This is kind of interesting. Earlier this week, Microsoft’s new Windows RT was jailbroken for the first time. The operating system was hacked to run unsigned, arm-based desktop applications using a memory exploit.
Surprisingly, the Redmond-based software company commented on the news yesterday, saying that it actually applauded the efforts of those involved in the jailbreak, and all of the work they did to document it…
The Verge spoke with a Microsoft spokesperson:
“While Microsoft debates the usability of the jailbreak, a spokesperson was quick to “applaud the ingenuity of the folks who worked this out and the hard work they did to document it,” in a statement to The Verge today…
…Microsoft acknowledges that it’s “not something the average user could, or reasonably would, leverage as it requires local access to a system, local administration rights and a debugger in order to work.”
The news comes on the heels of pod2g’s “WeWantAnOpeniOS” campaign, where the hacker called upon Apple to open up its mobile operating system to allow users to do things like install themes and tweaks without jailbreaking.
On that front, we recently heard that there is a working, untethered iOS 6 jailbreak in the wild. Hackers are still holding onto it though, as they continue to tighten things up and await Apple’s release of the next update, iOS 6.1.
The Microsoft spokesperson did say that the vulnerability may not be around in future releases, suggesting that it plans to patch the flaw. But we have to admit, it sounds like it’s being a lot cooler about all of this than Apple is.