The jailbreak community is desperately waiting for CoolStar’s Electra iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak. CoolStar has confirmed that they have successfully achieved the jailbreak, but they are yet to fix some issues before the public release. Chinese security researcher Min Zheng recently said in a tweet that developer Jonathan Levin would update QiLin within a week with ‘APFS rootfs remount.’ The updated QiLin will then be used in the Electra iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak.
https://twitter.com/sparkzheng/status/1011441073745514496?s=21
Electra iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak: CoolStar to work on QiLin themselves
The APFS rootfs remount will give Electra the read and write capabilities that it needs before the public rollout. It is one of the primary reasons why the Electra iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak hasn’t been shipped yet. It’s been a week since Min Zheng’s tweet but Jonathan Levin aka Morpheus is yet to release the updated QiLin.
Instead of patiently waiting for Jonathan Levin to release the update, CoolStar has taken it upon themselves to work on QiLin. “Please lay off Morpheus as we are working on it ourselves now,” said CoolStar in a tweet. The tweet came after many people waiting for the jailbreak targeted Morpheus on the social media. Apparently, the Electra team doesn’t want to wait too long to release the jailbreak. Let’s hope that the rootfs remount issue is resolved at the earliest.
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1012772348993331200
Separately, Reddit user Samg_is_a_Ninja said in a thread that Apple had added a new security feature that uses “an APFS snapshot over a typical root partition,” making things more difficult for jailbreak developers. The developers believed that they could easily recondition the old code from Electra iOS 11.1 jailbreak and swap out the kernel exploits. But that wouldn’t work now. Fortunately, the security feature introduced by the Cupertino company is relatively new, so it is “littered with exploits.”
Apple doesn’t want you to jailbreak your device
Apple is making it increasingly difficult for customers to liberate their iPhones and iPads from its walled garden. The company recently warned users that jailbreaking a device would eliminate “security layers designed to protect your personal information and your iOS device.” It added that customers who jailbroke their devices in the past had experienced “adverse issues.” Jailbreaking could shorten the battery life, cause the device to crash unexpectedly, make it vulnerable to hackers, and freeze the apps and services.
Jailbroken devices are also denied service at Apple Stores. Interestingly, most people jailbreaking their devices are fully aware of the risks. Apple had stopped signing the iOS 11.3.1 soon after rolling out the iOS 11.4. People who had upgraded to 11.4 – whether deliberately or accidentally – had no way to downgrade to 11.3.1.
Users interested in jailbreaking their devices still had one way to downgrade to a firmware supported by the Electra iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak tool. For some reason, Apple was still signing the iOS 11.3 beta 5 and 6 versions, which were compatible with Electra. But the company later stopped signing the beta versions as well, leaving customers on 11.4 with no option to go back to a jailbreakable firmware.
CoolStar hasn’t yet confirmed when they would roll out the Electra iOS 11.3.1 jailbreak tool to the public. But we should expect it to come out sometime soon. The developer has told the jailbreak community that the upcoming tool would support all the iOS 11-compatible iPhones and iPads, including the iPhone X as well as the older models with just 16GB storage.
