News

Apple stops signing iOS 12.1.1 beta 3, halting downgrades to a jailbreakable firmware

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 6, 2019

In an unfortunate turn of events this week, Apple appears to have stopped signing iOS 12.1.1 beta 3 for most or all iOS devices. Before last night, this was the last jailbreakable firmware that could still be downgraded to via iTunes since Apple closed the signing window for the official iOS 12.1.1-12.1.2 releases exactly one month ago.

Hacker an unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd confirmed the unsigning status via Twitter in the wee hours of the night, shortly following up with reports saying that it was still being signed by Apple for certain devices. As expected, a couple of high-profile individuals such as rootlessJB 3.0 developer Jake James and OsirisJailbreak12 creator GeoSn0w confirmed that the firmware wasn’t being signed for their devices:

Apple updates its repair policy, will now fix iPhones with third-party replacement batteries

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 6, 2019

Apple has informed its Genius Bar employees and Authorized Service Providers (AASP) that it's now OK to fix iPhones that have aftermarket batteries installed by third-party repair shops.

DarkKeysXII gives your iPhone’s keyboard a dark makeover

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 6, 2019

DarkKeysXII is a new free jailbreak tweak by iOS developers Patrick Simpson and Ultra that implements a darker keyboard interface for jailbroken iPhones and iPads.

The tweak takes effect immediately after installation without the need to configure any complex options, giving you the slick darkened typing experience that you see in the screenshot examples above.

PlayOff enables Apple Music continuity playback between your Mac and iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 21, 2019

The Handoff feature in macOS and iOS lets you move seamlessly between devices, but it doesn't work with Apple Music at all. With PlayOff, a cool new app by iOS developer Martin Powlette, you can start streaming a song through Apple Music on your iPhone and immediately pick up right when you left off on your Mac without missing a beat, and vice versa.

Swift Playgrounds 3.0 beta is now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 5, 2019

Apple today released the first beta of the Swift Playgrounds 3.0 coding app which you can download through TestFlight provided you've elected to help Apple test the app.

W3C approves WebAuthn, a new authentication standard for password-free logins

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 5, 2019

If you suck at remembering or creating strong passwords, you're going to love that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) yesterday approved Web Authentication (WebAuthn), a new authentication standard for password-free logins that's already supported by major browsers.

PSA: Nagging Pwn20wnd won’t make A12(X) support come any faster to unc0ver

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 5, 2019

Many enjoy jailbreaking their iPhones and iPads because it gives them more control over the aesthetic and behavior of their device. That said, it comes as no surprise that folks are thrilled to get their hands on a full-fledged jailbreak for iOS 12 on Apple’s latest handsets.

Albeit exciting, we’d like to remind the community that relentlessly begging for support on your device and hounding the experts for ETAs does not make things come any faster; in fact, it may only delay our waiting as the hackers behind our jailbreaks don’t much care for the spam and become frustrated as a result.

Apple buys patents from defunct home security camera maker Lighthouse AI

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 5, 2019

Apple recently snapped up a batch of US patents from Lighthouse AI, a defunct home security camera company that shuttered a few months ago. The acquired IP portfolio includes crucial patents related to the depth sensing technology used by Lighthouse's cameras.

Add a splash of color to your Home screen’s 3D Touch shortcuts with ColorShortcuts

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 5, 2019

I often take advantage of the 3D Touch-based shortcuts on my Home screen to access vital features in my favorite apps, but I’ll be the first to admit that Apple’s native implementation of these menus looks somewhat bland out of the box.

Fortunately, a jailbreak tweak called ColorShortcuts by iOS developer Cole Cabral can fix that. Just as you might have inferred from the tweak’s name, ColorShortcuts will permit jailbreakers to colorize their 3D Touch menu shortcuts however they’d like.

Add an extra layer of security to your jailbroken iOS 12-16 device with BioProtect XS

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated March 10, 2023

Some people worry about their privacy more than others, and if you’re one to implement defenses on your smartphone that would be equivalent to that of a virtual Fort Knox, then you’ll probably take a liking to a jailbreak tweak called BioProtect XS by iOS developer Elias Limneos.

BioProtect was perhaps one of the most popular security tweaks ever devised for the jailbroken platform. BioProtect XS is fundamentally an iOS 12-16-compatible version of the ever-so-popular security tweak that most know and love, and it has been fully-optimized to work with both Touch ID and Face ID.

Ryan Petrich updates RocketBootstrap, Activator, and Flipswitch with iOS 12 compatibility

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 5, 2019

Renowned jailbreak tweak developer Ryan Petrich hasn’t been as active in the jailbreak community as he once was, but the unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 12 seems to have awakened the dormant beast.

Petrich announced updates to a bevy of vital jailbreak packages via Twitter this week, including RocketBootstrap, Activator, and Flipswitch:

Readdle’s Spark email apps have picked up much-needed rich text editing features

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 5, 2019

Ukrainian developer Readdle today released an update to its free of charge Spark email client for iPhone, iPad and Mac that brought text formatting features to the iOS app for the first time while extending Spark for Mac's current set of editing options with new capabilities.