IOS 4.1 Jailbroken Already 315
mspohr writes "Just hours after Apple released iOS 4.1 to great fanfare, hardware hackers found a way to jailbreak devices that run the new operating system. More surprising still, there doesn't appear to be anything Steve Jobs can do to stop them in the near future. The exploit in the boot ROM of iOS devices was first announced by iPhone Dev-Team member pod2g. It was soon confirmed by other hackers, who said that because the exploit targets such a low-level part of the operating system, Apple won't be able to stop jailbreakers without making significant hardware changes."
I've never understood why they fight this... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I was a business who KNEW I'm fighting a world full of hackers I wouldn't fight them... I would help them. Most people wouldn't care, but those that I said "Hey, we've made it easy for you to do stuff... show me what you can do better and I'll pay you for it!
Apple instead wants to completely control how the users use their devices... and that just won't fly in today's world. That's like slapping a bull and kicking him in the balls. He's gonna ram you
Re:Apple's security (Score:3, Interesting)
Sucure from what? External sources?--Generally yes.
The last major ios crack required very little user intervention. Visiting a website & sliding a button IIRC.
Secure from the owner modifying the software directly?
That is precisely what Apple is trying to prevent owners of the software from doing.
Re:the problem with these hacks (Score:3, Interesting)
1. And the problem with that is...? I mean.. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply there.. that hackers should go for higher level hacks first so that maybe in the next generation of the hardware they can still use those hacks? Wouldn't that lofty idea go against your remaining points, though?
2. I'm not sure what part you're relying on when you lose a piece of hardware that is dissimilar from another piece of hardware - even if that hardware is only slightly dissimilar - nor what role a jailbreak plays in this.
3.honestly? you think it's only semi-legal? You do realize it's -your- device, right? and you care that Apple wouldn't like you?
4. Yes, you do lose support. How often have you had to get support for the device, and how many of those times did you not have
a choice but to go to Apple? Losing your -warranty- is a bigger issue, methinks.
5. Companies -could- target the jailbreaks, but probably not in a form that they would be -based- on them. How silly a business model would that be? But why would that matter for the userbase? There only needs to be only a single app that is worth it for somebody to jailbreak their device. Whether any other company then cares about having that person as a potential client or not is up to them.
6. See 3.
7. I'm not sure how there wouldn't be -any- profit in it. Let's say you're some lone developer, you make an App that only works on jailbroken devices, and you toss that up on your website that you're already running, behind a small PayPal paywall that you're already using for other software anyway. I'm pretty sure every single sale would be 'profit' if you don't count the time you worked on the App as an offset cost; Some people go watch a movie, other people use the 2 hours to knock up a little app. Seems to me going to the movies is a bigger cost.
That said.. I'm all for people just using a more open platform to begin with - but people seem to want their cake and eat it too ( not that there's anything wrong with that.. what else would to do with a cake, unless you're a clown? ) - so the truly open platforms tend to be more of a niche market than the popular platforms.. regardless of their level of openness.
Re:Jailbreaking is crap anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
This is my experience of jailbreaking the around the time of 3.0-3.1. The quality of the external software was dire, and it pushed the cost of maintenance away from someone else (Apple) and onto me.
I like playing around with buggy cheap software as much as any other Linux user, but you don't want an app to crash while calling the emergency services!
Re:Come on guys (Score:4, Interesting)
My touch cost me thirty-five bucks (Back to School; I was getting a new MBP and happened across the offer). Unless you can show me a Nokia smartphone for that price I'm going to be content with having to jailbreak it.
Re:Come on guys (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not supposed to get your software from Ovi (which is worthless), but from Debian (which is the biggest OS distribution in existence).
Re:Raise the white flag, Steve? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're forgetting something important here I think.
Only a very small fraction of the iPhone users actually attempt to jailbreak their device. The majority of people is perfectly happy with the way it works and have no desire to 'hack' it.
