Jailbreak iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

On Wednesday, September 17th Apple is expected to release iOS 8. This means that there only several hours left for those who need to restore their jailbroken iPhones to iOS 7.1.2 without losing jailbreak. After iOS 8 is released, the guys from Cupertino will no longer be signing iOS 7.1.2. In this case, if a user tries to restore the device using iTunes, he will be forced to update to iOS 8.

Another important announcement is also targeted at the jailbroken iPhone users. If you want to save your jailbreak, do not update to iOS 8 as currently there’s no evidence that it is jailbreakable. Moreover, as it was mentioned above, you won’t be able to restore or downgrade your smartphone to the earlier version of iOS. If your device works fine, keep using iOS 7.

Those who have an iPhone running iOS 7.1.2 or lower can use two utilities for jailbreak, namely, Pangu or evasi0n. Whether these tools will be compatible with iOS 8 is still a question without an answer. Stay tuned for more news about iOS 8 and jailbreak.

The evad3rs on Friday released an updated evasi0n7 jailbreak utility. It is still impossible to jailbreak iPhone 5, 5c and 5s running iOS 7.1, however, evasi0n7 1.0.8 brings support for iOS 7.0 build 11A466.

11A466 is probably a factory build, which means it is not available for download. This iOS 7 version is installed primarily on new devices. For instance, one user says that iPhone 5s, which he got from Apple as a replacement for his damaged smartphone, is currently running iOS 7 build 11A466. He adds that he can’t jailbreak his new device.

As noted by iDownloadBlog,

At some point during the past week or so, the evad3rs released an update for evasi0n7, bringing the jailbreak tool to version 1.0.8. According to the change log, the software now supports build 11A466 of iOS 7.

The updated evasi0n7 jailbreak utility is available on the evad3rs’ official website. One can download it any time now.

I’ve got some good news for those iPhone 4s users, who plan to jailbreak their iPhones running iOS 7.1. It is possible to hack the older models of Apple’s smartphones. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should upgrade to the latest version of iOS right now. And here’s why.

Following Winocm, who has recently posted a video showing the iOS 7.1 untethered jailbreak on iPhone 4, another hacker – iH8Sn0w – on Wednesday confirmed the successful jailbreak of his iPhone 4s running the same Apple’s iOS 7.1.

Here’s what he tweeted:

NGeary14: @iH8sn0w Can you jailbreak 7.1 iPhone 4s or only 4 ??

iH8Sn0w: @NGeary14 well my 4S is jailbroken on 7.1 atm.

Looks like it is possible to jailbreak any iOS device equipped with an Apple A4 or Apple A5 processor. As to the other iPhones and iPads, there’s no information yet.

iH8Sn0w claims that there won’t be any public jailbreak, at least now. That is why I recommend you to stay away from iOS 7.1. Especially if you have an iPhone 5/5c with Apple A6 CPU or iPhone 5s with Apple A7 CPU on board.

Looks like Apple has found a way to prevent people from jailbreaking their iOS devices. According to iH8sn0w, iOS 7.1 beta 5, released on Tuesday, patches two exploits used to jailbreak Apple’s smartphones and tablets. Keep in mind that the fourth beta patched another vulnerability used by evasi0n7. It appears that beginning from iOS 7.1, it would be impossible to hack your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. And that is definitely not good.

As noted by iDownloadBlog,

Developer and hacker iH8sn0w tweeted out a few moments ago that Apple has fixed the ‘chown’ vulnerability and ‘afc sandbox escape’ used by the evad3r’s popular jailbreak utility in beta 5. So it looks like iOS 7.1 will indeed be the death of the iOS 7 JB.

Despite all the facts given above, it is too early to panic. So far, the evad3rs haven’t officially confirmed that the evasi0n7 won’t work on iOS 7.1. Apart from that, iH8sn0w has recently found a way to jailbreak A5 devices for good and this method might also work for A6 and A7 devices as well.

Nevertheless, it is recommended that you update to iOS 7.0.4 or iOS 7.0.5 and stay away from iOS 7.1 betas. At least for some time.

As you probably know, a few days ago iH8sn0w, winocm and SquiffyPwn have released an untethered jailbreak for smartphones and tablets running iOS 6.1.3 – 6.1.5 – p0sixspwn. At first it was available only for Mac users, however, things have changed. Yes, you’ve got that right, p0sixspwn (version 1.0.4) for Windows is finally out.

At the same time, the new version of the jailbreak utility for Mac – 1.0.3 – is coming soon. If you have any problems with 1.0.2, it is recommended that you update to 1.0.3 since it is more stable.

