WWDC is just around the corner, which is wonderful for passionate Apple developers. There is also some wonderful news for the jailbreak community and those on the fringes looking for device liberation. CoolStar, the creator of the Electra jailbreak, has confirmed that the platform will be updated to support all devices up to iPhone X running iOS 11.3.1.
The great news is that everything seems to be in place now for this brand new update to Electra to actually happen and support Apple’s iOS 11.3.1 firmware.
We already have the existing Electra app which includes a payload and support for iOS 11.1.2 thanks to the Ian Beer async_wake exploit. In terms of a modern exploit that will support iOS 11.3.1, Ian Beer has been at it again, this time confirming that yet another exploit will be released into the community during Apple’s WWDC week. That is essentially the important payload that will be integrated into an updated version of Electra by CoolStar.
Additionally, Alibaba engineer and security researcher, Min Zheng, has already pushed out a working KPP bypass into the public domain, which is another important part of a functional jailbreak solution and is confirmed by Zheng himself via Twitter to offer compatibility with all ARM64 devices. With those two things in place, the only real question was whether or not CoolStar had the passion, desire, and hardware testing capabilities to update Electra and support all modern 64-bit devices running iOS 11.3.1.
This kppless (bypass kpp) method works for all arm64 devices. https://t.co/MZ00m03Qdb
— Min(Spark) Zheng (@SparkZheng) June 1, 2018
Thanks to a quick flurry of tweets, it seems that CoolStar does indeed appear to have a renewed passion for jailbreaking, due in part we can imagine to the fact that a number of appreciative jailbreakers have donated to the cause to allow the developer to purchase an iPhone X test device to ensure smooth compatibility.
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1002324888831475712
This has resulted in CoolStar admitting that mistakes were made with the original Electra release, both in terms of PR and stability of the app, neither of which will be repeated with this next update.
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1002286256166846464
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1002324167344001024
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1002325192905973761
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1002327885472940032
https://twitter.com/coolstarorg/status/1002333903523274752
CoolStar’s flurry of tweets didn’t specifically mention any timescales for the release of the next major Electra update but rest assured that it’s coming. It’s definitely worth getting that device onto iOS 11.3.1 if you still can.