IOS Jailbreaking - History of IOS Jailbreaking Tools

History of IOS Jailbreaking Tools

For a chronological list of jailbreak history, see History of iOS jailbreaking.

A few days after the original iPhone became available in July 2007, developers released the first jailbreaking tool for it, and soon a jailbreak-only game app became available. In October 2007, JailbreakMe 1.0 (also called "AppSnapp") allowed people to jailbreak iPhone OS 1.1.1 on both the iPhone and iPod touch, and it included Installer.app as a way to get software for the jailbroken device. In February 2008, Zibri released ZiPhone, a tool for jailbreaking iPhone OS 1.1.3 and 1.1.4.

The iPhone Dev Team has released a series of free desktop-based jailbreaking tools. It released a version of PwnageTool in July 2008 to jailbreak the then new iPhone 3G on iOS 2.0 as well as the iPod touch, newly including Cydia as the primary third-party installer for jailbroken software (PwnageTool continues to be updated for untethered jailbreaks of newer iOS versions). The iPhone Dev Team released QuickPWN to jailbreak iOS 2.2 on iPhone and iPod touch, also including options to enable functionality that was possible but disabled by Apple on certain devices. After Apple released iOS 3.0, the Dev Team published redsn0w as a simple jailbreaking tool usable on Mac and Windows, and also updated PwnageTool (now primarily intended for expert users making custom firmware, and only for Mac). It continues to maintain redsn0w for jailbreaking most versions of iOS 4 and iOS 5 on most devices. As of December 2011, redsn0w includes the "Corona" untether by pod2g for iOS 5.0.1 for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation. As of June 2012, redsn0w also includes the "Rocky Racoon" untether by pod2g for iOS 5.1.1 on all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models that support iOS 5.1.1.

George Hotz, who developed the first iPhone unlock, released a jailbreaking tool for the iPhone 3GS on iOS 3.0 called purplera1n, and blackra1n for iOS version 3.1.2 on the 3rd generation iPod touch and other devices. In October 2010, he released limera1n, a low-level boot ROM exploit that permanently works to jailbreak the iPhone 4 and is used as part of tools including redsn0w.

Nicholas Allegra (alias "comex") released a program called JailBreakMe 3 in July 2011 Hackers released a package called Spirit in May 2010. Spirit jailbreak for devices including iPad and then new iPhones running iOS 3.1.2, 3.1.3, and 3.2 In August 2010, comex released JailbreakMe 2.0, a web-based tool that was the first to jailbreak the iPhone 4 (on iOS 4.0.1). In July 2011, he released JailbreakMe 3.0, a web-based tool for jailbreaking all devices on certain versions of iOS 4.3, including the iPad 2 for the first time (on iOS 4.3.3). JailbreakMe 3.0 uses a flaw in PDF file rendering in Mobile Safari.

Chronic Dev Team initially released greenpois0n in October 2010, a desktop-based tool for jailbreaking iOS 4.1 and later iOS 4.2.1 on most devices including the Apple TV, as well as iOS 4.2.6 on CDMA (Verizon) iPhones.

The iPhone Dev Team, Chronic Dev Team, and pod2g collaborated to release Absinthe in January 2012, a desktop-based tool to jailbreak the iPhone 4S for the first time and the iPad 2 for the second time, on iOS 5.0.1 for both devices and also iOS 5.0 for iPhone 4S. In May 2012 it released Absinthe 2.0, which can jailbreak iOS 5.1.1 untethered on all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models that support iOS 5.1.1, including jaibreaking the third-generation iPad for the first time. The hackers together called the evad3rs released an iOS 6.X jailbreak tool called evasi0n. The expected release was on Sunday, February 3, 2013, though it was actually released on Monday, February 4, 2013 at noon Eastern Standard Time. The site initially gave anticipating users download errors as there was a high volume of interest in the download for the jailbreak utility, which is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Apple has now upgraded its software to iOS 6.1.3, permanently patching out the evasi0n jailbreak. There are currently no tools for untethered jailbreaking iOS 6.1.3 and above, despite claims by several websites purporting to offer an untethered jailbreak. On on April 2013, the latest versions of Sn0wbreeze was released, which added the support for tethered jailbreaking on A4 devices (i.e. devices not newer than the iPhone 4, iPad 1, or iPod touch 4).