The battle between Apple and iOS jailbreakers has been a long-running one, and there are no prospects of seeing it end anytime soon. The situation is actually getting more and more confusing week by week on both sides. Recently, Apple have made certain improvements in the newest version of iOS that have made it even more difficult to circumvent the system’s protection.
Reports from the jailbreak community warn that users who want to preserve their jailbroken phones should not update to iOS 10.2. Some of the bugs fixed by Apple in the new version were apparently critical in the operation of most jailbreak tools, and as a result, jailbreak developers are currently looking for new ways around the system.
History tells us that it’s only a matter of time before they find one, and after that, users will have access to a jailbreak took for 10.2. However, the cycle will most certainly continue after that. And for how long? And does it really benefit Apple at this point?
Some of the less experienced users in the community keep bringing the question of how preventing jailbreaking actually helps them, and why it’s necessary to keep these protections in place. There are certainly arguments in favor of Apple here – one only has to scan the news from this year for mentions of the company and the FBI to find out why – but at the same time, jailbreak developers have proven multiple times that they can push the operating system forward much faster (and better) than Apple’s own developers.
Another argument commonly brought up in defense of Apple is that jailbroken iPhones can easily “sideload” apps – or in other terms, install software from outside of the official iTunes App Store. The dangers in this go beyond hurting Apple’s bottom line though; without the proper verification procedures of the official store, and with the system in a state of lowered security due to the jailbreak, there’s a high risk of malicious software compromising the device.
This applies to the tools used for jailbreaking too, and we’ve already seen incidents of viruses disguised as such programs stealing the credentials of Apple users. As can be expected, people were not happy back then, and even though Apple’s reputation wasn’t harmed that badly, that of the jailbreak scene was.
There should be some proper middle ground though – for example, Apple could make certain components of the system open source so that the community can contribute. They already have some good practices for the verification of user-created software in place, so all they have to do is apply those to contributions to the OS.
Meanwhile, it looks like Apple are more keen on supporting those who want to work against jailbreak developers. The company is one of the better-paying ones with their bug bounty program, and the community has a strong incentive to seek out as many bugs as they can find, especially critical ones that pose a security risk to the system.
It remains to be seen how fast the jailbreak community is going to come up with a solution for 10.2, but there have been more and more calls for Apple to reconsider their stance on the situation and to become a bit more permissive. As can be expected, there has been no response from the company. Their actions still indicate their stance pretty clearly though, and it doesn’t look like anything has changed.