Jailbreakers using iOS or iPadOS 14.0-14.3 have long had the option of choosing between Taurine by the Odyssey Team or unc0ver by Pwn20wnd. But earlier in the year, a third option dubbed Manticore was being relentlessly teased.
The quest to pwn the Apple Watch is one that has received oodles of attention over the years, and while the concept is most certainly possible, it hasn’t quite reached the level of fruition that most jailbreakers would expect – especially when compared with the jailbreak offerings for iPhones and iPads.
Much of this has to do with the uncertainty of an Apple Watch jailbreak’s usefulness in addition to concerns related to restoring the Apple Watch’s firmware in the event of catastrophic errors (respring loops, etc.), but that hasn’t stopped some jailbreak developers from dabbling with the idea.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, the Taurine jailbreak is now officially available for all iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 devices.
Taurine is the latest jailbreak whose development is led by CoolStar, the same individual responsible for spearheading the development of the Odyssey jailbreak on iOS & iPadOS 13.0-13.7 devices, the Chimera jailbreak on iOS 12 devices, and the Electra jailbreak on iOS 11 devices. With that in mind, if you've used any of the aforementioned jailbreak tools in the past, then you will find that Taurine's user experience feels particularly similar.
Although the unc0ver jailbreak by Pwn20wnd was the first to implement support for iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3, those who’ve been patiently holding out for CoolStar’s iOS & iPadOS 14-based jailbreak instead are going to be in for a treat.
Steering away from the initial plan to launch an SSH-only iOS & iPadOS 14 jailbreak first before launching a full-fledged iOS & iPadOS 14 jailbreak afterward, CoolStar has instead decided to focus all efforts on the full-fledged option — the fruits of which are now available to the general public.
Ever since @ModernPwner dropped the cicuta_verosa kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 devices, we knew it’d only be a matter of time before jailbreaks would pick up support.
Pwn20wnd was the first to the party after adding iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 support to the unc0ver jailbreak with a custom kernel exploit based on cicuta_verosa, but it just so happens that CoolStar was also working on an iOS 14.0-14.3 jailbreak that uses the cicuta_verosa kernel exploit directly.
Just under a week ago, CoolStar seeded Odyssey v1.3.1 beta 1 to members of the Sileo / Odyssey Discord channel for public beta testing. The biggest change was initial support for the new cicuta_verosa kernel exploit by @ModernPwner.
It wasn’t long after the beta release that the Odyssey Team learned of an issue involving bootstrapping a fresh device when using the cicuta_verosa exploit. Consequently Odyssey v1.3.1 beta 2 is now available with a fix.
Ever since Pwn20wnd updated the unc0ver jailbreak tool to support iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3, we’ve received countless questions about when CoolStar’s iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 jailbreak would launch.
While CoolStar has been particularly tight-lipped about progress on such a jailbreak, even going as far as to suggest that there was no urgency to rush a release merely because unc0ver launched first, the good news for those who’ve been asking is that the jailbreak community got its first tangible teaser late last night.
While much of the jailbreak community’s interest recently has been hyper-focused on the unc0ver jailbreak adding support for iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3, many continue to wait for CoolStar to launch Odyssey14 (an interim name for the upcoming Sileo-supported iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 jailbreak that will likely receive a new name once released).
While such a jailbreak isn’t yet out to the general public, it should be noted that CoolStar released a new public beta of the Odyssey jailbreak for iOS & iPadOS 13.0-13.7 on Friday. The new public beta, dubbed version 1.3.1 beta 1, provides access to the brand new cicuta_verosa exploit on iOS & iPadOS 13 devices, among other exploit-related changes.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that @ModernPwner released the cicuta_verosa kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3. But as we noted in a follow-up piece, teams of use were limited to CoolStar for the upcoming Odyssey14 jailbreak and to GPL-compliant projects, which the unc0ver jailbreak is not.
While unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd has been particularly silent over the past several months, he broke that silence early Thursday morning upon sharing a series of Tweets that contained some particularly notable teasers about the state of an iOS & iPadOS 14-compatible jailbreak for all devices.
A lot has been happening in the jailbreak community with regard to iOS & iPadOS 14 in just the past couple of weeks. Not only have we witnessed jailbreak teasers on iOS 14.0 and 14.3 devices, but a new kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3 called cicuta_virosa recently dropped. This means that a public jailbreak release supporting all devices on the aforementioned firmware versions could be just around the corner.
Given everything that appears to be going on, it seemed like a good time to turn the spotlight toward a rather interesting development known as project Manticore. At face value, it appears to be an upcoming jailbreak tool based on the new cicuta_virosa kernel exploit for iOS & iPadOS 14.0-14.3.
Shortly after the unveiling of the brand-new cicuta_verosa kernel exploit for all devices running up to and including iOS 14.3, renowned jailbreak developers and hackers began investigating its viability.
While much of the initial spotlight shined on Odyssey lead developer CoolStar to create an iOS 14-compatible jailbreak with the novel cicuta_verosa exploit, it seems that even Brandon Plank, another name that resonates positively with the jailbreak community, will be going hands-on with it.
Jailbreak loyalists have unquestionably heard about the brand new cicuta_verosa kernel exploit for all devices capable of running iOS & iPadOS 14.3 and below, and for what it’s worth, this is excellent news for the jailbreak community.
Given that most recent jailbreak developments have been either for that of iOS 12 or iOS & iPadOS 13-centric jailbreaks such as Chimera and Odyssey, or for the hardware-limited checkra1n jailbreak that only supports A7-A11 devices up to iOS & iPadOS 14, the announcement of this exploit’s release harbored much-needed positivity in the midst of what could only be described as a lengthy lull for jailbreak hobbyists.