Following the news that Apple had plugged the Evasi0n untethered jailbreak for A5+ powered iPhone 5, iPad and other new devices with the release of iOS 6.1.3, it was a case of being back to square one for those purchasing these new devices. Anybody running iOS 6.1.2 or earlier can jailbreak across the board, but if iOS 6.1.3 taught us anything, it’s that the cat is never too far behind the mouse, and will eventually get clawed. Usually, this is a demoralizing period of time, yet although there is of course no untethered jailbreak just yet for the very latest firmware, we have already seen plenty of very encouraging signs for future firmware releases.
First and foremost, devices on A4 or earlier firmware can enjoy a tethered jailbreak via Redsn0w. Since these older devices are susceptible to the Limera1n exploit and always will be, this is something of a formality, but if you do own an iPhone or iPod touch running on a pre-A5 processor, please check out our tutorial on how to jailbreak iOS 6.1.3.
The first hope of an Evasi0n-like jailbreak 6.1.3 was found by ex-Chronic Dev-Team member Joshua Hill, otherwise known as P0sixninja. But while his discoveries have, along with the findings of Evad3rs member Pod2g, been encouraging, both have also stated that they’d probably save what they have and channel them into a future, more significant firmware version.
As per tweets by Pod2g earlier on today:
@xld2s59 we are not working on a 6.1.3 jailbreak, that would be too much efforts for a minimal update. We’re waiting for a major release.
All right, another exploitable use-after-free for production Safari/Chrome and WebKit nightly 😉 That’s 3.
@slawek_bielawa They could be utilized for a remote jailbreak, but this is not what I am trying to do here!
@jaywalkn I have not decided yet. May either: report, keep them for me, sell them…
Meanwhile, P0sixninja also added that he’d be looking to utilize exploits for a possible iOS "7.0.x or maybe even 7.1.x" jailbreak, which would seem infinitely more rewarding and worthwhile than iOS 6.1.3, which is scarcely different to any other iOS 6.1.x release.
While the news may be somewhat disheartening to those stuck on iOS 6.1.3, the Evasi0n jailbreak afforded everybody ample time to sort their devices out on iOS 6 and apply the untethered jailbreak while they could.
Lest we forget, this is not a service or something we should feel entitlement to, and as P0sixninja adds in a further tweet, people should expect "fewer and fewer" jailbreaks as the process of finding exploits becomes "harder and harder"
The take-home message is, those on iOS 6.1.3 are very, very unlikely to see an untethered jailbreak emerge. The next major release is expected to be iOS 7, but with that not thought to be releasing until between July and September at the earliest, those stuck on iOS 6.1.3 will unfortunately just have to sit tight.
Those of you who are are lucky enough to be still on iOS 6.x, can follow our guides to jailbreak iOS 6 and jailbreak iOS 6.1.2 using Evasi0n.
So what do you guys think? Are the devs doing the right thing by saving the exploits for iOS 7.x, which is still months away from a public release, with every chance of Apple patching them anyway in the next major release? Should they use the exploits now for another 6.1.x release? Discuss in the comments section below!
(source: Twitter)
You may also like to check out:
- Download iOS 6.1.3 for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch [Direct Links]
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