The iPad 7 is the lone device right now that sees any imminent potential for a jailbreak on iPadOS 18. That’s because this iPadOS 18 device is susceptible to the unpatchable hardware-based bootrom exploit, while no other checkm8 devices can run iOS or iPadOS 18.
Fortunately, members of the palera1n team have been hard at work trying to get things working, as indicated by a recent post shared to X (formerly Twitter) by the team.
The post credits palera1n team member @kok3shiDev for achieving an iPadOS 18 jailbreak on the iPad 7, albeit with lots of issues that need to be addressed before it will be ready for any sort of public consumption.
It’s worth noting that not only is iPadOS 18 not as performant on this device as it is on newer devices, but so many changes in the new operating system mean that jailbreak tweaks and their dependencies will need to be updated to support it.
One positive note, however, is that this one jailbreakable device gives jailbreak developers a physical platform to develop and test jailbreak tweaks on so that they can ensure compatibility with future jailbreaks on other devices, should they transpire.
As this time, there is no ETA for palera1n to officially support the iPad 7 on iPadOS 18. We can only assume that a release will happen after all the bumps are ironed out, and that could take a while. Fortunately, iPadOS 18 isn’t even out of beta yet, so there’s plenty of time yet.
Unfortunately for devices newer than the iPad 7, hackers will have quite the challenge set before them if they are to develop a jailbreak. Not only will we need a kernel exploit, but we will need an SPTM bypass and other methods to get around Apple’s hardened security made to prevent tampering with the kernel memory. So for these devices, the wait could be even longer.
Are you excited that the first publicly jailbreakable iPadOS 18 device could be just over the horizon? Let us know in the comments section down below.