Jay Freeman, also known to the jailbreak community as Saurik, appears to be at it again this week after releasing a surprise update for Cydia Impactor for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
The latest version of the Cydia Impactor utility comes in the form of version 0.9.53 and incorporates a number of changes for the small subset of users who are still able to use it.
In a somewhat miraculous turn of events, it appears that popular jailbreak-centric utilities including the likes of Cydia Impactor and ReProvision have started working again for some users.
The news came first by way of ReProvision lead developer Matt Clarke, who confirmed with us via email that ReProvision was actually alive and well again starting Sunday evening. Tweets shared publicly reveal that the tool was updated over the weekend to bypass the ‘that’s all folks’ message that denoted the tool’s EOL (end of life) and also that the tool wouldn’t be updated anymore if it broke a second time:
Those using the side-loadable Chimera and unc0ver jailbreak apps have experienced quite a rough patch these past couple of months given Cydia Impactor’s current broken state and the scarcity of reliable signing services that don’t get their certificates revoked shortly after going online. These issues have made it unusually challenging to get the jailbreak(s) running again after the host device endures a power cycle.
Saurik hinted in November that he would be looking into ways to fix Cydia Impactor, but we’ve since passed the expected ETA for such an update, prompting members of our very own jailbreak community to take action themselves. The newfangled efforts have resulted in a Cydia Impactor alternative for macOS called AltDeploy by @pixelomer.
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:
Among the plethora of upcoming software updates Apple announced for its mobile and desktop platforms at the WWDC 2019 Keynote event on Monday was macOS 10.15 Catalina, which promises to make Mac computers significantly more potent with literally dozens of new features.
Apple’s upcoming Mac-centric software update sounds incredibly tempting at first glance, but jailbreakers may want to pay particular attention to the update’s fine print. As it would seem, macOS Catalina drops support for outdated 32-bit apps in favor of newer and faster 64-bit alternatives, and this includes Saurik’s vital Cydia Impactor tool.
The Sileo Team pushed a new update to the Sileo beta preview on Saturday, bringing the pre-release package manager up to version 0.8b11 from the previous version 0.8b8.
In a Tweet shared early this morning, the Sileo Team elaborated on the updated version’s newest features:
On Wednesday, hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd pushed a new revision to the unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release, bringing it up to beta version 46.
Pwn20wnd shared news of the update via Twitter, adding that the update would fix significant instabilities on iOS 12 and make the system run noticeably faster:
The Sileo Team pushed another update for the Sileo beta preview on Friday, officially bringing the pre-release package manager’s version number up to 0.8b4.
A Tweet shared by the Sileo Team Friday morning describes everything that’s new in the latest iteration:
Those familiar with jailbreaking have undoubtedly heard about Sileo, a third-party package manager endorsed by the Electra Team that aims to compete with Cydia for market share; but what if we told you that you didn’t need to have a jailbroken handset to give Sileo a try?
Indeed, in an unforeseen turn of events, the Sileo Team released a public .ipa file on Saturday that can be side-loaded onto non-jailbroken handsets via Cydia Impactor or installed directly with online services such as Ignition.
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd has been rather busy as late. In addition to revising the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release at least three times since our last writeup, he also pushed a new public build – v2.1.4 – with some notable improvements.
Pwn20wnd announced the update via Twitter on Saturday:
If you’ve ever used a semi-tethered jailbreak before, then you should be familiar with Cydia Impactor. Saurik (Jay Freeman) created this multi-platform application to let you side-load apps on your iPhone or iPad, especially of the jailbreak flavor, such as Electra and unc0ver.
Recently, a web-based alternative to Cydia Impactor called AppSigner received some public attention on /r/jailbreak, and as you might come to expect, prominent members of the jailbreak community are speaking up to explain why you should not use it.
Saurik (Jay Freeman) issued yet another update for the Cydia Impactor side-loading utility on Tuesday, bringing it up to version 0.9.50. It’s the third update for the tool released this week.
Cydia Impactor 0.9.50 fixes a bug that would prevent .ipa unzipping on Windows-based platforms. That said, if you’re using Windows and experiencing problems jailbreaking with unc0ver, then you might want to grab this update.