Rock vs. Cydia - What is best for begginer and advanced users?

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Today I found myself doing a favor for a friend of the family.

Her grandson (14 years old) had recently been given an iPod Touch for Christmas and I offered to jailreak it for him so he may customize it and mod it any way he would like.

After running blackra1n and restarting I ran the blackra1n app on his phone and sat staring at the two choices for installer, "Rock Your iPhone" and "Cydia."
I had to make a choice of one over the other. If it were me I would install both (I've had both installed before) but in this case I actually found myself installing the newer Rock Your iPhone over Cydia.

WHAT'S BEST FOR THE GOOSE NOT FOR THE GANDER

So why did I chose this. Why might you want to chose one over the other?
It came down to a few factors in this case:

INTERFACE

To be honest, Rock Your iPhone looks much more user friendly and similar to the native Apple Appstore. This may not be an issue for a seasoned and experienced iPhone jailbreaker, but in the past I found I would get calls from people who's phones I had worked on asking me how to work cydia and if a certain mod would be ok for their phone.

Rock Your iPhone:

The Rock Your iPhone interface showing an install

Cydia:

The Cydia interface showing an install

As you can see the interface of the two are similar in many respects, however the Rock app seems far more polished and fleshed out.
There are little nuances everywhere that make it easier to use (not necessarilly more powerful) and it helps new users feel more at home.

ACCESSABILITY:

This was also a factor.
It ties into the interface, however it is more than looks.
The Rock app has a feature which allows you to back up your list of installed apps. You do this by creating a free account on their servers which allows you to keep a list of installed packages.
This is useful later if you need to restore and rejailbreak your device. You can quickly recover where you left off.
Granted the power user likely has a mental checklist of all the mods and hacks they have done, and may never use this feature.

Cydia also has options for developers that Rock lacks. This is great for a developer who needs the terminal app installed, but can lead to problems for new users.
This is a good reason to leave out Cydia and go for Rock Your iPhone.
Less chance of mistakes made by the user installing something they should not install is worth the switch to Rock.

SPEED:

Speed is also a factor.
I have never had much luck getting Cydia to load in less than five seconds.
It has always been the manager to take the longest time to load and reload, and Rock wins the speed test hands down.
It is a matter of preference. Both will install your packages, but one will do it much faster.

CONCLUSION:

In the end Cydia is the winner for most folks.
I know that Rock Your iPhone had problems at launch with crashing iPhones however these issues are long gone and it seems to be a good solid piece of hardware for the new user and veteran jailbreaker.
It wins the newbie battle though based on its friendly graphical interface and easy to navigate menus.
Its speed also makes it easier to use and more convenient.

More about → Rock vs. Cydia - What is best for begginer and advanced users?

How to Get Sued Into Oblivion by Apple (or How Much Would You Pay For a Jailbreak?)

By Steven J. Campbell








If you read my last guide on how to jailbreak an iPhone (located here: http://bit.ly/5n7zCG ) then you are familiar with the name GeoHot who is the man behind the Blackra1n software that jailbreaks an iPhone.

TETHERED VS UNTETHERED JAILBREAK:

Before we continue, I must explain these terms. To the unfamiliar it can be slightly confusing.

Newer iPhone 3gs models and 3rd generation iPod Touch models use andofferent type of memory than earlier models (this has nothing to do with software but only depends on the hardware inside the device.) This means that the Blackra1n software used to jailbreak them cannot make permanent changes to the memory.
As a result, if a newer model idevice is restarted or has a complete battery drain it will not restart properly unless connected to a computer which runs the blackra1n program again. This "tethers" the phone and this is called a tethered jailbreak.

All other idevice models will reboot with no problems after a jailbreak.

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM:

Recently geohot posted this to his Twitter feed:

"ACEPOLLS.COM - Do you want a dongle to boot tethered iDevice on the road? If demand is high enough, I may build http://bit.l..."

So what is geohot implying? It seems logical that he could be able to build a small device that would simply run the blackra1n code on the device it is attached to. You could just press a button and have it run and reboot your device.
Sounds great.

Does this mean that there is no software fix for the new hardware in the retail chain?

That's strange because Geohot offered an untethered jailbreak late last year if people helped him win the red baloon challenge (which would have netted him $10,000)

A second theory is that this is a way to make money. Sell the device, collect a profit. It all seems to work perfectly, doesn't it?

ALONG CAME APPLE AND A JOB(S)

I can't imagine that apple would stand for this. They already have tried to make jailbreaking illiegal and claim that it voids warranty on the users device.
When PsyStar bypassed the apple EULA (end user license agreement) by installing the OS X operating system on non apple hardware. They were sued repeatedly, and lost in court.

If Geohot begins to profit from his work few would argue that it was unwarranted. He does after all provide an amazing service to all of the end users who want some freedom over the apple ecosystem, but directly profiting off the community will definately rub some the wrong way, and worst of all the all might Apple.

Let the battle begin.

More about → How to Get Sued Into Oblivion by Apple (or How Much Would You Pay For a Jailbreak?)