Jailbreaking iPhones: what exactly does it entail? - eviltoast

I remember back in the day when people would “Jailbreak” iPhones, but never really picked up on what they were doing other than that it let them do stuff that those of us with “non-jailbroken” iPhones couldn’t do.

Are they just booting another OS, e.g. android? Also: why haven’t I heard of it in a while? Is it not possible on newer iPhones?