Jailbreaking Vs Rooting

Be it Rooting, Jailbreaking or Hacking. We are familiar with these words. These are the terms often used to signify a person’s rebellion against their stock software. It’s very popular on the mobile devices, especially the smartphones and even on gaming consoles.

Rooting is the term that is used when you are referring to android hacking. It basically means to break into the device’s walls in order to gain a better access to the device’s operating system and gain a better user control of its functions. You can read tutorial to root Samsung Galaxy Y.

Let’s see the basic difference between iOS’s jailbreaking and Android’s rooting :

Homescreen Customizability :

One of the major reasons why people prefer jailbreaking their iPhone is to customize their homescreen. Winterboard is one of the most popular applications that allow modifying iOS’s SpringBoard (its homescreen).

However that’s not the case with Android phones as there are tons of homescreen customizations available. Moreover there are additional tools for further customization. But iPhone users are not given an opportunity to customize their homescreen.

Custom ROMs :

You can install custom ROMs on your device by the help of rooting. These are the versions of ROMs that Android phone don’t officially support, like the unreleased firmwares and skins.

Custom ROMs allow future updates (even something like Honeycomb) to run on the devices that don’t yet have official support. There are many custom ROMs available on the internet. These include the third-party ROMs as well that offer new experiences that are not on any handset.

This method or changing the whole look of your device is a big draw, not only for Android but also for iPhone users. Moreover it extends the capability of homescreen customization.

Performance :

Once your Android is rooted, you will be able to alter factors such as CPU speed and the maximum temperature with the help of different apps like SetCPU. With iOS, you can also over-clock or under-clock your iDevice trough PC-oriented apps.

First Party Support :

This is a major concern when you root or jailbreak your device. Apple doesn’t allow you to jailbreak your iPhone. If you have done jailbreaking on your iPhone, don’t even dare to take it to the Apple store. They won’t even take the device in their hands.

On the other hand, Google lacks on any official stance on this matter. There is no official statement over this. But most probably, Google doesn’t even care whether your Android phone is rooted or not. We can say that because you would be able to see some of the root-only applications available in the Android Market.

Recoverability :

If your iPhone is jailbroken, it’s very simple to un-jailbreak it. You can do it easily by putting your iPhone into DFU mode. The mode can be activated by pressing the power and home buttons for some ten seconds. Then you just need to connect it to iTunes and restore. It’s very simple, huh.

However, un-rooting an Android phone is not as simple as an iPhone. The process of un-rooting is different for most phones and if you don’t do it correctly, you will end up with an un-responsiveness phone. Unlike iPhone, there are very few specific guides to doing this online. This is the biggest disadvantage of it; more the number of software versions means there is a wide variety of methods for un-rooting.

Legality in United States :

Originally, jailbreaking was illegal, but following a request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the US Copyright Office made it legal for iPhone owners to run non-Apple-hosted apps on their handset.

Rooting an Android device is considered legal too in the US, according to the US Copyright Office.