On Tuesday, Apple stopped signing the iOS 12.1 public release, preventing downgrades from iOS 12.1.1 or 12.1.2, which patched a variety of bugs and exploits that could potentially amount to something in the jailbreak community down the road.
Citing a Tweet shared this morning by hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd, Apple is still curiously signing iOS 12.1 beta 2, which means you could downgrade to iOS 12.1 beta 2 via iTunes if you tried:
Apple stopped signing iOS 12.0.1 on Tuesday, a move that prevents all iPhone and iPad users from downgrading their firmware via iTunes to any version lower than iOS 12.1.
It’s been almost one full month since Apple publicly released iOS 12.1, signaling one of the Cupertino-based company’s longest firmware signing windows in recent memory; most windows only last for about two weeks.
Apple officially released iOS 12.1 to the public last week, and if history is anything to go by, then that means the Cupertino-based tech giant will soon close the gates for downgrades to iOS 12.0.1 via iTunes.
Apple generally closes the signing window for older firmware approximately 14 days after a new version is released, give or take a day. That said, if you’ve been thinking about downgrading back to iOS 12.0.1, then you should probably get a move on.
Good practice for any jailbreaker is to save your handset’s SHSH blobs regularly. Doing so opens you up to the possibility of firmware downgrades and other fruitful benefits concerning jailbreaking.
A whole host of SHSH blob-saving tools exist today, including blobsaver. The latter is a cross-platform GUI app that promises ease of use across common operating systems like macOS, Windows, and even Linux.
We reported yesterday on the release of nitoTV, the package manager for tvOS. Just like Cydia does on iOS, it allows for the installation of unsigned apps and tweaks on Apple TV 4 and 4K, and currently supports tvOS 9, 10.0-10.1 and 10.2.2. All of these firmwares have jailbreaks, but only one of them is still being signed by Apple, ready to be downgraded to and jailbroken. But is it that simple?
Earlier today, Apple accidentally started signing older firmware versions of iOS, effectively letting people downgrade their devices at will. This was just a temporary hiccup as merely an hour later, Apple closed the signing of all these older iOS versions again.
Update: As suspected, it was just a bug and Apple has once again stopped signing older firmware versions, making it impossible to downgrade. If you were on of the few that was able to downgrade and install an earlier iOS version, you should be able to use that version without any problem.
With a powerful tfp0 exploit for iOS 11.0-11.1.2 out in the wild, the future looks somewhat bright for an iOS 11 jailbreak. On the other hand, you don’t have long to get your devices on iOS 11.1.2 before Apple stops signing the supported firmware.
Not only has iOS 11.2 been out for some time, but Apple just released iOS 11.2.1 on Wednesday, which means the signing window could be closer than ever to closing.
Update: tvOS 11.1 and iOS 11.1.2 are now unsigned.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESTORE TO THEM!
New exploits for iOS 11.1.2 and below have made the possibility of upcoming jailbreaks very real. However, without the proper preparation, you could be left in the cold, without blobs to restore, or on the wrong firmware. Also, not everyone should update, so you need to be sure it's for you. Let's go through the options.
With the release of Ian Beer's new exploit, some hope for a future Apple TV 4/4K jailbreak has appeared. The exploit will theoretically work on firmwares up to and including tvOS 11.1, but not 11.2 and higher. For this reason, I advised in my jailbreak guide that Apple TV 4/4K users who want to have a chance of jailbreaking manually restore now to tvOS 11.1, before it goes unsigned. You can use our guide on the topic to do so.
Programmer and iOS expert axi0mX has just announced that he is posting the decryption keys for all S5L8942 devices on the iPhone Wiki today. The availability of keys will allow all sorts of fun hackery for devices which sport the processor in question.
As the 32-bit devices have been a little neglected of late, long in the tooth as they are, this new release could help to spice things up a little. Developer tihmstar has updated his futurerestore tool, which we've reported on extensively in the past, with an interesting piece of legacy support.
It now includes all the functionality of the Odysseus downgrade tool, allowing users to levy their saved blobs to upgrade, downgrade, or restore their devices to unsigned firmware, hassle-free. In this guide, we'll show you how.