More than a year after the first developer beta of iOS 15 rolled out, hackers claim they are almost ready to release a tool that can jailbreak the operating system.
In announcing its imminent launch on the jailbreak subreddit (via Macrumors), a developer of the new tool revealed it will be called Cheyote (formerly known as Taurine15), and has posted mockups of the new design. Most importantly, it will work with at least some versions of iOS 15 at launch.
“The jailbreak itself is making good progress,” you write/23Aaron, “and we hope to roll it out to you in the near future, with support for 15.0-15.1.1 at launch, as we look at 15.4.1. power too!”
The design of the Cheyote jailbreak is quite different from Apple’s, with unique fonts, colors, and themes. It also brings features not possible in iOS 15, including canonical search. Like previous jailbreaks, Cheyote will be rootless and allow users to “learn from and build on” it. The developers claimed that the iOS 14 jailbreak “provided a fast, supercharged experience … to ensure the best jailbreak experience possible.”
The very first developer beta of iOS 15 came out in June 2021, and it took more than 13 months for someone to create a tool to jailbreak it. Because they rely on the discovery of vulnerabilities (which Apple is constantly trying to patch), iOS jailbreaking tools lag behind Apple’s own software release schedule, but this is a long wait, even by those standards. For example, the first iOS 14, 13, and 12 tools came out in February after the respective iOS launches, a much shorter delay of seven to eight months after the initial beta rollout and less than six months after the major release.
Apple would of course prefer it if no one jailbreak their devices. Craig Federighi will be frustrated to hear there’s almost an iOS 15 tool, but he’s happy that the company’s recent efforts to make jailbreaking more difficult are at least slowing the process.
The delayed release of the first iOS 15 jailbreak meant that several devices could not be jailbroken at all. For example, all iPhone 13 models were launched with iOS 15 pre-installed and cannot be downgraded to iOS 14. iPhone 13 jailbreaker owners will therefore be excitedly looking forward to Cheyote’s launch.
