Posted on 11/25/2017 12:30:26 AM PST by Swordmaker
For several years, it was common practice among iOS enthusiasts to ‘jailbreak’ their iPhones so they could enable additional functionality like screen recording and widget support. Once fueled by an active worldwide community with numerous crafty programmers who figured out how to bypass Apple’s device protections. And with the closing of two major repositories on the Cydia alternative app store this month, the death knell for jailbreaking is ringing clear.
While the company has largely negated the need for jailbreaking by continually adding useful features and flexibility to iOS over several updates in recent years, it’s also become increasingly more difficult to jailbreak iPhones, both for hackers and users alike.
There hasn’t been a jailbreak for iOS 11 so far, even though it’s been months since it was released to the public. There are no longer as many benefits to using cracked versions of iOS, and the one major draw lately was being able to install apps, themes and tweaks from Cydia. Now, with the ModMyi and ZodTTD/MacCiti repositories having shut down on the popular app store, there’ll be even fewer files available to fans.
With that, jailbreaking will be relegated to a hobby for nostalgic veterans who’ve grown up patching previous versions of iOS on older devices. And while Apple saw the practice as detrimental to its business and to its product experience, it in fact represented the incredible enthusiasm, curiosity and tenacity of scores of fans who wanted more from the company’s gadgets.
Motherboard has an excellent long read on the history of jailbreaking, and why it slowed down in recent months; find it on this page.
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Many of the hackers who actually did the iOS jailbreaking have discovered it is much more lucrative to find the vulnerabilities in IOS that allowed the jailbreak and get a monetary reward from Apple for disclosing that vulnerability so that Apple can fix it.
Others have found they can make more money making legitimate iOS Apps and have joined the “dark side” and are banking good money instead of waiting months for new jailbreaks to appear every time Apple updates iOS so they can sell their jailbreak apps to a small minority of Apple jailbreakers.
How a ragtag group of young hackers made the iPhone what it is today.
This article includes both original reporting from Motherboard and reporting from The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone.
The window shades are halfway down, leaving the bedroom dim. It's a grim day in Bassano del Grappa, a town in northeastern Italy that's mostly famous for its main import, the liquor of the same name: Grappa. I'm sitting on a twin bed—the only place I could sit. To my left, there's a bookshelf with a stack of Mickey Mouse comics, a staple in the childhood bedroom of every Italian kid. In front of me, sitting in a faux racing car chair, there's Luca Todesco, a 19-year-old who might be the best iPhone hacker on the planet.
I hand him my brand new, up-to-date iPhone 7.
"Can you jailbreak it?" I ask.
Jailbreaking is the art of hacking into Apple's ultra-secure iOS operating system and unlocking it—and thus allowing users to customize the phone, and write or install any software unimpeded by Apple's restrictions. At the time I met with Todesco, in December 2016, there was no known jailbreak—no public knowledge of this hack—for the latest iOS version that was installed on my iPhone (iOS 10.2).
The world's first jailbreaking step-by-step procedure, discovered in 2007, was posted online for all to see. Subsequent jailbreaks were used by millions of people. At one point, there was even a website—called jailbreakme.com—that was free for all to use and jailbroke your phone simply by visiting it.
Todesco's jailbreak, however, is only available within the confines of his bedroom inside his parents house.
Read more at the link: The Life, Death, and Legacy of iPhone Jailbreaking
Go Android!
Great! Love mine.
There seems to be nothing to do these days than to peck on these stupid phones that everybody has. All you see anywhere in restaurants and other stores is the phone zombies constantly pecking on these stupid (smart) phones. What a waste of time. So in case you are wondering.. no.. I do not own a smartphone. I have a simple tracfone voice calls only. No texting...no voicemail. I am able to function well and run my business without all that nonsense.....
I got mine yesterday. Order was completed 45 minutes after ordering opened. ATT account verification slowed the process.
I have an iPhone and I have self control.
Smartphones are not the problem.
Yeah, go android, cuz google is your friend. LOL
https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/
I still think Alphabet, the mother company of google is a crude joke on all of us. Alphabet as in alphabet agency? Big data collection? Irony or coincidence?
Even if it’s coincidental, googly is not your friend.
Open source phones are on the way. Won’t help with hardware/chip level intrusion but it’s better than nothing.
Call me paranoid but I don’t trust conglomerates or the government.
I still use an old flipphone. It makes phone calls & has a calculator. Why does anyone need all the expense of a smart phone & all the crap that goes with it?
Is there any difference between unlocking an iPhone and a jailbreak or is it the same?
I think it’s high time that there’s a federal law that prohibits building hardware so that it can only use one operating system. The practice is monopolistic to the core and and infringement of private property rights.
You sure you're on the right website?
Absolutely, I can make phone calls, send and receive texts and even take pictures with my Galaxy S6.....It even shows the time when I turn it on. How cool is that?
I am positive that I am on the right forum. I have at least 3 iPads that can no longer be updated and are no longer supported by crApple. It is no longer possible to download Apps either. If crApple doesn’t want to maintain these tablets why should anyone be locked in?
>>I still use an old flipphone. It makes phone calls & has a calculator.<<<
Your’s... has a calculator?????
So your solution is communism ?
What a straw-man argument you make. The argument that mandating seat belts in automobiles is communism makes just as much sense. The only counter argument might make sense is that manufactures can do what they want until that moment they no longer support the software on their devices and then they have to handover the information to strip their old code out of the devices and unlock them.
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