Jailbreak iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

According to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, the company from Cupertino has finished testing iOS 7.1 and is ready to seed it to final users any day now. The big event is likely to take place ahead of the iTunes Festival.

The proof is available below (via iClarified):

Apple’s first iTunes Festival in the U.S. starts a week from today at SXSW in Austin. Apple is going to stream the performances to iOS devices using an app, but I’ve heard from a little birdie that the app requires iOS 7.1 (which explains why the app isn’t out yet). That means iOS 7.1 should ship any day now.

Apple’s iOS 7.1 contains a number of important security improvements, apart from that, slightly redesigned call screens and power off slider.

It should be noted, however, that those who use jailbroken devices should not hurry and upgrade to the new iOS version as soon as it becomes available. Previously, some reports surfaced on the Internet, which prove that iOS 7.1 contains fixes for the vulnerabilities used by current jailbreak tools. Hackers have to check if this is truth or not.

The company from Cupertino will release the final version of its iOS 7.1 to the public no sooner than in March. Apart from the new mobile operating system, Apple is expected to unveil the next-generation Apple TV.

But let’s get back to iOS. According to the latest 9to5Mac report,

The iOS 7.1 update is said to not have any “secret features,” and it will basically be what we have been told to expect by the past five betas: some user-interface tweaks in the Phone app, an improved Calendar app, speed improvements, and numerous bug-fixes.

Apple hasn’t yet set the date of the release, but obviously it will do that a bit later.

However, it is still unknown whether it would be possible to jailbreak iOS 7.1. As iH8Sn0w says, the vulnerabilities used by evasi0n7 were fixed in the latest iOS 7.1 beta. Nevertheless, hackers still have some unused exploits, so let’s hope for the best.

Stefan Esser aka i0n1c, a security researcher and a person behind the untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3.2, says someone close to evad3rs may have stolen a jailbreak exploit and sold it to an unknown private buyer.

As to the members of the evad3rs team, they deny such a theft. Moreover, they note that “the jailbreak stuff is moving on, but slowly.” That means that we won’t see it until 2014.

According to iClarified,

Even if the a jailbreak was stolen from the evad3rs and sold to a private buyer, it’s unlikely that the buyer would be looking to share it with Apple. However, if a jailbroken device is found in the wild, Apple could examine it to close the vulnerabilities for future firmware versions.

Let’s hope nobody has stolen the jailbreak exploit.

Popular hacker MuscleNerd has denied rumors that a bootrom exploit has been found for the iPhone. Earlier today, he tweeted:

There is no A5+ bootrom exploit, by anyone. Not even a bootrom dump. Nothing.

Speculation that a bootrom exploit may have been found began after p0sixninja tweeted that he would be releasing something bigger than a jailbreak.

The bootrom exploit can devices permanently vulnerable to a tethered jailbreak regardless of iOS version. The last bootrom exploit was limera1n found by Geohot which supported A4 devices like iPhone 4 and below.

Apple reportedly asked Toyota to remove from Cydia its exclusive theme created by Toyota’s advertising company Velti for promotion of its new vehicle and available for jailbroken iPhones.

Scion, a brand of vehicles manufactured by Toyota, recently developed a custom iPhone theme specifically for jailbroken devices, submitting it to us for hosting in Cydia.

As far as we know, Apple is strongly against jailbroken devices but this advertising campaign may somehow help to legitimize the jailbreak community and also place it in direct competition with Apple’s own iAds network. Apple apparently heard about the campaign and has asked Toyota to pull it.

I received a call from our contact at Velti this evening as well as an email asking me to please take the theme out of Cydia. On the phone, he explained Apple had contacted Toyota and requested they remove the theme and stop the advertising campaign. They (Velti) in turn contacted me relaying the message. The reason Velti listed for the removal request of the theme emailed through our dev portal was “Toyota’s making us take it down” Toyota had agreed to do so to “maintain their good relationship with Apple,” our Velti contact told me on the phone.

It seems that the recently released iPad 2 has been jailbroken. iOS hacker, known as Comex,  posted on his Twitter account that the iPad 2 jailbreak is underway. The Jailbreak has yet to be packaged. Comex has yet to say when the jailbreak will made public, and how it works, but we now at least know the iPad 2 is able to be jailbroken. On the shot above you may see the proof – the jailbroken white iPad 2 3G with Cydia ready to launch.

Last week we reported that the well-known hacker Geohot might call his next jailbreak tool rubyra1n. Now guts from Dev Team hit that they know something about Geohot’s effort to bring a proper untethered jailbreak to iOS 4.2.1.

A recent tweet from MuscleNerd confirms the rumors: “I hear geohot does have an untether actually! Though not for all devices”.

May be soon we will jailbreak our devices with a new tool from George Hotz (better known as Geohot) called Rubyra1n. On March 27, 2010 George Hotz registered two domains limera1n.com and blackra1n.com, another jailbreak tool Hotz released last year. The new rubyra1n, however, doesn’t share the same data with limera1n.com — an app released in October to jailbreak iOS 4.1. Geohot doesn’t comment these rumors anyhow, but we, obviously, wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him coming out with his own iOS 4.2.1 jailbreak for all devices.

Apple has reportedly disabled its jailbreak detection API through iOS 4.2 software update. The API helped third-party mobile device management (MDM) applications to check for unauthorized modifications of system files. Apple’s jailbreak detection API provided MDM applications direct access to iOS system information and was able to ask the operating system directly if it had been jailbroken. Jailbreak exploits typically change a number of operating system files, and exploit one or another low-level OS features to let users directly load their own or third-party applications.

“We used it when it was available, but as an adjunct,” says Joe Owen, vice president of engineering at Sybase, which offers the Afaria device management software. “I’m not sure what motivated their removing that….”

Everybody knows that the iPhone Springboard can’t be turned in landscape mode. Apple wants you to hold the device in portrait mode only. But some apps, like Mail, support the horizontal orientation. So, Cydia developers offer us the alternative solution, a new hack available in Cydia called “SBRotator” ($1.99). If you change your iPhone’s orientation, using the app, the Springboard will just follow it. But Springboard orientation change requires a proper layout change too. SBRotator puts an extra tab which enables you find the configuration that best suits your needs. Moreover, the program allows you to resize icons for landscape mode.