Let's not forget that apart from the very closed system it uses the iPhone itself is very very well designed in terms of usability.
When I bought my 3GS it didn't even come with a manual. Just the phone and some cables and stuff. Now, that's a bold statement.
Telling your customers 'our device is so user friendly that you don't need a manual, it just works and you'll understand completely how it works without any help needed at all'.
Steve's fight against jailbreaking is a useless fight and he knows that. I think apple only tries to not let it get out of hand. But I don't think it worries them too much. 90% of their customers don't care about it anyway and rightfully so.
Of course, when I saw a HTC desire running Android in action I ditched my iPhone and orderded a Desire rightaway ;-)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I've never understood why they fight this... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:the problem with these hacks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why all the iPhone hack-talk but none for Andro (Score:5, Interesting)
As an android user - let me enlighten you.
The android platform is DESIGNED to be rootable and hackable, the phone made by the android developers - the Nexus 1 comes with rooting just a click away.
There ARE other manufacturers who try to make rooting harder - none of them have made it particularly impossible, I rooted mine in an hour. But you cannot blame this on the platform. It's not Android that made HTC obfuscate their bootloader, that is HTC's fault alone. In apple's case the hardware and software are always from the same source. In android's case it almost never is - so that adds an important distinction.
Finally - nobody roots their systems because we "have to in order to use a feature". We do it because by using thirdparty versions of android we can get certain features sooner, or run newer versions of the OS - or hell just enjoy having a root shell on our phones - some of us have FUN with that.
I rooted my HTC desire to get CyanoGenMod for Froyo 2.2 - about a week before HTC brought out an OTA update for Sense based on it. Didn't bug me much - I had no guarantee of said version coming now or ever, I had no wish to wait for it and I liked being able to upgrade when I wanted to. I also having now used both prefer CyanoGenMod over Sense - it's a stabler UI with less bugs and a cleaner, slicker interface to work with while still being the same essential android in it's core design (of course that part is a subjective judgement but speaking for myself - I prefer it).
Having rooted once - I now control the bootloader with my own recovery version and goldcard which means I can now install any rom code I want. I can swap at any time. I can backup the current rom try something else and restore it if I wanted to...
I like having power over my device. Apple actively tries to stop me getting it. Android actively encourages it and even when a device maker tries to follow the apple approach once broken it's broken for good - and without the associated risks of jailbreaking an iPhone. I'll still get updates, I will still get fixes because many third-parties provide them. I still have the official appmarket working just fine and I know it always will because google makes it freely available so modmakers can provide packages to install it (though they are not allowed to preinstall it inside the mod).
In short - the reason you see such a huge disconnect is because you're comparing apples with oranges. It only looks similar from a distance - in reality the two platforms approach to user restriction couldn't be further removed from each other and rooting an android is a much lesser deal than rooting an iphone.
Iphone's are jailbroken to enable power the user should have had the choice to get in the first place.
Androids are rooted because hacking devices is FUN.
The next iOS is Jailbroken already (Score:4, Interesting)
If they're releasing Jailbreaks this close to the release of an OS then it seems to make sense that they've got a list of vulnerabilities stashed away somewhere. All they do when Apple releases the next one is go down the list. The time between the OS being released and the Jailbreak is only going to be them tidying up the distribution of the Jailbreak so people can do it to phones in the Apple store. The Jailbreakers would be foolish to unleash the lowest level Jailbreak at this point as they could end up with nowhere to go after this. I was surprised with the last one where you could just visit a web page to get the job done. Good job the page just Jailbroke the phone and didn't decide to steal all your data or install something nasty that somehow managed to survive even an iTunes restore.
Re:I've never understood why they fight this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where do they say that? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/security/ [apple.com]
Very first sentence on the page..
It's deceiving to the point of almost lying. You can whine about the finer points of that sentence and how a Mac isn't a PC etc, etc. However we all know that it's been specifically designed to fool those with less knowledge of computers.
No other industry would be able to get away with such "facts".