Apple have been hard at work on improving the latest version of iOS, and iOS 9 has been doing relatively well so far, with various improvements that have made it a more comfortable and intuitive experience. At the same time, the company has been doing some things that have been a bit worrying to some of their fans, particularly those who enjoy their freedom with the operating system, and it looks like Apple are taking things in a new direction that might not be entirely too good for everyone around.
The problem is that Apple have reportedly made iOS 9 even more difficult to jailbreak – the procedure used for gaining access to the internals of the operating system and unlocking its full potential – and it looks like the new situation has stumped even some of the more renowned members of the jailbreak community, as there is no working solution yet.
Because of this, some people have been worried that Apple might be going too far with their efforts to combat jailbreaking, and the company may want to ease up on things a little bit, and let their fans have more fun with the operating system. Jailbreaking has various benefits, especially for power users, but not just for them. The procedure can allow a user to get full access to their operating system and unlock its true potential, which can give different users different benefits.
For some, it allows them to enjoy more privacy with their devices, for others it gives them an opportunity to work with more advanced applications which are normally not available for the standard edition of iOS. At the same time, it also hides some risks that have made the procedure a bit controversial among Apple fans in general.
The problems stem from the fact that the user is unlocking their entire operating system, which in turn means that any malicious software installed on it would also have access to the core of the OS, from there allowing an attacker to do quite a lot with the system and potentially compromise the user’s safety.
Because of this, Apple have been working hard to make sure that their users are not allowed to jailbreak the operating system, and they have constantly been releasing updates that work in this direction, while members of the jailbreaking community have been responding with similarly active efforts to circumvent the restrictions and to get access to the operating system after it’s been taken away from them.
According to some, this constant game of cat and mouse is not in Apple’s interest in any way, as it just means that the company has to allocate more resources to something which ultimately ends up taking away from the fun of some of their fans, while it doesn’t really help others. The users who would be most affected by these potential problems are the ones that normally wouldn’t go for jailbreaking their phones, so it’s hard to say how this is working out on the backend.
It’s notable that there have been some incidents related to jailbreaking within the community already, as there was a malicious version of a popular jailbreaking tool released by unknown attackers, which compromised the personal information of users who used the tool. This eroded fans’ trust in the procedure a little bit, and made everyone more cautious. At the same time, it gave Apple a platform to stand on when explaining how jailbreaking is harmful for everyone.