Quite a few heads began spinning on Thursday after Odyssey Team lead developer CoolStar made a comment in the team’s Discord channel that mentioned how the upcoming Cheyote jailbreak for iOS & iPadOS 15.0-15.1.1 would “probably” be a free release, followed by an explanation of how CoolStar has been spending most of her time lately.
And from what we can gather, a lot of people seemed to take this… well… the wrong way…
In the comment, CoolStar says she isn’t sure if people would be into paid jailbreak releases. She goes on to say that paid jailbreak tweaks have existed for years, seemingly to justify the idea. Paired with the “probably” a free release statement above, we can certainly see where this may have rubbed people the wrong way, but rest assured, if you were one of those people, it was likely a misunderstanding.
A few hours later, CoolStar posted another comment, reassuring prospective users that the Cheyote jailbreak would be a free release, and that her comment had only intended to describe why it was taking so long for the jailbreak tool to be completed and released.
So here’s what we know:
CoolStar isn’t just a jailbreak developer, but she also takes an interest in creating mods for ChromeOS. Much like jailbreak tweaks for the iPhone and iPad, these mods have value, and CoolStar appears to enjoy making and selling these mods, drivers, and associated software to users as it appears to be lucrative for her.
CoolStar has repeatedly talked about this in the past, so it not surprising to see that she spends a lot of her time developing things for ChromeOS users, but the community must come to understand that CoolStar is only one person and that she divides her time up based on what she feels is the most fun and most valuable.
Since CoolStar is making money with her ChromeOS modding side gig, it’s clear from her original comment that she merely intended to communicate why there were delays in releasing the Cheyote jailbreak and to see if people would be willing to pay for such a tool to shift her time prioritization away from the already lucrative ChomeOS mod scene.
In a Tweet string shared later in the day, CoolStar reaffirmed that iOS jailbreaking is a low-priority project for her compared to ChomeOS mod development, and this was the reason why it was being delayed so much despite being so close to completion. Many of the delays can be attributed to bugs that still need to be ironed out, however doing this takes time, and CoolStar says she doesn’t have a lot of that.
The Tweet string also revealed that CoolStar hasn’t touched the Cheyote jailbreak tool’s code in a month.
TL;DR, people seem to be complaining that the Cheyote jailbreak tool is taking too long to develop, and CoolStar’s response to those complainers is simple: ChromeOS development is more lucrative for her at the moment, and if the complainers want to pay for the jailbreak, then doing so might increase her motivation to work on it more. Until then, it’s a free release, and it’ll be ready when it’s ready.