Apple’s release of iOS 9 has set off a flurry of activity in the jailbreaking community, with multiple development teams reportedly closing in on a working solution and rumours pointing to a possible public release before the end of October.
The iOS 9 update introduced a range of new features and improvements while simultaneously patching the vulnerabilities that had allowed previous jailbreaks on iOS 8.4 and 8.4.1 to function. That has left developers scrambling to find new entry points into Apple’s operating system, with several teams understood to be working on the problem simultaneously.
Jailbreak team Pangu and independent iOS hacker iH8sn0w have both demonstrated working jailbreaks in YouTube videos, though neither has confirmed whether a public release of their tools is planned. Reports suggest iH8sn0w is continuing to refine a fully functional untethered jailbreak for iOS 9, though no launch date has been announced.
With Apple’s iOS 9.1 already in beta testing among selected users, there is speculation that teams TaiG and Pangu may choose to skip a dedicated iOS 9.0 release entirely and focus their efforts on jailbreaking the newer version directly once it becomes publicly available.
Adding a financial dimension to the race, security acquisition platform Zerodium announced it is offering one million dollars to any researcher or developer who can successfully deliver a browser-based untethered jailbreak for iOS 9. The company said the total prize pool across all qualifying iOS exploits and jailbreaks amounts to three million dollars, and described the competition as aimed specifically at experienced security researchers, reverse engineers and jailbreak developers.
A separate group known as the Semi JB Team has already released a partial iOS 9 jailbreak compatible with the Cydia package manager, albeit with limited functionality. The team claims the solution has been tested across all current iOS versions and that core functions operate without requiring root access.
For iPhone and iPad users hoping to unlock their devices, the situation remains one of waiting. A full public jailbreak could arrive at any point this month, but until one of the leading teams makes an official announcement, nothing has been confirmed.
