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iOS 7 Jailbreak: 5 Things You Need to Know

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The iOS 7 jailbreak is on the minds of many iPhone 5s and iPad Air owners who would love the freedom that some iPhone and iPad owners enjoy on iOS 6.1.2 and the team behind the jailbreak is working on a new tool to bring device freedom to users.

There are numerous individuals working on an iOS 7 jailbreak release, but the biggest spotlight is on the Evad3rs, who brought the last successful major version jailbreak to users and includes team members who worked on earlier jailbreaks.

Here are five things you should know about the iOS 7 jailbreak.

iOS 7 Jailbreak and iOS 6.1.3 Jailbreak

iOS 7 Jailbreak Status

While a new fundraiser for an open source jailbreak is now offering a bounty for a successful iOS 7 jailbreak release, not everyone in the jailbreak community is behind this project. Jay Freeman, better known as saurik the man behind Cydia, took to Reddit yesterday to blast the project as merely a test for the technology behind crowdsourcing software projects.

Perhaps the most interesting part is Freeman’s description of the current status of the iOS 7 jailbreak, Freeman writes,

“it is my understanding that a jailbreak is coming from evad3rs in the near future: planetbeing has already stated that they have what they need, and they are just working on integration and support for all devices (which is a lot of busywork).”

Overall communication is limited from the Evad3rs team, though Nikias Bassen shared that he was doing iDevice hacking above an Apple Store on November 20th.

Other members of the team are quiet on Twitter and other channels of communication which likely means the work on piecing together the parts of the jailbreak continues.

Open Source iOS 7 Jailbreak Prize Isn’t Needed

Freeman posts the following critique, followed by explanations about the current open source nature of parts of the jailbreak,

“I’ve seen the effects of bounties in the Android ecosystem, and they are quite negative. I tried to explain this to the person behind this project (Elizabeth Stark), but she really didn’t seem to care: in essence, she’s currently working on a project that is a crowd funding platform for software, and she wants to use the iOS community as a test case; she didn’t want to spend any time thinking about the ramifications of her decisions going into the project, and she didn’t send me a response about the issues I saw with her project (which I sent her weeks ago) until this morning (coincident with the release of her website).”

Freeman also discusses the lack of a need for a completely open source iOS 7 jailbreak in the comments,

“…almost all of the parts of the jailbreak that are relevant from jailbreak to jailbreak are actually open source; the idea that users can modify the source code and contribute to a jailbreak tool doesn’t really make much sense: it is a really small concrete implementation of a specific known exploit that, once fixed, is done; there is no “modification” that ever needs to be done to that exploit. In the process, a bunch of tools tend to get constructed for talking to the device, modifying and patching files, or downloading things from Apple <- all of these things are open source. The technique of the exploit itself is also described in detail (which is so much more important than source code for anyone who wants to help build future jailbreaks) in talks and seminars and articles and books.”

There are several other interesting details in this comment thread where you can read candid responses from the man behind Cydia.

iOS 7.1 Beta is Here and a Good Sign

The iOS 7.1 beta is here and is about two weeks old. We are still waiting for more a new iOS 7.1 beta release to bring more changes and features, but the introduction of the first beta is an important step towards the final release.

Here's how to get the iOS 7.1 beta right now.

Here’s how to get the iOS 7.1 beta right now.

While there is no official word linking the iOS 7 jailbreak to the iOS 7.1 release, there is speculation that the team working on the iOS 7 jailbreak will wait to release until after iOS 7.1, assuming there is nothing in it that breaks the jailbreak progress. This strategy would deliver the latest software ahead of the inevitable jailbreak fix from Apple. To be safe, don’t update to iOS 7.1 until there is an all clear from the jailbreak community.

Fake Jailbreaks Continue

We’ve issued warnings about fake iOS 7 jailbreaks that are designed to get users to pay for an iOS 7 jailbreak that they cannot deliver. Everything from press releases, forum posts and comments advertise jailbreaks that are not legit.

Read: 5 Signs that iOS 7 Jailbreak is Fake

In short watch out for these sites because even if they offer a money back guarantee, there are typically too many hoops to jump through. The real iOS 7 jailbreak will come from the evad3rs or will get a full blessing from well known members of the jailbreak community.

iOS 7 Jailbreak for iPhone 4 Isn’t Connected

There is an iOS 7 jailbreak with a version of Cydia for iOS 7, but it is only on the iPhone 4 and it is using an exploit from 2010. This may be the final use of this exploit as the iPhone 4 is the last remaining device susceptible to it and iOS 7 is likely the last major iOS release the iPhone 4 will see. The video below shows how this work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gdic3SbuwK8

There are instructions for the tethered iPhone 4 iOS 7 jailbreak available which is good for iPhone owners. Sadly, this has no bearing on the untethered iOS 7 jailbreak that the evad3rs are working on.

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