Kevin Lee, a George Mason University senior, says he earns about $50,000 a year with an illicit-sounding pitch on Craigslist: “Get Your iPhone Jailbroken Today.â€
Within minutes, the computer science major can download code onto his customers’ iPhones and fling open the portal to an alternative world of apps and software that Apple condemns. The jailbreak perks include: tethering the iPhone’s Internet connection to a laptop or iPad without paying extra AT&T charges; swapping out the AT&T or Verizon service for a cheaper carrier; or, customizing the iPhone with 3-D screens, bouncing icons or funkier fonts.
“To be honest, when I first started, I did it for my friends, myself, but it has snowballed from there,†said Lee, who jailbreaks iPhones to enable new screen designs, then “unlocks†them so customers can switch wireless carriers. “I was getting five to 10 customers a week, now it’s 30 to 40. I just had one customer from the Mongolian embassy who was moving to the capital of Mongolia, and he wanted to use the iPhone there.â€
If you want to get started jailbreaking phones, don’t worry, it is not illegal in the United States. Under the DMCA of 2010, jailbreaking is legal in the United States, although it voids Apple’s device warranty.
To get started in this business, just Google “how to jailbreak iphone”. There will be plenty of pages to get you started.