What exactly is jailbreaking an iPod?

When you want to add ringtones, change wallpaper, or run third-party applications on your iPhone, you need to perform a task called “jailbreaking”. What this does is to open up your iPhone’s file system so it can be accessed from your computer. There are a number of tools available to jailbreak.

http://www.simonblog.com/2008/10/05/why-jailbreak-top-5-reasons-to-jailbreak-iphone/

I’m not suggesting doing it. Everything said in this answer was taken directly from websites and did not come out of my own mouth…

pretty much, when you have to pay for something and don’t want to, you change the encoding of the ipod to where you can add your own programming and do it for free.

I can change my wallpaper create ringtones and install third party apps onto my iPhone. It doesn’t need to be jailbroken for that.

Essentially jailbreaking allows programmes to be run that don’t meet with Apples aproval, it also meant (at least in the 2G version) that the phone was useable on any network (providing you had a sim card)

Never seen the need to do it, sure it messes or negates any warranty too if your broken phone is down to it being jailbroken.

It means that you are running a modified version of the Operating System on it. This allows you to run software that will modify things or apps Apple hasn’t approved.

Back in the day before the app store this was the only way to run real apps. Now it is worthless for 99% of the users. It just eats up more RAM and gives people more headaches.

“Turns out the person who had the crash had a jailbroken phone that hadn’t been restarted in a while. Restarting solved the problem, but the other issue is the jailbreak. Jailbroken iPhones tend to have less available memory, probably mainly due to background processes that some non-Apple-approved apps can create”

It sounds like, if you’re not geeky enough to already know, doing it will get you in a world of trouble. Am I correct?

@Judi: Essentially correct. And more to the point, once you jailbreak your phone, all bets are off—Apple software updates could render it inoperable, Apple support won’t help you, and app developers will be reluctant to fix your problems.

In the very early days of the iPhone, when there was no way of getting third-party applications onto it, jailbreaking it was necessary. Now, the only reason to jailbreak it is because you can.

I dont see why anyone would waste a perfectly good iPod doing that because all of the apps on the Apple store are pretty cool and you can add wallpaper and other stuff without it. Jailbreaking is for people who think they know what they’re doing, but don’t so they can end up screwing up a nice iPod.