If you haven’t heard by now, the news is that iOS 7.0.x has finally been jailbroken. A new exploit tool was released on Dec 22 2013 which works across all iDevices that can run Apples latest installment of the popular mobile OS.
Jailbreaking is the process of removing tight restrictions put in place by Apple. This enables the user to install 3rd party apps or software, which hasn’t been approved by Apple for various reasons.
Evad3rs, the team who released it, is an extremely talented group of hackers consisting of four members who have been in the jailbreaking game for some time now. The ongoing battle between Apple and Jailbreakers has been a long one. Since the first iOS was released on June 29, 2007. It was jailbroken only 11 days later on July 10, 2007 by the iPhone Dev Team.
Apart from potentially loosing your warranty with Apple, there are a lot of positive reasons to Jailbreak. Most 3rd party apps and tweaks are released via Cydia, which has earned its status of the de facto jailbreak app store. Cydia uses the popular open source software repository system known as APT. Apt uses remote software databases, known as repositories or repos for short. These repos can be hosted by anyone and everyone.
On Cydia you can find a barrage of very useful enhancements for your mobile experience. These can range from GUI or home screen mods, some of which enable you to change system fonts and even the keyboard. From ringtones to open source libraries or enabling flash video. Cydia is packed full of goodies. However… there is the dark side. Jailbreaking unfortunately also enables people to install security bypass patches. This enables them to pirate commercial apps right off the app store. This not only hurts developers, it encourages them to create more of those really crappy freemium titles we all hate. So please don’t pirate apps.
If your device can run any of the following versions, then evasi0n will work. As previously mentioned. It works all devices (7.0, 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.4).
Head over to http://evasi0n.com/ and grab the relevant version of Evasi0n for your platform, whether it be Windows or Mac.
The process itself is fairly easy. First you’ll need to make a complete iTunes backup of your device. If you are using backup encryption, you’ll have to remove the password and encryption before backing up. Also, you’ll want to remove the passcode/security from your phone before following this process.
Note: If you preformed OTA or on-device upgrade from iOS6 to 7, then you will need to factory reset your device AFTER you have made a complete backup. Failing to do this has been known to cause problems for iPad devices which gets them suck in a boot loop. The only way to fix this would be to restore via iTunes and start again.
Once you have downloaded the tool you’ll want to run the file with admin rights and follow the instructions on screen. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes and a couple of reboots of the device. Once that’s completed you’ll be prompted to run the app it installed on your home screen. Once you launch it, your phone will reboot one last time, only this time you’ll find the familiar Cydia has been installed. That’s it!
Remember, there is always a risk involved when modifying anything. Things can go pear shaped but this is extremely rare and mostly it’s because people did not follow the instructions correctly. Even so, if things go wrong, the phone is fully recoverable 99% of the time. One click on the restore button on iTunes will resolve all. This is why it’s highly advisable to have made a full backup.
