RIM warns against jailbreaks

In a post on the company's business blog, Adrian Stone, head of the BlackBerry Security Incident Response Team (BBS​IRT) at Research in Motion (RIM), has warned customers against jailbreaking their devices. He notes that the technique, used to gain administrator access to a device, is in widespread use in the mobile devices sector. It is primarily used to allow software to be installed from sources other than the manufacturer's web store.

Stone describes two kinds of jailbreak (deliberate and inadvertent as a result of a software bug), before noting that "Customers who use a jailbreaking tool on BlackBerry products void the manufacturer warranty." He also says that jailbreaking can negatively impact the stability and usability of the product.

The post does not appear to have been prompted by any specific event. A jailbreak for the Playbook tablet has been available since late 2011, though it remains limited to older versions of the operating system. Kevin Michaluk at BlackBerry news site Crackberry says that jailbreaking the new Playbook 2.0 OS is less appealing now, as it allows Android apps to be installed without jailbreaking. This removes one of the major incentives for jailbreaking the device – the lack of software on the platform. RIM's App World currently lists 3,000 apps for the Playbook – AppBrain lists more than 400,000 for Android.

See also:

• Can open source save RIM?, a feature from The H.
  

(fab)