iOS is a far cry from being an ugly mobile operating system, but there’s certainly a bit of wiggle room for Apple to improve on it. Unfortunately, first party redesigns from Apple can be few and far in between.
Amid those circumstances, it’s not uncommon for third parties to develop concepts for jailbreak tweaks or themes that make an interface more aesthetically pleasing than it comes out of the box.
One of the most obvious benefits to jailbreaking is that you can customize how your system looks and behaves without Apple look over your shoulder and limiting what you can and cannot do.
While installing themes would certainly be one of the easiest ways to make your handset look different than it does out of the box, the addition of aesthetically-driven jailbreak tweaks like the newly released Meredith by iOS developer Luki120 can help push your user experience on to the next level.
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.
There have been a number of interesting jailbreak tweak releases lately, and to top it all off, a good bit of jailbreak-centric news made rounds. The point of posts like these? To bring it all together for you.
In this piece, we’ll showcase all the latest jailbreak tweak releases and news from this past week. As always, we’ll kick things off with a summary of our favorite releases and then wrap things up with an outline of everything else afterward,
If you’re using a Face ID-enabled handset without a passcode, which might very well be the case if you’re using the checkra1n jailbreak on the iPhone X with iOS 14, then you may notice how interacting with notifications from the Lock Screen takes more effort than it needs to.
More specifically, if you don’t have a passcode, then tapping on a notification banner from the Lock Screen reveals an Open button that must be tapped before you’re brought to the app’s interface to interact with the missed notification.
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.
If you've been following our recent jailbreak coverage you'll know that there is now a jailbreak available for iOS and iPadOS 14, released by the unc0ver team. Another tool is also on the horizon, being worked on by CoolStar. However, the exploit which it uses will only work on iOS and iPadOS 14.0-14.3, not the current 14.4, nor Apple's upcoming firmware, 14.5.
The problem for would-be jailbreakers had been that iOS and iPadOS 14.0-14.3 are no longer signed by Apple, which means users could no longer move to those firmwares through traditional methods. It therefore looked like anyone who wasn't already on iOS or iPadOS 14.0-14.3 was going to miss out on the first semi-untethered iOS 14 jailbreak.
Safari in iOS and iPadOS 14.5 further limits the risk of information leak by proxying safe-browsing services via Apple servers to prevents user data from being returned to Google.
Many modern cars now come standard with CarPlay, a feature that allows iPhone users to interface with certain apps directly from their vehicle’s touch screen-equipped head unit. The only problem, however, is that not all apps support CarPlay.
Jailbreakers who want more out of their CarPlay user experience would do good to try a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed CarPlayEnable by iOS developer Ethan Arbuckle, as it effectively lets iOS 14 users interact with just about any iPhone app they want via CarPlay.
iOS 14.5 is shaping up to be a pretty big software update for the mobile operating system. Along with the other new features coming down the pipe, it looks like Apple Maps will see a significant uptick in features, too.
If you’re using iOS or iPadOS 14 right now, then your only means of jailbreaking would be with the checkra1n jailbreak on older A7-A11-equipped handsets up to and including the iPhone X.
Fortunately, the tides may change in the relatively near future as a newly released kernel level local privilege escalation (LPE) dubbed cicuta_virosa looks particularly promising for all handsets capable of running iOS or iPadOS 12.0-14.3.
The current beta of iOS 14.5 has made iOS 14's Picture in Picture (PiP) mode work with YouTube videos in Safari and other browsers, although it probably won't last for long.