iOS 12

Jailbreakers can customize their Home Screen’s app icon labels with Labels+

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated May 2, 2023

One of the things we just can’t help but notice about the Home Screen is the fact that each individual app icon sports its own label — typically designating the respective app’s name.

Apple doesn’t provide users with much customization when it comes to the Home Screen’s app icon labels. The only arguable exceptions are that the icon labels may switch between black and white depending on the color of the Home Screen’s wallpaper and that users may embolden the app icon labels by enabling bold text system-wide.

Substitute updated to version 2.0.4 with performance and stability fixes

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 13, 2021

If you’ve been paying attention to the unc0ver team as of late, then you likely caught wind of the team’s plans in November to release Substitute version 2.0 with significant speed and performance improvements. Substitute is the primary tweak injection method used by the unc0ver jailbreak, which means that it loads user-installed jailbreak tweaks and extensions.

The unc0ver team’s plans were realized just last week after Sam Bingner unleashed the update on his personal repository, which comes pre-added to Cydia out of the box on the unc0ver jailbreak. While the update was somewhat shaky for a small subset of users at first, a couple of smaller subsequent Substitute updates quickly addressed that.

Substitute v2.0 officially released, v2.0.1 also now available

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 8, 2021

At the end of November, hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd shared a Tweet indicating that Substitute — the primary tweak injection method for this particular jailbreak — would soon be updated to version 2.0 with a trove of improvements.

Without any sort of ETA provided at the time, no one could have guessed when Substitute v2.0 would launch. With that in mind, many unc0ver users were taken by surprise late last night when the update officially became available by way of Sam Bingner’s repository.

Apple unsigns iOS 14.2, 14.2.1, and 12.4.9, thwarting downgrades

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 7, 2021

After officially launching iOS 14.3 to the public last month with new features and improvements, Apple has closed the signing window for iOS & iPadOS 14.2 & 14.2.1, a move that prevents affected iPhone and iPad owners from restoring their handset’s firmware version to anything but the current iOS & iPadOS 14.3 release.

In addition to iOS & iPadOS 14.2 & 14.2.1, the company has officially started unsigning iOS 12.4.9, which prevents older handsets that are incapable of being upgraded to iOS or iPadOS 13 from downgrading from the newer iOS 12.5 release.

Chimera jailbreak for iOS 12 updated to version 1.6.0 with an extensive change log

Anthony Bouchard ∙ December 25, 2020

The Chimera Team released an unexpected update for its iOS 12-centric Chimera jailbreak tool this Christmas eve, officially bringing it up to version 1.6.0.

Chimera Team lead developer CoolStar announced the latest Chimera update via the official Sileo / Odyssey / Chimera Discord channel late last night, being sure to include an extensive list of changes present in the updated release.

Chimera jailbreak updated to v1.5.1 with more bug fixes and improvements

Anthony Bouchard ∙ December 2, 2020

If you’ve been paying attention to the Odyssey Team’s Discord channel or Twitter page recently, then you’ve likely witnessed the sudden priority shift to the iOS 12-centric Chimera jailbreak – a notable departure from the team’s typical precedence, the iOS & iPadOS 13-centric Odyssey jailbreak.

The sudden attention to Chimera is no coincidence, as Chimera Team lead developer CoolStar had long envisioned back-porting the Odyssey Team’s successes with the Procursus bootstrap and libhooker tweak injection to Chimera. The team officially made it happen with Chimera v1.5 this week, and they’re out with yet another update this Wednesday evening in the form of Chimera v1.5.1:

Chimera jailbreak updated to v1.5, supports up to iOS 12.4.9 & adds Procursus bootstrap

Anthony Bouchard ∙ December 2, 2020

As iOS 12-using jailbreakers might recall, the Chimera Team issued a new public beta of its Chimera jailbreak tool earlier this week with Procursus bootstrap and full libhooker tweak injection integration and a plethora of backported improvements from the iOS & iPadOS 13-centric Odyssey jailbreak tool.

Early Wednesday morning, however, the Odyssey Team took to Twitter to announce that Chimera version 1.5 had been officially released to the general public without the ‘beta’ asterisk attached to the name:

Chimera jailbreak for iOS 12 picks up Procursus & libhooker support in latest beta

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 30, 2020

While much of the modern jailbreak community is currently focusing on current firmware versions like iOS & iPadOS 13 and 14, that hasn’t stopped the Chimera Team from launching a new beta version of its iOS 12-centric Chimera jailbreak tool.

Chimera Team lead developer CoolStar took to the Announcements section of the official Discord channel bright and early Monday morning to share links to Chimera v1.5.0 beta 1 — the latest public beta of the jailbreak tool for iOS 12 devices:

Checkra1n jailbreak update adds Safe Mode improvements, partial HomePod support, & more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 20, 2020

Hot off the heels of everything going on with the Odyssey jailbreak and the newly released exploit for iOS 13.5.1-13.7, the checkra1n team seemingly appeared from out of nowhere Friday evening with an unexpected update for its bootrom exploit-powered jailbreak tool, checkra1n.

The checkra1n team announced the release of the new update, dubbed version 0.12.1, via Twitter just minutes ago:

iBlockX offers jailbreakers deeper control over incoming notifications than Do Not Disturb

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 13, 2020

With iOS’ Do Not Disturb feature, you can effortlessly silence all incoming notifications that bombard your iPhone with the flip of a switch. Unfortunately, Do Not Disturb is a bit of an all-or-nothing solution. While you can individually silence contacts in the Messages app as an alternative, this doesn’t quite offer enough control if you use lots of third-party apps to keep in touch with friends and family.

iBlockX is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developers Greg0109 and MeBlackHat that strives to solve the aforementioned dilemma. It does so by handing users a smorgasbord of options for silencing calls and other notifications on a per-contact basis and for several different apps spanning user-configured time-frames whether those apps come preinstalled by Apple or not.

BHTwitter upgrades the official Twitter app on jailbroken iPhones and iPads

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated December 20, 2021

Twitter is one of the most powerful social media platforms for reaching large volumes of people, and it’s also one of the best ways to stay informed via your favorite brands, friends, influencers, and special interests. Twitter knows they have one of the best platforms, but for whatever reason they impose silly limitations on users. Fortunately, jailbreakers aren’t confined to such productivity-stifling limitations.

BHTwitter is a newly released and free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer bandarhelal that unlocks a bevy of useful features in the official Twitter app that are normally barred to regular Twitter users. It’s a great way to get the most out of your Twitter user experience without waiting for the developers of the social media platform to wake up and smell the roses in terms of the features that users demand most.

Cenamo depicts your iPhone’s current battery level via the Dock

Anthony Bouchard ∙ August 1, 2020

A quick glance at the Status Bar of your iPhone is the quickest way to discern how much of a battery charge you’ve got left. But let’s say you use a jailbreak tweak that hides this information from the Status Bar – what could you use in its place?

Enter Cenamo, a newly released and free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Thomz that transforms your Home Screen’s Dock into a dynamic battery level display. As depicted in the screenshot examples above, Cenamo fills the Dock’s native background with colors to depict your current battery situation.