iOS 6, 6.1 Untethered Jailbreak Evasi0n Is Now 80% Complete With Extended Beta Testing To Follow; Frequently Asked Questions

With the hope that this coming Sunday will indeed be a “Funday” with the release of evasi0n, the iOS 6, 6.1 untethered jailbreak for iPhone 5 and all other non-jailbroken devices, the excitement among jailbreak lovers has touched its zenith.

Thrilling millions of iOS device owners waiting for the untethered solution, the status bar on the official website of evasi0n advanced further Saturday, suggesting that the highly anticipated iOS 6, 6.1 untethered jailbreak was moving even closer to its release.

On late Friday, the status bar showed that 75 percent of the work was done with only the Linux version of evasi0n was being left to be completed. At the time of reporting Saturday, the updated website was showing that 80 percent of progress had been made with all the three applications for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux done.

As mentioned in the website, private beta testing for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions of evasi0n had been started, which is very likely to be confined to the hackers themselves to avoid any unwanted leak. The step to follow thereafter is the extended beta testing.

In response to a post on Reddit with the title “It's almost there. Beta testers feeding pictures of evasi0n untethered jailbreak on Instagram,” planetbeing replied saying:

“I haven't been on IRC in four hours (got a little bit of sleep) so I don't know exactly who we've given test versions to but I doubt this is real. We would never select anyone a. We haven't known for years and b. Posts on social networks bragging about getting a test version.”

Given that evasi0n is coming closer and closer to completion with quite a rapid speed, the rumored Super Bowl Sunday release date indeed looks likely.

Although pod2g himself talked about the uncertainty of a Sunday release recently, he took to his Twitter account again Friday to confirm that team evad3rs was indeed “close to the release.”

Pod2g twitted referring to some of planetbeing’s latest posts on Reddit relating to the development of the untethered exploit:

“Planetbeing latest posts on reddit regarding that subject. They are really interesting. We’re close to the release! Stay tuned!”

When it comes to planetbeing’s posts on Reddit, they have addressed many key concerns ranging from queries on “passcode lock” and an alleged “dumber” iOS jailbreak scene to a “mad” i0n1c.

Let’s take the i0n1c issue to begin with. Security researcher Stefan Esser, aka i0n1c, took to Twitter to criticize the iOS hackers working on evasi0n untethered jailbreak for asking people to donate. He said that “a donate button before a release is not free will.” According to him, the untethered jailbreak will be released only after enough people have donated.

Here are some of the tweets from i0n1c:

“wrong is to give interviews and claim they are saints not into money and then optimizing everything about JB release to maximize revenue.”

“they are not doing free research. It is paid for by tons of donation money. Also they do not release research they release exploits.”

“Don't mind the 20 ads and 5 donation buttons. It is all good okay. Money is not our interest. We are Apple Freedom Fighters!”

What followed i0n1c’s criticizing tweets was a post on reddit with the title “Anybody notice how mad ionic is tonight?” To this, Planetbeing jumped in again with a strong reply:

“Then why not charge for the jailbreak?

Okay, putting aside the fact that I have always thought jailbreaks should be free (The reason that number is so low is that most of my work I never accepted even donations for). Also putting aside the fact that I think it'd be more legally problematic to sell one. As exhausting this current drama is, this is just for three ads and a donation button… Anyway, I'd love to stop piracy. I've even seriously thought about putting something like an anti-debugging trick into the jailbreak, as much as to show Apple how easily they could stop it for App Store piracy on jailbroken devices. But then it'd be a lot of work, end up in an arms race, and I'm sure there will be little gratitude but instead people on Twitter howling about some imagined hypocrisy. It'd just not be very fun.”

“I don't know if it's the three hours of sleep I've been getting the last couple of weeks, but these posts are ticking me off more than usual. But yes, of course. Voluntarily come look at our site so we can cash in the ad money at no cost to you. We are so evil! My god, more than five years of my life, so many hours I'm too embarrassed to even count them, dropped out of college because of it, and I'm doing it for the money. How much money did I make over five years you ask? $20,000. God, I obviously should've just waited tables in my spare and not-so-spare time instead. Jesus Christ, Stefan, troll successful… And for the record, we're not expecting people to freaking canonize us. I do it because quite frankly, I'm addicted to the adrenaline rush of figuring out those exploits. Picking up a little extra money is nice, but I even make exploits for closed bugs just for the fun of it. I'm not martyring myself for the community or anything, but to make it sound like we're a commercial operation is just ludicrous.”

Some Frequently Asked Questions

Many people have posted their queries relating to the upcoming iOS 6, 6.1 untethered jailbreak on both Reddit and the Jailbreak QA page linked to the evasi0n website. Some of the frequently asked questions and their best suited answers are given here for your convenience.

Q: When evad3rs talk about the "passcode lock" on evasi0n.com, does that also go for the passcode on a backup?

A: The lock screen is the only thing you need to worry about. Just take off the passcode before jailbreaking and put it back on when it's done. (ILikePuhtaytoes)

Planetbeing added saying: “Yes. In fact, if you have a passcode lock, we have some code that will prompt you to temporarily enter the unlock code on your phone at certain points during the procedure (just like you would normally unlock your phone from the lock screen). We are 99% confident this code will work but we are 100% confident it won't be an issue if you just didn't have a passcode set for the duration of the jailbreak, hence the warning.”

Q: Do I jailbreak, then restore OR restore, then jailbreak?

A: Planetbeing recommended –

1. Make up a backup with iTunes.

2. Restore the device with iTunes.

3. Select "Set up as new device" on the device itself during the setup process after the device is restored. Do not select "Set up as new iPhone" or "Restore from this backup" on iTunes yet.

4. Jailbreak your device.

5. Open up Cydia for the first time to allow it to "prepare the filesystem". Wait for the respring to happen.

6. Start iTunes again and select "Restore from this backup" to get everything back on there.

Q: Do I need to restore the iPad 4 with pre-installed iOS 6.1 before jailbreaking?

A: It’s recommended. Plug into iTunes, back up, restore and then restore from backup.

Click here for more queries and their solutions.

In addition, here are some important recommendations from evad3rs:

- Backup your iOS device using iTunes or iCloud before using evasi0n. This way you are sure to never lose any data if something wrong happens.

- Please disable the lock passcode of your iOS device before using evasi0n. It can cause issues.

- Be patient while the jailbreaking process is running, don't start iTunes or Xcode in the meanwhile. The best is to not touch the computer until the end of the jailbreaking process.

UPDATE: iOS 6, 6.1 Untethered Jailbreak Evasi0n To Be Released Monday, Algorithm Used For Progress Bar Hints At 12PM EST