iPad

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Editor’s Desk: Apple update death march, Adobe expectations, Apple Health and EHR

Peter Cohen ∙ November 10, 2019

This week saw yet another point update from Apple to fix a problem, this time for an issue first introduced in late October. We also saw the release of an app we've been waiting for from Adobe for a year - one that's underwhelming many of us, it turns out. Apple surprised us with some welcome electronic health record integration; now if only the rest of the health care industry would catch up. Thoughts on all this stuff in this week's editor's desk roundup.

Checkra1n v0.9 beta now available for public testing

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated May 27, 2020

Following several weeks’ worth of electrifying teasers, hacker Luca Todesco officially unveiled checkra1n, a brand-new jailbreak utility based on @axi0mX’s new checkm8 bootrom exploit for A5-A11 devices. Todesco presented the new jailbreak after taking the stage at POC2019 in Seoul, South Korea on Friday, just as he said he would, but subtle issues delayed the original launch expectation by a few days.

Checkra1n is a precedent-setting jailbreak the likes of which we have not seen since limera1n on the A4-equipped iPhone 4. Checkra1n isn’t untethered like limera1n was, but it utilizes an exploit that can’t be patched by Apple with any traditional software update, which commendably means that impacted handsets can be jailbroken for life regardless of software version.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: BadgeMe, Haptigram, ScreenSafe, and more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 10, 2019

There’s been so much excitement in the last couple of weeks with regard to the checkm8 bootrom exploit that we can’t wait to see what becomes of it. On the other hand, those already jailbroken with Chimera or unc0ver will be happy to know that we continuously report on the best of the newest jailbreak tweak releases each day.

In this roundup, we’ll talk about all the jailbreak tweaks released from Monday, November 4th to Sunday, November 10th. As usual, we’ll kick things off by talking about our favorites and then wrap things up with an outline of the rest afterward.

Last-minute issues delaying checkra1n launch, but release still imminent

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 8, 2019

Hacker and checkra1n team member Luca Todesco took the stage at POC2019 in Seoul, South Korea early Friday morning to talk about checkra1n, an upcoming checkm8 exploit-based jailbreak tool that would work with A5-A11 devices. But perhaps more intriguingly, sporadic teasers indicated that the tool would be released sometime after his presentation there.

The last official update we have from Todesco himself is that the checkra1n release was delayed longer than expected following the presentation, but it was still supposed to launch sometime today. With the day now over and still no official checkra1n jailbreak launch at the time of this writing, you wouldn’t be alone if you were twiddling your thumbs and wondering what was happening.

Retro review: Ski Safari

Sergio Velasquez ∙ November 8, 2019

If you've been playing mobile games for a while now, you probably know about Ski Safari. Hands down, one of the best mobile games on the App Store in my opinion. Or at least it was back in 2012 when it first released for the iPhone. This game was praised by its simple gameplay and great graphics and it quickly became the #1 paid app in a lot of countries.

Now it's time to see if this fun little game has survived the test of time. Is it still worth paying the $0.99 for this game? Or are you better off buying its sequel?

Can a $300 iPad edit 4K video without breaking a sweat?

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 8, 2019

In September, Apple unveiled the seventh-generation iPad tablet featuring a slightly bigger 10.2-inch Retina display versus the previous 9.7-inch screen. Its most important feature: this so-called budget iPad starts at $329, but education customers can have it for just $299. The question is, can this iPad with its updated internals and 3GB of RAM handle editing 4K video? iDownloadBlog's Harris Craycraft has the answer.

Photoshop for iPad — what happened?

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 8, 2019

Faced with an average user review rating of 2.3 out of 5 stars for its Photoshop for iPad app on Apple's App Store, creative software maker Adobe has now admitted that it's indeed failed to properly distinguish between “real” and “full” Photoshop experience on the Apple tablet.

Luca Todesco talks at POC2019, reveals checkra1n team identities and plans

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 8, 2019

If you’ve been following the development of the checkm8-based checkra1n jailbreak all this time, then you’ll be excited to hear that one of the project’s most vocal developers, Luca Todesco, took the stage at POC2019 in Seoul, South Korea to discuss the jailbreak and reveal particularly captivating details about the checkra1n team’s members, long-term plans, and more.

Todesco entitled his Keynote presentation “The One Weird Trick SecureROM Hates,” and from what we can gather, the checkra1n team is comprised of the following members, many of which might be familiar to veteran jailbreakers:

Sileo v1.5.2 now available with iOS 13-centric improvements

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 7, 2019

Despite the recent and controversial announcement that Sileo’s development had been ‘suspended until further notice,’ project lead developer CoolStar appears to have since overturned that declaration. Thursday evening, CoolStar announced a second update to the alternative package manager since that announcement, formally bringing it up to version 1.5.2.

Surprisingly, the official @GetSileo Twitter page didn’t make mention of the latest Sileo update, but it’s worth noting that CoolStar posted a memo about it not too long ago in his official Discord channel:

Give notification badges a custom aesthetic with BadgeMe

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 6, 2019

The infamous notification badge has looked almost the same on the iOS platform for more than a decade. The single most significant transformation befell with the release of iOS 7 when Apple nixed skeuomorphism from the bulk of iOS’ user interface, but even then, it didn’t change much.

The circumstances are absolutely astounding, but they aren’t hopeless. Those lucky enough to have a pwned handset in their possession can change how their notification badges look right this very second with the help of a newly released jailbreak tweak called BadgeMe by iOS developer Sirius24.

Apple unsigns iOS 13.1.2 and 13.1.3, thwarting downgrades from 13.2

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 6, 2019

Apple closed the signing window for two different iOS versions for various handsets Wednesday evening, including 13.1.2 and 13.1.3.

It’s regular practice for Apple to stop signing older versions of iOS after a newer release has been available for some time. Doing so both prevents software downgrades by the jailbreak-savvy and encourages software updates for everyone else to ensure users take advantage of the latest features and security patches.

Video: connecting a magneto optical disk to an iPhone, but will it work?

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 6, 2019

If you've liked Niles Mitchell's "Will It Work" video series in which he attempts to make his iOS devices work with all sorts of retro computer equipment, like an Iomega Zip drive, you're going to love this one showing connecting a magneto optical disk to his iPhone.