With Apple’s latest firmware, iOS 10, having been available for around a month, we’re going to take a look at the most recent jailbreak status and try to determine if there’s anything on the horizon.
iOS 10 jailbreak status
If you are a watcher of all things jailbreak, you will probably already know that the last real working jailbreak was for iOS 9.3.3. Owners of iOS devices running that firmware can still jailbreak their devices. However, one mistaken upgrade to iOS 9.3.4 or iOS 9.3.5, and that’s it; you won’t be able to roll back, meaning that your jailbreaking days will be over thanks to Apple’s patching of vulnerabilities in iOS 9.3.4 and 9.3.5.
As for ongoing work on a breakthrough in the jailbreak status, developers have teased us with images and video. It is currently unknown if the vulnerabilities used in them to jailbreak are still unpatched in iOS 10. However, even if they are not, there’s no proof that the jailbreak would even work on iOS 10.
So does this mean that Apple will always be one step ahead and that iOS is invulnerable? Of course the answer is no because iOS 10 has been jailbroken in the past; we’ve seen proof as recently as last month. Luca Tedesco posted a YouTube video in which an iPad is clearly jailbroken.
In September, he managed to free the iPhone 7 from its iOS 10 shackles. In a tweet, he posted an image of the Matte Black iPhone 7 running Cydia. However, true to form, Tedesco has failed to make this jailbreak public, meaning that as of right now, the jailbreak status has not changed.
Jailbreaks and bug bounties
Apple has taken the fight to jailbreakers by no longer digitally signing iOS 9.3.4, 9.3.3, or 9.3.2, and this means that the earliest version anyone on iOS 10 can roll back to is iOS 9.3.5. Yes, in the recent past, we’ve seen that 9.3.5 can be jailbroken, but it hasn’t become publicly available.
Additionally, there is a new threat to the jailbreak community, which is Apple’s bug bounty program. At the end of September, the company invited many prominent developers and hackers from the jailbreak world to talk. This conversation could have serious ramifications for how long iOS 10 users have to wait for a jailbreak because Apple and another private firm are willing to offer cash rewards for the reporting of vulnerabilities.
However, it would be naive for us to rule out any future change in the jailbreak status due to there being lots of interest from developers/hackers, all of whom crave the notoriety that comes with developing a jailbreak.
Final thoughts
If you’re running iOS 9.3.3 and it’s jailbroken, you should wait for official news of a jailbreak. Don’t upgrade; you’ll trap yourself and lose all of the benefits of being jailbroken.
As always, if anything changes, we will let you know. However, if you have something to share about the jailbreak status or anything else related, please comment below.
