Apple’s Latest Weapon To Combat Jailbreak 7.1.2 Utility: Self-Sabotage?
Apple to Combat Jailbreakers and Pangu Jailbreak 7.1.2 Utility with iOS 7.1.3 and Self-Sabatoge? - Prior to Apple’s release of iOS 7.1.2, a group based out China with no established past on the jailbreak scene took the world by storm with their release of the Pangu jailbreak utility, which functioned on 7.1 and 7.1.1 at the time. Following Pangu’s grand introduction into the world of jailbreaking, Apple issued iOS 7.1.2 to the general public and seemingly neglected to patch the vulnerabilities exploited by Pangu, allowing the utility to fully jailbreak 7.1.2 UnTethered. With Apple’s upcoming release of 7.1.3, as detailed previously, the company will certainly patch the Untethered Pangu utility, preventing it from functioning on, and jailbreaking, 7.1.3. However, Apple could easily have patched Pangu in iOS 7.1.2, as they’ve been quick to patch previous jailbreak utilities in years past, so why didn’t they? It seems as though it wasn’t neglect at all and may actually prove to be a tactic in Apple’s new arsenal of jailbreak mitigation procedures.
Apple’s Latest Weapon To Combat Jailbreak 7.1.2 Pangu Tool Goes Beyond iOS 7.1.3
Similar to the original 7.0 through 7.0.4 evasi0n7 jailbreak, Apple released both 7.0.5 (for iPhones outside the US) and 7.0.6, both of which easily could have patched the jailbreak but failed to. As alluded to above, it may have been by design that Apple prolonged the patching of evasi0n.
In the case of 7.0.x, numerous crashes and random resprings plagued devices and that’s not counting the frequent app crashes that nearly every iOS 7 device owner has experienced. After leaving the jailbreak unpatched for some time, Apple issued iOS 7.1 to the public, which not only closed the vulnerabilities used by evasion, but also conveniently corrected nearly all of the aforementioned issues.
Why Doesn’t Apple Immediately Patch iOS 7.1.2 Jailbreak With 7.1.3?
So why didn’t Apple patched the jailbreak sooner if they were aware not only of the evasi0n jailbreak itself, but also the vast number of issues users were experiencing? Simply put, Apple has a love/hate relationship with jailbreaking - they like that users love to jailbreak and a number of said users only purchase iDevices knowing they can (eventually) be jailbroken. However, they simultaneously hate the process not only because it opens their “walled garden” ecosystem, but also because it has the potential to leave their system vulnerable, which is something they’re obviously against.
Furthermore, the same 7.0.x scenario that’s detailed above is recurring with 7.1.x. The only difference is that now instead of frequent crashes, users are experiencing significant battery drain problems, random spinning wheels near the carrier name in the status bar for no apparent reason and a countless number of other oddities on Apple’s latest public firmware, iOS 7.1.2 - all of which haven’t been much of an issue until 7.1.2 was released - users on iOS 7.1 have reported significantly less problems.
That being said, Apple is using jailbreakers’ own weapon against them: bugs. It seems as though they’re purposefully leaving bugs that are annoying, but not quite bad enough to warrant switching to another operating system. These intentional bugs are just downright obnoxious and could easily be squashed by Apple if they didn’t want to leave incentive for jailbroken users to update to a firmware that corrects the issues and simultaneously patches the jailbreak.
Apple’s Plan Of Action Is Bigger Than The Upcoming 7.1.3 Jailbreak Patch
As with iOS 7.1 and the 7.0.x jailbreak, this will undoubtedly be the case for iOS 7.1.3, it will fix the bothersome issues that exist in 7.1.2, but will also make it impossible for users to jailbreak 7.1.3, as Pangu will be patched. Moreover, when Apple thought the jailbreak community wouldn’t release another utility until iOS 8, both 7.1 and 7.1.1 remained seemingly bug-free, until Pangu and iOS 7.1.2 were released.
Seeing as Apple has a ‘love/hate’ relationship with jailbreaking, as mentioned above, they’re giving jailbreakers exactly what they want: room to jailbreak, but only on Apple’s terms. Now, unlike years past, users will have to pick between a jailbreak on a firmware riddled with off-putting bugs or an apparently stable firmware without a jailbreak.
Given Apple’s latest maneuvers, for those of you who have yet to jailbreak 7.1.x, it’s recommended that you do so now prior to the forthcoming iOS 7.1.3 jailbreak patching update; our comprehensive jailbreak iOS 7.1.2 tutorial is available here.
Again, to summarize, while the issues Apple may intentionally leave in jailbreakable iterations of iOS are certainly annoying (if noticed by the end-user), they make updating more of an incentive than a necessity, likely to appeal to jailbreakers who encounter said issues.
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