was in a bike shop getting my tire fixed, and the girl behind the counter had an iPhone. When I asked her if she'd jailbroken it yet, she told me "Oh, we're with Verizon. We don't jailbreak our iPhone." When I asked why not, she replied "Because it voids our warranty. That's what they told us at Verizon." I corrected her, telling her that simple was not true.

Why is it not true? Because jailbreaking your iPhone (or iPad, or iPod Touch) is perfectly legal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (otherwise known as the DMCA.) In fact, it's expressly ALLOWED (see this MacWorld.com article for an explanation; also see the Electronic Frontier Foundation [aka EFF] page on this here.)

Jailbreaking your iOS device is nothing more than installing software. If the act of jailbreaking your iOS device did indeed "void your warranty", then that would mean that installing any software - even software you purchase from the Apple App Store - would also "void your warranty". Because that's all jailbreaking is - installing software. Don't want your iOS device to be jailbroken any longer? Just plug it into your computer, start iTunes, and tell iTunes to restore it to factory defaults. Sure, that wipes your device, but it also installs the factory iOS version that came with it, so that once it's done restoring, it's just like the day you bought it.

Now, way back in the day, when the very first iPhone came out, GeoHot opened up the case and physically soldered the iPhone's circuit board to jailbreak it. THAT would void your warranty, since opening the case and/or mucking around with the physical hardware is irreversible. But installing software? Even if said software isn't "authorized by Apple"? Nope, that doesn't void any warranty, regardless of what Verizon, Apple, or anyone else may claim.

It's just common sense.

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