Since Apple officially unveiled the iOS 9 in September last year, the American tech giant has come up with two official updates thus far – iOS 9.1 and iOS 9.2.
Two betas of iOS 9.2.1 were released up to the middle of January but Apple eventually abandoned it. Instead of the third beta for iOS 9.2.1, the American tech giant has seeded to developers the first beta of the iOS 9.3.
Before the official rollout of the iOS 9 in September, Apple has claimed that its latest mobile OS is unjailbreakable, a word that the jailbreaking community finds absurd, if not ridiculous.
Regardless of the claims of Apple that its iOS cannot be jailbroken, the Chinese jailbreaking teams from the likes of Taig and Pangu, among a few others, simply have what it takes to do it. While jailbreaking iOS before often takes days, nowadays, it can be done by some in just a matter of hours.
And often, it is not just the jailbreaking teams from Taig or Pangu who are doing it. Some hackers have also learned the trick. And once they share it to the internet via Taig or Pangu, it becomes open to anyone who has an iOS device.
Backlash from Apple
Because Apple was somehow shamed by the jailbreaking community when it said that iOS 9 cannot be jailbroken yet days later, a Pangu iOS 9 jailbreak came along, it had to redeem itself and took away the exploits by immediately releasing the iOS 9.1.
But as expected, the iOS 9.1 was jailbroken again so Apple had to keep the cat-and-mouse game going by releasing the iOS 9.2.
The iOS 9.2 jailbreak immediately arrived shortly. So Apple had to rethink of another strategy to outsmart the jailbreakers.
The American tech giant decided to sow confusion by releasing two iOS 9.2.1 betas last month, hinting that it is the next public release. However, for some reason, Apple decided to abandon the iOS 9.2.1 without any explanation and instead of releasing the third beta as is the norm, the tech company decided to seed the first two betas of iOS 9.3 one after the other beginning in the middle of last month.
So while developers were expecting the third beta of the iOS 9.2.1, Apple completely put it on the backburner and released the first beta of iOS 9.3, details the Taig Jailbreak website.
It is possible that Apple was looking at major additions or improvements over the iOS 9.2 that prompted it to go for a bigger update instead of a minor one.
A range of upgrades
According to the Independent of UK, the iOS 9.3 offers a range of upgrades including Night Shift, which turns the screen a yellow shade to make it easier to read at night.
It also includes upgrades for Notes and other apps, and the company has been pushing the update with its own page on Apple’s website.
The release of first two betas of the iOS 9.3 may perhaps be the answer of Apple to the jailbreak hackers because just days after it released the first beta of iOS 9.2.1, hacker Luca Todesco has announced that he had jailbroken it already.
Todesco, however, did not release the jailbreak in public and even announced that he does not plan to release it.
Subsequently, Apple released the first beta of the iOS 9.3 to show that it is one step ahead of the hacker. But Todesco has jailbroken the new version as well in just a matter of hours from its release, notes the Download Pangu website.
He even posted a video showing the iOS 9.3. first beta jailbreak complete with Cydia tweaks on his iPhone 6. But he said that he will not release it in public either.
Pangu believes that Todesco must have used the same exploits he used in jailbreaking iOS 9.2.1 to jailbreak the new iOS 9.3 beta easily.
Apple subsequently released the second beta of iOS 9.3 and a third beta is about to be rolled out in a matter of days.