This article will discuss the pros and cons of using a no jailbreak solution from Mspy compared to waiting for a compatible jailbreak and then using conventional spy phone software, such as FlexiSPY, which requires the iOS device to be jailbroken first.
There’s no denying it, jailbreaking is a big hurdle for many people.
It presents several issues.
Not many people know what jailbreaking is or how to perform it. Therefore, having to do extra steps may put them off jailbreaking the device and installing the software.
At the time of writing iOS 9.0.2 has just been released. It cannot be jailbroken yet and nobody knows if or when a jailbreak will be released. People who are unware of jailbreaking or don’t know what it is won’t be happy if the product they just purchased doesn’t immediately work.
A tethered jailbreak is where the device is jailbroken until it restarts or runs out of battery. This is no deal. Untethered means that once it is jailbroken it remains jailbroken (unless factory reset). It is untethered jailbreaks that people are waiting for but with each iOS new iOS version released it gets harder and takes more time to get an untethered jailbreak.
Mspy’s no jailbreak solution sets about to solve this problem by requiring the Apple ID instead of jailbreaking.
But even this has issues, as we will now explain.
Getting the Apple ID account details sounds easy on paper
To many customers, the ability to get the Apple ID will immediately sound more appealing than getting the device itself.
But most people lock their phones with passcodes so this would need to be bypassed. That is the first issue. If you cannot get the device passcode then the no jailbreak solution can’t work and if you don’t have the Apple ID account details you are simply out of luck.
What features do you get on a non-jailbroken device?
So what features can you get from a no jailbreak solution? You are in limited to the features that you get compared to a normal jailbreak solution.
Mspy Premium |
Mspy Basic |
Mspy |
|
Jailbroken |
Jailbroken |
Non-Jailbroken | |
Call logs capturing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Block incoming calls | ✔ | ||
SMS capturing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
MMS capturing | ✔ | ||
Email capturing | ✔ | ||
GPS capturing | ✔ | ✔ | |
Browsing history | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Bookmarks | ✔ | ||
Wi-Fi networks | ✔ | ||
Block websites | ✔ | ||
Calendar | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Address book | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Skype | ✔ | ✔ | |
✔ | ✔ | ||
iMessage | ✔ | ||
Snapchat | ✔ | ||
LINE | ✔ | ||
Installed applications | ✔ | ✔ | |
Block applications | ✔ | ||
Keylogger | ✔ | ||
Photo capturing | ✔ | ✔ | |
Video capturing | ✔ | ✔ | |
Remote Device Wipe | ✔ | ||
Remote Device Lock | ✔ | ||
Call recording | |||
Call intercept | |||
Spycall | |||
Facetime SpyCam | |||
Ambient Recording | |||
Spoof SMS | |||
Audio capturing | |||
VOIP | |||
Facebook Messenger | ✔ | ||
Viber | |||
BBM | |||
BB PIN | |||
Hangouts |
In all, you get a total of 23 features on a jailbroken device with Mspy’s Premium version and 10 features on Mspy’s Basic version. You get just 7 features with Mspy on a non-jailbroken device. The interesting thing is that Mspy Basic (10 features) is priced at $29.99 for 1 month, the same as their non-jailbreak version and immediately there is more benefit in jailbreaking the device to get those additional features.
But how does Mspy collect data if the device is not jailbroken? How does it use the Apple ID details? It reads from the iCloud backups stored online in the Apple account whose Apple ID details you entered inside the Mspy portal.
One interesting thing to note is that iCloud backups don’t contain Skype or Whatsapp data but Mspy advertise this on a non-jailbroken device. Because many people want to monitor IM services (and will need to jailbreak) Mspy are hoping to cash in on those customers and get them to purchase their non-jailbreak version instead.
