Installer 5 For iOS 11 Coming As An Alternative To Cydia

The jailbreak scene is currently alive with activity and enthusiasm. Jay Freeman, creator and general maintainer of Cydia, has confirmed that he is working with some old-school names from the jailbreak world to offer iOS 11 compatibilities, and now, another name from the jailbreak archives has reemerged, with it being confirmed that Installer is getting yet another run out with its fifth major release.

Some hardened and battle-worn individuals who have been involved in the jailbreak community will instantly recognize the Installer name. They’ll also know that it hasn’t really had any type of publicity or a run-out in the real-world since it was updated to version 4.0 back in 2011 when it was put together and maintained by Ripdev and Nullriver.

They were the good old days of iOS 4.x.x, with the wonderful skeuomorphic design and user-interface which is pretty much unrecognizable by today’s aesthetic standards. Putting history and nostalgia aside, it seems that the confusion around Cydia not being updated for iOS 10 and 11 has been enough for Installer to be entirely rebuilt from the ground up for the modern jailbreak world and released as a version 5. The rebuild is being handled by Sam Guichelaar and the Infini_Dev team, with the Installer 5 website promising that the app will be “coming to Jailbroken iOS devices on iOS 11 soon.”

The contained information also gives an insight into what Installer 5 is for those who aren’t familiar with historical releases of the app, confirming that it “is an open source, free package manager for jailbroken devices on iOS 10 & 11.”

In short, Installer 5 will be a Cydia alternative complete with source management, different packages to install directly to the device, and the ability to manage and update already installed packages. That’s great news for the community but it doesn’t really negate the need for Cydia or Substrate to be updated as Installer 5 doesn’t act as a direct replacement or offer compatibility for packages which rely on a functioning version of Substrate. Some members of the community are even describing it as trying to solve a problem which doesn’t actually exist.

Other than suggesting that more information will be coming soon, the team hasn’t provided any specific release details. We’ll be sure to keep an eye on this one and let you know more as it becomes known.

(Source: @Infini_Dev [Twitter])

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