Don’t forget to make a backup before jailbreaking your device and remember you hack your smartphone or tablet at your own risk.

One can download p0sixspwn for both Mac (version 1.0.2) and Windows (version 1.0.4) here.

According to secret documents leaked by WikiLeaks not long ago, the White House has been in talks with other countries to make phone unlocking illegal by international law. And it is rather strange since in public the US government supports those who struggle for the legalization of unlocking.

As stated in the original report (via Slate):

Last week, WikiLeaks made public a portion of a treaty that the White House has been secretly negotiating with other nations and 600 special interest lobbyists. The draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty, which is on intellectual property, shows that HealthCare.gov isn’t the only tech topic on which the Obama administration has some serious explaining to do.

What’s even worse, is that the new treaty will also make jailbreaking, which is installing a different operating system on your smartphone, tablet, or e-reader, illegal, too.

This treaty is still being negotiated, so all of these issues could be addressed in the final text, but so far what has been made public demonstrates a massive and nearly unprecedented power grab by special interests rather than sound public policy considerations.

Let’s hope for the best and wait to see what happens.

Vooma announced a new case for iPhone that includes a backup battery and a slot for SIM-card. The case can work with the app on jailbroken iPhone that emulates the native phone app to make calls via the external SIM card.

John Biggs from TechCrunch tried a pre-release case and noted that all the main functionality remains the same in the Vooma app, but its look and feel is somewhat different. For example, its dialer is a bitmapped copy of the native dialer screen and number and letters look slightly warped.

There are no much details, however it appears that the case works with mini-SIM cards, instead of micro-SIM cards used in the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. In addition, external SIM card can be used only for voice calls and data is likely to go through the SIM installed in the iPhone. Since the external SIM card works with its own app the iPhone’s SIM card can still be used for making voice calls even when the case is installed.

This case would be helpful for international travelers wanting to use a prepaid SIM from a local mobile carrier, without need to unlock their subsidized smartphone. To unlock an iPhone is usually more difficult than to simply jailbreak it. Vooma’s homopage offers a sign-up form to receive more information on its Peel PG920 case, but the company has yet provided no details on its availability or pricing.

This week Google has released a new version of its client app for Android Market, which will work on any smartphone running Android OS 1.6 or higher.

The company aims to facilitate the process of discovering new software and its purchase. That’s why new Android Market will have a Cover Flow-like style of app listings and include new categories like Widgets and Live Wallpapers, as currently the catalog is filled pretty much with these kinds of software. Besides that, app pages will now have more info and links to related content.

Some changes were made to the policy of software returns. If earlier user could take his money back in case he didn’t like the app he bought within 24 hours, now this time is shortened to 15 minutes.

As the number of Android devices continues to grow and it becomes hard for developers to make their apps hardware compatible with as many existing handsets as possible, Google presents its new solution:

“To make it easier for developers to distribute and manage their products, we will introduce support for device targeting based on screen sizes and densities, as well as on GL texture compression formats.”

Another important feature of new Android Market is a new limitation of app file size, which is now extended to 50 MB (earlier it was 25 MB). This is still 40 times smaller than the current limitation for iOS apps (2GB). This can be explained by the fact that iOS apps can be downloaded not only via its mobile client (like apps for Android), but also via iTunes, that can be connected to the Internet in any possible way and thus capable to download such amounts of information. Nevertheless, some developers pass this limitation by offering tiny apps for Android that can download necessary files (like music, textures, video) of any size after its purchase.

However, Google’s attempts to create a rival to an App Store still are not successful as they can be. AppleInsider has studied the subject and revealed that the Android’s openness has led to a number of cases when popular titles like Radiant were cracked to be used as illegal copies by “97% of players in Asia, 70% in Europe and 43% in North America”. That’s why most of developers like Rovio (which created Angry Birds) offer free versions of their apps to earn money from showing the ads. But that kind of income is not as profitable as offering paid apps, which makes iOS more attractive for developers than Android.

It was also noted that Android Market offers poor security for users, though this situation can be changed by cleaning up the store. At least, that was what the developer of DoubleTwist Jon Lech Johansen advised Google more than a half a year ago, but the company has not still made any steps in that direction.

John Savio created a very amazing costume for Halloween, which looks like a real iPhone 4, but 10 times larger than the original. It is thin, has rounded corners, LED light on the back as a flash and even touchscreen. The costume was created from 40″ LED LCD Panel used as the smartphone’s screen. It is powered by two car batteries and run by Jailbroken iPhone 4, weighs roughly 75 lbs. The process of costume’s creation took about 40 hours to complete.