Have you ever wanted something to be on your phone that wasn’t? Now, have you ever wished that you could get it for free?

A sophomore marketing major who wishes to remain anonymous felt this exact way and was determined to do something about it. He decided to hack into the hardware system of his iPhone, something commonly referred to as “jailbreaking.”

Jailbreaking a cell phone enables a user to access paid applications for free.

Technology professor Murali Shanker said jailbreaking can also clean up unnecessary applications that use too much data on your phone.

“Jailbreaking your phone allows you to put what you want on your phone,” Shanker said. “Apple controls too much and this allows you to put applications you want that Apple doesn’t give.”

A senior computer science major, who also wishes to remain anonymous, never used his iPhone’s stocks, reminders and other various standard applications. He chose to jailbreak his phone to delete the unwanted applications, leaving him with more memory space for things he actually wanted.

While he is not hacking his phone for the benefit of free apps, he still faces the risk of damaging the hardware system. Users need to be aware that a jailbroken device voids any warranty that was already on the phone. But the process can be reversed.

According to a senior international relations major, jailbreaking his iPhone allowed him to access Siri, an application not usually available on his model.

“I wanted to have Siri on my phone but did not want to pay so much for the updated model,” he said. “Unfortunately, I did not learn all that I needed to before jailbreaking my phone and realized that every time I turned off my phone, I had to plug it into my computer. This allowed me to keep my phone jailbroken.”

Jailbreaking a phone is legal in the United States, and YouTube even has instructional videos on how to hack a device.

Contact Shannon Fox at [email protected].