iOS

Apple’s original HomePod has been jailbroken with checkra1n

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 19, 2020
A photo showing a finger resting on the HomePod top with the Siri orb animation

When most people think of a jailbreak tool like checkra1n, among the first things that come to mind are iPhones, iPod touches, iPads, and Apple TVs. Interestingly enough, the checkra1n team has shown time and time again that the checkm8 bootrom exploit that powers this particular jailbreak is commanding enough to hack even some of the most arbitrary of things, including Apple’s T2 chip, which resides in a variety of Macs.

On Thursday, we learned that even Apple’s HomePod Smart Speaker devices are susceptible to the checkra1n jailbreak. The news, first shared this afternoon by Twitter user @_L1ngL1ng_, took many avid jailbreakers by surprise:

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ZecOps & FreeTheSandbox release tfp0 exploit for iOS 13.5.1-13.7

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated February 3, 2021

As promised, following security researcher 08Tcw3BB’s much anticipated presentation at HITB CyberWeek 2020, affiliated software security firm ZecOps has officially released an exploit for iOS & iPadOS 13.5.1-13.7.

The announcement, shared this Thursday afternoon via the ZecOps Twitter account, links to a blog post on the firm’s own website that discusses the exploit, how it works via a proof of concept, and how an attacker could use it:

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Hate Twitter’s new Fleets feature? This new tweak hides it from your app

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 19, 2020

Fleets are a type of disappearing Tweet that Twitter integrated into its social media platform just this week. Fleets are visible to the user’s audience for a period lasting up to 24 hours, and if you haven’t already noticed, they appear at the top of your Twitter app user interface in the form of round circles with the user’s profile picture inside of them.

While Fleets are obviously Twitter attempting to stay relevant with addicting services like Snapchat, some users (myself included) don’t really care for the feature in the slightest. If you feel the same way and have a jailbroken handset at your disposal, then we think you might take a liking to a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed FleetingChances by iOS developer Ian Welker.

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Sileo and Zebra package managers each get updates with improved iOS 14 support

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 18, 2020

Checkra1n is the only public jailbreak tool capable of pwning iOS & iPadOS 14 at the time of this writing, and regardless of whether you use it as it comes or you use the Odyssey Team’s Odysseyra1n bootstrap, a few notable package manager updates are now available as of Wednesday evening that you probably won’t want to miss, assuming they apply to you.

No, the aforementioned updates aren’t for the pre-installed Cydia package manager, but instead for competing package managers that have gained a lot of traction in the past couple of years. We’re talking of course about Zebra, a popular Cydia alternative that can be installed with the native checkra1n bootstrap, and Sileo, the default package manager that comes pre-installed with the Odysseyra1n bootstrap.

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iOS 13.5.1-13.7 exploit to be discussed by 08Tcw3BB at HITB CyberWeek 2020

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 17, 2020

Those paying close attention to the jailbreak community as of late would already know that there’ve been a number of recent developments that could eventually spell out the jailbreakability of iOS 13.5.1-13.7. If you missed the news, FreeTheSandbox is working on a public jailbreak supporting these firmware versions while security researcher @08Tc3wBB plans to release a dedicated exploit for use by the jailbreak community.

Neither of the aforementioned things have happened yet, but for those trying to keep tabs on everything as it happens, it might be worth mentioning that @08Tc3wBB plans to discuss his iOS 13.5.1-13.7 exploit on November 19th via HITB CyberWeek in a talk entitled “Jailbreaks Never Die: Exploiting iOS 13.7.”

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Eliza gives the Status Bar’s battery icon a wider array of colors to use

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated May 11, 2023

Apple makes it easy to discern the state of your iPhone’s battery, not only with a convenient icon in the Status Bar that depicts the current charge level, but also with unique colors that hint about its current condition. For example, a green battery icon indicates a good charge, while a yellow battery icon means that Low Power Mode is turned on and a red battery icon suggests a low charge.

Apple has used the same colors to depict battery states for as long as I can remember, and so it tends to be somewhat monotonous. Fortunately, a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed Eliza by iOS developer WilsontheWolf provides the Status Bar’s battery icon with a wider range of colors to help it express your current battery state.

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CCCounters adds usage information to iOS’ Control Center toggles

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 16, 2020

It goes without saying that Control Center would be one of the more advantageous additions to iOS over the years. But despite how great Control Center is, that hasn’t stopped the jailbreak community from tweaking it in imaginative ways to make it better for the end user.

One such example is a newly released and free jailbreak tweak known as CCCounters by iOS developer 0xkuj. Once installed, CCCounters monitors Control Center toggle usage and displays the most recent instance in which those toggles were switched on or off.

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Jailbreak tweaks of the week: BigSnooze, iBlockX, Tenmetsu, & more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 15, 2020

The jailbreak community is in a perpetual state of anticipation as we wait for the checkra1n team to expand support for newer devices and for recent exploit developments to be released such that other jailbreak teams may take advantage of them in their tools. That aside, jailbreak tweak releases continue, and that’s why this piece exists.

In this roundup, we’ll talk about all the latest jailbreak tweaks released between Monday, November 9th and Sunday, November 15th. As you might come to expect, we’ll start by discussing our favorite releases first and then we’ll wrap things up with an outline of everything else afterward.

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BigSnooze makes it less frustrating to snooze or stop an iPhone or iPad’s alarm

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 14, 2020

Anyone who uses their iPhone’s native alarm feature to wake up each morning probably understands the struggle of trying to turn the obnoxious noise off when it begins firing. On the other hand, you might only be half-awake when you attempt to do so, resulting in repeated blind taps on your nightstand only to find that you continuously miss the correct button to stop the alarm.

BigSnooze is a new jailbreak tweak developed by Cole Cabral that tries to remedy this problem by making the snooze and stop buttons easier to tap when you’re on the cusp of awake and incoherent while the alarm fires at the crack of dawn. The result? No more tapping around and missing the desired button with your finger when you’re groggy.

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