iOS 10 has been available for a couple of weeks now, and many are saying it is Apple‘s best software ever. However, there is growing speculation that someone somewhere is working on a jailbreak for it.
iOS 10 jailbreak?
To start with, I’m going to rule something out for you, and that’s the image posted by Luca Tedesco last week on Twitter. He hasn’t come up with any further proof to show off his jailbreak. So it’s best to move on, as it’s highly unlikely he would share it publicly anyway.
The above iOS 10 jailbreak was shown on an iPhone 7, but Tedesco released a video showing a working version on an iPad earlier this month; see the video below.
Right now the only working jailbreak solution is for iOS 9.3.3. However, Apple no longer digitally signs iOS 9.3.4, 9.3.3 or iOS 9.3.2, so the earliest version that can be rolled back to is iOS 9.3.5. Rumors suggest that iOS 9.3.5 can be jailbroken, but as of yet, there’s been no working version released.
PanGu iOS 10 jailbreak?
Since it was the PanGu team that created the last working jailbreak, it’s fair to assume they’re working on another. Having taken a look at their website, it’s clear that they have yet to develop a fully working jailbreak for iOS 10. Right now there are two different works in progress:
Online Semi Jailbreak – This currently only hacks the Safari browser, making it capable of downloading IPA files. Unfortunately, it will not allow a user to use tweaks and apps through Cydia. This current method is compatible with iOS 10 -10.0.2 devices.
Untethered Jailbreak – Again, this is not a working iOS 10 jailbreak. Instead, this will give you root access, and you can download Cydia. However, a lot of the available apps are not compatible with iOS 10 – 10.0.2.
What isn’t there an iOS 10 jailbreak yet?
While PanGu and Luca Tedesco are out there working on solutions, there is a lot of research to be done. However, one thing which looked to be going for jailbreaking was that there hadn’t been a lot of talk about security. That being said though, as recent as yesterday, rumors of a change which relates to iPhone 7 memory protections has cropped up. As for how this will affect any chances of a future iOS 10 jailbreak, some of the most well-known hackers/developers in the jailbreaking community have had their say.
In a recent conversation with iDigitalTimes Saurik said: “Starting in iOS 9 on ARM 64 devices (iPhone 5S and newer) you can’t modify the kernel because there is a memory protection scheme in place that occasionally looks for changes and kills the device if it has been compromised.”
Also Luca Tedesco weighed in on the matter via his Twitter handle @qwertyoruiop
So what does this mean? Unfortunately, it means that Apple has now created memory protection on the iPhone 7, for example, which makes jailbreaking difficult. That is because there are now regions of kernel memory which are not rewritable at the hardware level.
Where does this leave the possibility of a future iOS 10 jailbreak? Right now, all this has done is make the chance of one being released soon less likely. But you can be sure that with developers like the PanGu Team on the case, there will eventually be one.
