I can't speak to the technical differences between rooting vs. jailbreaking, but the practical result is the same: You get to run a "custom" operating system on the phone. Jailbreaking gets more attention (and it's own special term) only because Apple has such a tight control over the OS + hardware, but from my perspective, there's very little difference between jailbreaking and rooting. Note, there's also "unlocking" which is the same regardless of the platform and is simply a term used when you break a phone away from a single carrier.
@Shalabi As far as I can tell: Android phones don't have a pre-existing jail. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't require ROOT access. Rooting basically means having access to the 'root' user account in Linux.
The root password for the iPhone was discovered 3 days after its release using a 'strings' command. It didn't help much though.
@Shalabi 'Rooting' comes from installing su onto the bootloader of the phone enabling root user access. It's not installed by default so that mom and pop don't download anything that deal with messing up the system partition.
Google provides the tools for 'rooting' and it's usually just an accomplishment because folks like Samsung, Motorola, and HTC have proprietary bootloaders that need to be unlocked. Google's own Nexus One can be 'rooted' by just going to the android svn site and downloading the tools from Google themselves since it's a straight up 'from Google' phone.
And not to mention, the Android Marketplace has root apps in there. You don't see apps in Apple's app store that are commented 'needs to be jailbroken to use'.
Also Apple doesn't provide the jailbreak with Xcode.
@Shalabi Easy. Rooting involves the right climate, proper pH of the soil and a little but of patience. You take your phone and dig a hole about 7 inches deep. Place your phone in the hole and cover with soil. Fertilizie the phone with, I would recommend Emu fertilizer, it gives you some greener greens. Water the phone. Now, how much you water is a delicate balancing act depening on your climate. I think it most closely goes with the watering needs of an apple tree. Now, go to another phone and call the on you want to be rooted and leave a message of hope for the phone on the voicemail. Water consistantly for the next 4 months and you should have a nice rooted phone by then.
Now for jailbreaking. The first step is getting your phone sent to jail. Depending on the crime commited by your phone and the size of the jail will determine the difficulty of the jail break. If its a petty crime it should be much easier. Now you start by watching an episode of the A-Team where they are in a small town with a dirty cop. Go buy a van and follow their directions and you should be good. Also it may help to buy a lot of gold so you don't stand out and look ridiculous.
So in summary rooting your phone is gardening, simple and legal. Jailbreaking is illegal and requires classic TV.
@theNEOone Rooting an android phone allows custom roms, overclocking, etc. Jailbreaking an iPhone only allows you to install non AppStore apps. Huge difference.
@4u2nv Rooting does not mean you can install custom roms. All it does is allow you root access. You still have to crack the bootloader, which is the tricky part with efuse.
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Can someone explain how rooting is different than jailbreaking? Are they just different terms for the same thing?
@Shalabi its pretty much the same thing.
Its just for android its not jailbreaking i think because google doesnt really care what you do with the code, while apple does.
@Shalabi
I can't speak to the technical differences between rooting vs. jailbreaking, but the practical result is the same: You get to run a "custom" operating system on the phone. Jailbreaking gets more attention (and it's own special term) only because Apple has such a tight control over the OS + hardware, but from my perspective, there's very little difference between jailbreaking and rooting. Note, there's also "unlocking" which is the same regardless of the platform and is simply a term used when you break a phone away from a single carrier.
@Shalabi
As far as I can tell:
Android phones don't have a pre-existing jail. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't require ROOT access.
Rooting basically means having access to the 'root' user account in Linux.
The root password for the iPhone was discovered 3 days after its release using a 'strings' command. It didn't help much though.
@Shalabi 'Rooting' comes from installing su onto the bootloader of the phone enabling root user access. It's not installed by default so that mom and pop don't download anything that deal with messing up the system partition.
Google provides the tools for 'rooting' and it's usually just an accomplishment because folks like Samsung, Motorola, and HTC have proprietary bootloaders that need to be unlocked. Google's own Nexus One can be 'rooted' by just going to the android svn site and downloading the tools from Google themselves since it's a straight up 'from Google' phone.
And not to mention, the Android Marketplace has root apps in there. You don't see apps in Apple's app store that are commented 'needs to be jailbroken to use'.
Also Apple doesn't provide the jailbreak with Xcode.
@Shalabi
Easy.
Rooting involves the right climate, proper pH of the soil and a little but of patience. You take your phone and dig a hole about 7 inches deep. Place your phone in the hole and cover with soil. Fertilizie the phone with, I would recommend Emu fertilizer, it gives you some greener greens. Water the phone. Now, how much you water is a delicate balancing act depening on your climate. I think it most closely goes with the watering needs of an apple tree. Now, go to another phone and call the on you want to be rooted and leave a message of hope for the phone on the voicemail. Water consistantly for the next 4 months and you should have a nice rooted phone by then.
Now for jailbreaking.
The first step is getting your phone sent to jail. Depending on the crime commited by your phone and the size of the jail will determine the difficulty of the jail break. If its a petty crime it should be much easier. Now you start by watching an episode of the A-Team where they are in a small town with a dirty cop. Go buy a van and follow their directions and you should be good. Also it may help to buy a lot of gold so you don't stand out and look ridiculous.
So in summary rooting your phone is gardening, simple and legal. Jailbreaking is illegal and requires classic TV.
@theNEOone Rooting an android phone allows custom roms, overclocking, etc. Jailbreaking an iPhone only allows you to install non AppStore apps. Huge difference.
@JOBN LOL! +1 =)
@4u2nv Rooting doesn't mean you can install custom roms... they have to crack the bootloader.
@4u2nv Rooting does not mean you can install custom roms. All it does is allow you root access. You still have to crack the bootloader, which is the tricky part with efuse.