Personal Data inside iCloud backup | Mspy (no jailbreak) |
Contacts | Yes |
Call History | Yes (called Call logs) |
Messages | Yes (called Text Messages) |
Message attachments | No |
Voicemail | No |
Voice Memos | No |
Calendar | Yes |
Reminder | Yes |
Notes | Yes |
Safari Bookmarks | No |
Safari History | Yes |
But, as tempting as that sounds there are quite a lot of features that Mspy’s no jailbreak solution doesn’t grab from the iCloud backup, as you can see above. The features that Mspy does capture from the iCloud backup are basic and is nothing you cannot find in Mspy Basic. You can also get a lot of this information such as SMS logs and call logs data from third party applications too on the App Store.
The no jailbreak solution also has limitations.
- If you can’t get the Apple ID details
- If the device owner doesn’t backup their device
- If the device owner does not use iCloud
- If the device owner backs up their device but then stops
- If you don’t know the device passcode
- It can take too long to get new data
Inside the Mspy portal, you also must constantly resync data from inside the Mspy portal to see if iCloud backups are updated or not to get new data. With each backup from the device varying in size and depending on the internet connection on the device getting new data can take some time. Sometimes an iCloud backup can span several gigabytes of data and take hours to upload from the device to iCloud for Mspy to then query and update to the Mspy portal.
iCloud or iCloud backup: which is best?
If you have the Apple ID username and password you have access to more information than what Mspy provides you.
All you must do is log into iCloud.
Inside the iCloud dashboard, you have access to a whole wealth of information, including media, which is probably the most valuable kind of information inside there, except for using Find my iPhone to lock or wipe the device.
Besides pictures though you also get basic information such as contacts and calendar details. What is interesting is that iCloud doesn’t store SMS messages. Mspy instead gets the SMS messages of the device from the backup itself.
So essentially each iCloud backup just contains:
- Photos and videos
- iMessages
- SMS messages
- Voicemail
iCloud already contains data for contacts, calendars, bookmarks, mail messages, notes, shared photo albums, iCloud Photo Library, My Photo Stream, and documents saved to iCloud. These are not backed up.
So what Mspy does is capture the data it can from the backups and combining it with any data already present inside iCloud for the features that it supports.
We’re going to look at the data that is already inside iCloud in more detail in the next section.
What data is found inside iCloud?
iCloud itself contains more data than what Mspy gives you for $29.99.
Email
You can see all emails sent and received on the device and the attachments.
Contacts
All contacts and their details are included.
Calendar
Full calendar details are also shown and any events of interest can be clicked for more information.
Photos
This is the main reason why just getting the Apple ID account details and logging in to iCloud is better than using Mspy. Mspy doesn’t capture the pictures or videos inside an iCloud account.
Notes
All notes can be viewed.
Reminders
All reminders are listed and can be viewed.
You can also remotely lock or wipe the device using the Find my iPhone feature (this is the same feature that must be turned off when jailbreaking the latest iOS versions and is why you now need the Apple ID details for jailbreaking too).
Do you really need Mspy’s no jailbreak solution?
This is like breaking into a car when you already have the keys. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
If you have the Apple ID details you don’t really need the Mspy no jailbreak solution for the following reasons:
- You can view pictures and videos from iCloud. You can’t do this with Mspy.
- You can read emails. You can’t do this with Mspy.
- You can remotely lock or wipe the device. You can’t do this with Mspy.
- It costs nothing to access iCloud. Mspy costs you money.
There is no real need to have this no jailbreak program if you have the Apple ID account details already available to you. You can just log into iCloud and get all the information you require from there.
With most iOS devices having multiple backups too many people may find that like we did, no data gets uploaded by Mspy until they choose the correct backup and if the device owner suddenly turns off iCloud backups then it means that Mspy will no longer work.
That means that if the owner changes devices are deletes backups from iCloud or their device then Mspy will stop working because it tries to look for data from a backup that doesn’t exist.
So ultimately on paper the no jailbreak solution sounds great but don’t be fooled. It’s actually more trouble than its worth.
Currently, iOS 9 – 9.0.2 can now be jailbroken so this no jailbreak solution will never provide as many features as you can get from a jailbroken device so jailbreaking is the way to go.
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