- I've said this before, even as an Android user,
there's no denying that iOS has got a lot going for it.
The issue for me is that no matter how many times
I try to switch to it though,
I always find a couple of tiny things
that Apple refuses to allow for whatever convoluted reason,
and it kind of ruins the experience for me.
Like in the control center,
a menu meant to give you quick access to common settings.
You see the WiFi and Bluetooth toggles.
They don't even turn off their respective radios anymore.
The toggle just closes any active connections
until Apple deems that they should be turned back on.
And then how about the unremovable notification shade
on the lockscreen that requires you to swipe up
every time you unlock the phone with face ID
instead of just dropping you on the homescreen
which is probably where you wanna be.
It's little things like this that drives me up the wall.
So when I saw the epic new jailbreak released
for iOS 13.5 with support for every iPhone model
that supports that version of iOS.
I figured it was finally time after all these years
to take jailbreaking out for a spin.
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Going from now
all the way back to the early days of iOS jailbreaking.
The main reason people did it
was to add or modify functionality
that either wasn't present in iOS,
or that Apple didn't allow or want.
For example, features like the control center,
touch gestures and dark mode already existed
as jailbreak tweaks
long before Apple ever implemented them officially.
Then there's the people who jailbroke their devices
to remove carrier restrictions.
Remember when you had to pay for mobile data tethering
or to unlock a device
so it can be used with a different carrier.
Another huge reason people jailbreak are aesthetics.
And these kinds of mods are all over the place
ranging from themes like Viola
which reskins your menus and icons
to a beautified control center with tweaks like Prism,
or even Apple Watch style status icons on the lockscreen
with a tweak called Complications.
If you're like me and you prefer less rather than more,
there's SimpleLS which can remove all the clutter
from your lockscreen.
And then there's the taboo side of jailbreaking, piracy.
Many people jailbreak their devices
to get paid apps or services for free,
or to cheat in mobile games.
Now, all this is super cool,
but jailbreaking has been on the decline for many years
due to slow jailbreak releases for new OSes
instability and Apple simply implementing
many of the features that people originally
jailbroke their devices to get.
However,
maybe because Apple has been kinda sitting on their thumbs
when it comes to iOS features in the last couple of years,
things have been picking up again with speedy,
stable and easy jailbreaks
from the team behind the latest exploit, uncover.
So how do you do it?
First, you'll need a compatible device,
you can see the full list of tested devices
over on uncover site, but essentially every modern iPhone
is supported all the way from iOS 11 to 13.5.
Please note by the way guys,
as of the day we filmed this video,
Apple released iOS 13.5.1
which patches this jailbreak.
If you're not already on 13.5 and you want to be
you can still update by downloading the update file
from the link in the description
and then shift clicking the Update button in iTunes.
note though, that Apple may stop signing this version
at any time making it impossible to update to it later.
If you're already on iOS 13.5
do not update to 13.5.1
or you will lose your ability to jailbreak.
Alright, with that out of the way.
We're gonna assume that you're jailbreaking
from a Windows computer but if you're on Mac,
the process is the essentially the same.
So with the guidance from the uncover website
and the links below,
you should be able to jailbreak without issue.
Start by downloading iTunes and iCloud from Apple's website.
If you have the Microsoft Store versions of them,
you're gonna have to uninstall those
grab the wind 32 versions,
and then give yourself one of these,
for ever touching the Microsoft Store in the first place.
Next, head over to the uncover site
and download an install AltServer.
We're gonna use this software to self sign and then sideload
both the AltStore and the uncover jailbreak apps.
Once it's installed, plug in your iPhone.
Trust the PC that you're plugged into
and select your device under install AltStore
in the AltServer menu in your taskbar.
Enter your Apple ID to authorize the install
and within a few seconds
you should see it on your iOS homescreen.
Now because this is what Apple deems a self signed app,
you'll need to navigate into the device settings
and authorize the app before you can run it.
Once it's running,
head over to the uncover jailbreak site on your phone
and click the open in old store button.
If you're prompted re-enter your Apple ID
then AltStore will install the uncover jailbreak app.
Now you might notice there's an expiry date on the apps.
This is because you self signed the apps
with your own Apple ID.
And without an apple developer subscription,
the longest you can sign an app is for seven days.
Don't worry, though,
because the AltStore guys thought of this.
So if you keep all server running on your PC or Mac,
the Store app will actually phone home to your system
when you're on the same network
to renew those certifications.
If you do end up away from home for a while though,
it's possible you might not get the automatic renewal
meaning that if your phone dies or is hard rebooted
after that seven day period,
you might have to re-flash the apps
or go without a jailbreak for a few days.
Alright, disclaimer over.
Now it's time to open up the uncover app and hit jailbreak.
It'll do some stuff and then prompt you for a reboot.
Click OK and then once the device is booted again,
open uncover, hit jailbreak again and it will reboot
in a jailbroken state with a brand new app called Cydia.
That's it, your jailbroken!
Cydia is what's known as a package manager.
Kinda like the underwear and lttstore.com.
It handles installing and updating any tweaks and themes
that you want to install.
And it's kind of like the App Store,
but for jailbreak stuff.
Let's start with modding our device and fixing
some of those issues that I've been having with iOS.
It's worth noting that while Cydia ships
with lots of default repositories,
many of the popular tweaks and themes
are hosted on third party repos, like Packix or SparkDev.
So we're gonna add those first as those hold the downloads
for the tweaks that I wanted to add.
First, I installed Snowboard, which is a theming engine,
which allows you to actually apply the viola theme
that I mentioned earlier,
I then proceeded to install a bunch of other tweaks,
namely SwipeSelection,
which really adds that keyboard swiping
to navigate text thing that was removed from 3d Touch died.
AutoUnlockX,
which allows us to skip the notification shade on unlock.
DigitalBattery13
to show the battery percentage in the status bar,
and Prism to beautify and add haptic feedback
to the iOS control center.
Oh, and since Apple Maps sucks the big one,
we changed the default to Google Maps
with a tweet called maps opener.
And the crazy part
is that that is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you have a grievance with iOS,
there is probably one of the hundreds of other super useful
quality of life improving tweaks that are out there
that is going to help you.
So we've included a link to a Reddit post
that lists a ton of them for your tinkering pleasure.
If you guys are looking for more Apple content,
hey, maybe check out our review of the latest MacBook Pro.
Actually, we're fast tracking this.
I don't know if that'll be out yet.
But whatever, it's coming soon so subscribe.
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