Should you Jailbreak or Unlock your iPhone

Recently I have been thinking about my thoughts towards my iPhone since jailbreaking it and have come to some conclusions. I don't like my iPhone as much with crazy third party applications on it. I know this may come as a shock since there are a lot of things that the iPhone lacks, but it is true and I am going to take a little time here and explain why I think that is.

When I first got my iPhone I was extremely happy and loved everything about it. The way that you go through menus and make calls and surf the web are great. All of those things were a completely new experience to me and made the iPhone undoubtedly the best phone that I have ever had. As time went on though, some of those first impressions wore away and started to let me think about the things that I would still like for the iPhone to be able to do. There is the huge lack of 3G that still bothers me and also not having flash on the Safari browser. Those are the two things that have made me mad time and time again. I also would like to use the iPhone to connect my laptop to the internet. The connection is so slow that it would not really be that great, but sometimes I am in a bind and need flash and internet on the go and there is none with the iPhone.

So what do these flaws have to do with anything? Well, even through all of those flaws and many more unmentioned, the iPhone is the best cell phone ever made. I know that is hard to swallow for some, but I am sticking to it. The iPhone has been a pleasure to use and has given me much less stress than any of the other phones I have had including simple old nokias to my most recent T-Mobile MDA. I have never had such a great experience with an electronic device besides my MacBook Pro.

I had decided to jailbreak my iPhone so that I could review some applications that are available for it right now and review a couple of them, but there has been an added amount of stress or clutter associated with it. Firstly, I have to wait to update my iPhone because otherwise I will lose my programs. This is kind of a hassle. Secondly, the programs are buggy at best and are not to the level of Apple quality. This was to be expected, but I really don't need any of the programs that I have on my iPhone and they don't work great so why do I have them at all. I am content with surfing the web, texting, emailing, and taking pictures. The third party applications out there do not really tap into the flaws the iPhone has so they don't really make the iPhone better.

The conclusion is this. I have the money program on my iPhone right now to keep track of my finances for November. Once I am done with that, I will take the jailbreaking off of the iPhone and go back to plain Apple iPhone. You know what though, I will not care a bit. I loved the iPhone just as it was and everything worked great. I want to have that back and no more crashing (did I mention that the iPhone started crashing from time to time only after I did a jailbreak).

So I encourage all of you out there that are thinking about unlocking or jailbreaking your iPhone to simply wait until next year when Apple starts releasing software programs that are actually made to work on the iPhone.

Google Makes Mobile Phone Operating System

Can I say I told you so? This is exactly what I said, so I will not say it again. Here is a post that does a great job telling you what it is all about. I love Google, but sometimes I worry about them taking over the world.

Great Way to Keep Track Of Finances on Your iPhone

I have been using the Money program on the iPhone this month to keep track of my finances. This has been very helpful and easy. Instead of carrying around a lot of receipts and entering them in on my computer later, I just keep track of them on my iPhone as i go and there are no receipts in my wallet.

This program is very simple and has its flaws, but overall it is great. The biggest complaints that are due to the roughed out look of the program. It does not seem like there was a lot of time put into the program once it was working properly. There could be a lot more features and options that would make it an awesome program, but I have not found a program that works better for keeping track of money, so this is the program that I recommend.

Best iPhone Game Available

Lights Off is the best game out for the iPhone. This is arguable of course, but overall I would say that it is just the best made game that I have seen so far. Hopefully some of the other games out there will get updates as the firmware updates and games get messed up. I haven't played too many games on the iPhone, but of the few that I have played, Lights Off is the best.

Lights Off is a very simple game where you try to make all of the lights go out. It seems like a simple task as well, but I have gotten quite frustrated with it at times. The fast reaction of the game is what makes it so good. When you tap the screen the game is very responsive.

I liked Labyrinth as well, but this game just seemed a lot more responsive.

What is the best third party application on the iPhone?

There are lots of third party applications out for the Apple iPhone now, but which one is the best? Obviously it depends on what tyoe of program you are looking for. I am going to do a review of the best applications that I have used on the iPhone so far for a few different categories. Today's review is Customize:

Customize is one of the most basic applications for the iPhone, but it does a great job doing what it is intended to do; allow you to customize your iPhone. The reason I like this application so much is that it is easy to use and allows for tons of customizations. You download customization packages from installer and then you have options when you launch Customize. Everything is laid out very simply and allows you to change all of the icons and sounds. It is almost like the settings that your settings are missing. The only problem I have had with this application is Summerboard interfering. If you do not turn off the dock background for a theme for instance, when you change it in Customize it will not change. Thankfully Summerboard allows you to turn off individual segments of the themes so that you can use Customize on the things that you want to.

If you want an application that allows you some freedom on the iPhone without messing it up too much then Customize is a great place to start.

iPhone Jailbreak Working Great Now

I have been working with the installer and getting all of the applications that I think look interesting downloaded and on my iPhone. Here is a list of some of my favorites so far:

1. VNotes (to take voice notes on your iPhone)
2. Customize (an original name for an original product. Ok, not really, but it does allow you to customize a lot of things like buttons backgrounds and sounds if you are tired of the default.)
3. Money (I am actually going to keep track of my finances this month because of this program)
4. Labyrinth (a fun game that makes good use of the iPhone's Accelerometer)
5. Lights Out (the most popular and solid game on the iPhone right now)
6. ToDo List (simple, but it is kind of cool)

It took me a while to get all of these apps working because they would not work without the OpenSSH program that they don't tell you about. You have to jailbreak your iPhone with jailbreakme.com, then download the summerboard, community resources, OpenSSH, and BSD Subsystem. After you download all of that then you can download other apps and they will work.

Happy Jailbreaking!