Will Jailbreaking Make My iPhone Slower? [Video]

For the hardened jailbreaker out there who has experienced all of the benefits that liberating an iOS device can offer, the question “should I jailbreak my iPhone” is pretty much rhetorical. The answer is generally yes. As soon as a new jailbreak becomes available for the latest firmware, the process is almost always the same; make a back up of the device, update to the latest firmware, download the jailbreak tool, and go for it. But what about the questions that don’t get asked? Will jailbreaking make my iPhone less secure? Will jailbreaking make my iPhone slower? A new YouTube video takes a look at the latter of those questions.

So, what do we have here? Well we’ve got two identical 16GB iPhone 5 units running iOS 9.0.2 with identical setup. except that one of the two is running an entirely stock version of Apple’s iOS 9.0.2 while the second one is jailbroken on 9.0.2 using the latest Pangu v1.0.1.

Cydia-open-bug-iOS-9-jailbreak

The jailbroken device has been onto Cydia and installed the Forcy, Live Photos Enabler, and CCSettings tweaks. The initial test clearly shows that the non-jailbroken iPhone 5 is a lot quicker to boot up than it’s jailbroken counterpart. 38.8 seconds compared to 51.2 seconds. Although both feel like an eternity compared to modern iPhones.

Invoking apps from a cold start also tells a familiar story. The stock iPhone 5 is marginally quicker to load up the native Settings app, although when inside, both devices sit neck and neck when navigating in and out of preferences and options. That marginal difference in loading time isn’t specific app related and seems to be the same across the board, whether it be Messages, Calendar or any other installed app. Entering multitasking and invoking Siri seems neck and neck with very little space between the two devices.

The conclusion seems to be that overall performance on jailbroken devices seems to be slightly impacted for every day use cases like opening apps and scrolling content. Although not really enough to notice. The main difference seems to be at a force reboot or full power up where the modified jailbroken system is likely executing untethered jailbreak code. Most users can probably live with that given the amount of times you actually power your device down.

The good news is that by making use of packages like Speed Intensifier on Cydia, you can tweak the animations and other stuff on your jailbroken device to make it run faster. Details on Speed Intensifier can be found here: How To Speed Up iOS 9 The Easy Way.

So, what do you guys think? Is this something of concern to you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

For tutorials on how to jailbreak iOS 9, 9.0.1, 9.0.2:

(Thanks to iAppleBytes for sending this in!)

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