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iOS 10.3.1 Jailbreak Revealed With iPhone 7 Support: Could Be Released Next Week

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This article is more than 6 years old.

There's some exciting news for fans of iOS device jailbreaking - a way to customize the look of iOS and install apps and tweaks that aren't available in Apple's official App Store. News has surfaced that a jailbreak for iOS 10.3.1 will be released soon and it's compatible with all 64-bit iOS devices including the iPhone 7.

Apart from the valiant efforts of Luca Todesco - the hacker behind the current Yalu jailbreak for iOS 10, the more established jailbreaking teams - Pangu or TaiG haven't released tools for current, signable versions of iOS since July 2016. Support for the iPhone 7 has been slim too - the current Yalu jailbreak from Todesco doesn't support it. 

The Chinese Pangu team has teased images of what appear to be a working iOS 10.3/10.3.1 jailbreak - the first working jailbreak we've seen for this version of iOS, which has proved to be a tough nut to crack and even the Yalu jailbreak is still considered a beta version, with the obvious warnings that brings in terms of stability.

Weibo/蒸米spark

That's not the only news to come out of a video and image shared on Chinese social media website Weibo by user 蒸米spark, which was taken supposedly at some kind of hacking seminar called Janus in China, where the Pangu team demonstrated their jailbreak tool in action - they performed the live jailbreak on the iPhone 7, which will likely have owners of Apple's latest iPhone giddy with anticipation.

What's more, is that as I've already mentioned, this is a 64-bit wide compatibility release so older devices such as the iPhone 6/6 Plus and iPhone 6S/6S Plus will be compatible too. Even more exciting is that the jailbreak could be released within a week according to a tweet that was made by someone that appears to have attended the event. Reddit users have been deciphering some of @qwerty860320's comments and one specifically states the release of the jailbreak within a week. With a Twitter name similar to that of Luca Todesco, though, there is obviously some debate over how genuine this account is, but the video clearly shows an apparently successful jailbreak tool running on iOS 10.3.1

iOS 10 has proved difficult to jailbreak - credit Apple

Antony Leather

There's no concrete evidence of whether the tool will be fully untethered, which is when you never have to re-jailbreak if you restart your device. The last jailbreak tool from the Pangu team was semi-untethered, which meant that every time your device restarted - either manually or following a flat battery, you'd need to run the jailbreak app again to get access to your tweaks and jailbreak apps.

What should I do?

If you're not jailbroken, it's definitely worth updating to iOS 10.3.1 so when the jailbreak drops you can install it. Alternatively, you can upgrade when it launches, but the risk is that iOS 10.3.2 may launch and patch the jailbreak or Apple stops signing iOS 10.3.1, which will happen soon after the launch of 10.3.2, leaving you no way to install iOS 10.3.1. You can  save your SHSH2 blobs as shown in website ipodhacks142's guide, allowing you to downgrade, though. Equally, the jailbreak may not materialise so it's always worth saving the blobs for whatever iOS version you're just in case there's a jailbreak tool released for that version.

Something that many jailbreakers will be aware of, though, is that the Pangu team's previous efforts, for example the jailbreak tool for iOS 9.2-9.3.3 was very stable and usable on an every-day basis, so there's every reason to be excited if this news is true. If the jailbreak does surface I'll be back with a full guide on how to install it on you iOS device so make sure to follow me here on Forbes, Twitter or Facebook for all the latest jailbreaking information.

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