Jailbreaking, unjailbreaking; PAQ

[Benjamin Barrett]

It seems that the iPhone has a security system that can be broken with
software called Jailbreak. The word "jailbreak" has since expanded to
mean hack an iPhone in general even if not using that software.

Forms include "jailbroken" meaning an iPhone whose security system has
been disabled (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1688) and
"unjailbreak" (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=368203)
meaning to restore the iPhone to its state before it was jailbroken.
Also "unjailbroke" and "unjailbroken" are in use.

Particularly interesting are the forms "unjailbreaked" (107 googits)
and "unjailbreak" (only 4). "Unjailbrake" and "unjailbraked" get only
4 and 2, respectively.

People seem to be jailbreaking their iPhones so they can change its
settings and add programs to it, a process particularly difficult from
a Wintel machine until specific jailbreaking software came along.

There seems to be a nice potential here for distinguishing between
hacking in general and doing a certain sort of operation to make a
device reconfigurable.

-----http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=544
In a news conference Thursday (otherwise known as Feburary 35th),
Apple unveiled the long-awaited iPhone native Software Development Kit
(SDK). It can be used by any developers to create native applications
for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Up to now, developers have been limited
to writing Web apps that ran inside the Safari browser (though various
“jailbreak” hacks allowed unofficial programming). But now you can
write programs using the same APIs that Apple’s built-in programs use.
-----

As an aside, a website for jailbreaking (http://jailbreak.beyondunreal.com/download/mod/download-paq.html
) includes the acronym PAQ for "potentially asked questions." BB

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org