Saurik made a rare public appearance on Twitter Tuesday afternoon to discuss the future of Cydia Impactor and a particularly frustrating error that users have been experiencing since Apple pushed some of its latest software updates for Mac and iOS.
More specifically, Saurik talked about an error in which Cydia Impactor would tell users that they needed to upgrade to Xcode 7.3 when they were trying to side-load a pertinent jailbreak app, such as Chimera, Electra, or unc0ver. That message looked something like this:
Saurik addressed this error, along with additional details, in the following Tweetstorm:
From what we can gather, Saurik has been OOO (out of office) for personal life matters, and as we learned in previous public addresses, he’s particularly busy with his work life. These obstacles make it challenging for him to support jailbreak-oriented software, but unlike the complications that compelled him to give up on supporting Cydia Substrate, Saurik continues to enjoy working on Cydia Impactor when time permits.
There’s just one problem: Saurik’s schedule is booked solid until at least mid-December, which was the timeframe he cited for when he might be able to resolve the Xcode 7.3 error message for Cydia Impactor users. Moreover, he may have to drop Linux support, leaving just macOS and Windows as supported platforms, depending on the complexities of the current circumstances.
If you’re in need of Chimera, Electra, or unc0ver as a jailbreak solution right now, then you have a few different options:
- Wait for Saurik to update Cydia Impactor
- Pay Apple $99 per year to enroll in the Apple Developer program
- Use an online signing service, such as Ignition, to download these apps via Safari
One downfall to using signing services is that their certificates are frequently revoked. Unsurprisingly, this introduces pain points for jailbreakers. When a signing service’s certificate is revoked, it doesn’t interfere with your jailbreak, but should you reboot your device, you won’t be able to re-run that jailbreak app again. You’ll have to wait for the signing service to issue a new certificate and re-download your jailbreak app at that time.
For most people, paying Apple $99 per year for a program they’ll never take full advantage of is outrageous, so we recommend that the vast majority of jailbreakers either wait for Saurik to update Cydia Impactor, or use a signing service. They’re all over if you take the time to search Google.
Alternative, if you have an A7-A11 device, then you can use the newly released checkra1n jailbreak. This tool runs natively on macOS without the need for Cydia Impactor, and while it’s a public beta right now, it seems to be rather stable. We still (officially) recommend waiting for the public release, but we’d totally understand if you can’t wait, and we’ve outlined all the steps for using it in our tutorial.
Are you excited for Saurik to look into the Cydia Impactor Situation? Discuss in the comments section.