Evasi0n 'jailbreaks' 7M iOS devices, update already available for iOS 6.1.1
The Evad3rs team on Tuesday rolled out an update for the Evasi0n untethered jailbreak tool, fixing bugs found in the initial software while adding support for the Apple's iOS 6.1.1 mobile operating system just one day after its release.
After launching last week, version 1.3 of the Evasi0n jailbreak is now available to the public, allowing iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners to liberate any device running iOS 6, 6.1 and 6.1.1, reports Redmond Pie.
Multiple reports noted that Evasi0n was downloaded over seven million times in four days, making the so-called liberation tool the most popular in iOS history.
Apple's release of iOS 6.1.1 on Monday broke compatibility with the software hack, but version 1.3 brings back support for all iOS devices, including the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Apple's iOS release targeted battery life and 3G issues seen by some iPhone 4S users, and was not meant to patch the Evasi0n exploit.
Available on OS X, Windows and Linux, the untethered hack allows users to jailbreak their devices without having to connect to a computer.
It should be noted that the process of jailbreaking is legal, but will void the supplied Apple warranty as it leverages exploits in the iOS software to run unauthorized code.
After launching last week, version 1.3 of the Evasi0n jailbreak is now available to the public, allowing iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners to liberate any device running iOS 6, 6.1 and 6.1.1, reports Redmond Pie.
Multiple reports noted that Evasi0n was downloaded over seven million times in four days, making the so-called liberation tool the most popular in iOS history.
Apple's release of iOS 6.1.1 on Monday broke compatibility with the software hack, but version 1.3 brings back support for all iOS devices, including the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Apple's iOS release targeted battery life and 3G issues seen by some iPhone 4S users, and was not meant to patch the Evasi0n exploit.
Available on OS X, Windows and Linux, the untethered hack allows users to jailbreak their devices without having to connect to a computer.
It should be noted that the process of jailbreaking is legal, but will void the supplied Apple warranty as it leverages exploits in the iOS software to run unauthorized code.
Comments
"It should be noted that the process of jailbreaking is legal, but ***is a violation of the iOS end-user software license agreement*** as it leverages exploits in the iOS software to run unauthorized code."
Apple makes it very clear in the precise terminology located here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3743
Note the lack of the phrase "will violate your warranty". Instead, they say, "Apple may deny service for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that has installed any unauthorized software."
The reason for this is due (in part) to the 1975 Magnuson%u2013Moss Warranty Act. Because of this act, Apple (nor any other company) can't deny warranty coverage for any component that was defective without damage caused by any violation of the warranty.
This is one reason why nobody has been denied warranty repair on an iOS device due to it having been jailbroken.
Don't confuse this though with Apple turning away people who bring in jailbroken devices asking for support. Apple doesn't have to support jailbreaking, but they're still responsible for any defects of the hardware. Often employees may have attitude when a jailbroken device comes in, while others may be far more supportive.
And of course iOS devices can be restored to wipe the jailbreak from the device.
Sorry if this seems nitpicky, but I ran one of the largest Apple Authorized service centers for 4 years, and I'm seeing far too many warnings about warranty voiding that aren't true (likewise for things like RAM and drive upgrades).
Wrong again. The jailbreak itself requires connection to a computer. It is "untethered" in that a jail broken device need not be [I]re[/I]connected to a computer thereafter to reboot. I think everybody knows that.
The need to Jailbreak has lessened quite a bit for me over the years, as Apple has seen fit to solve many of my issues. However, I jailbreak my iPhone 5 for:
MyWi 6 (for obvious reasons)
NoNewsIsGoodNews: Gets rid of the blasted Newstand icon/folder
xcon: allows apps that check for a jailbreak to work properly (i.e., Time Warner Cable app)
BrowserChanger: allows me to select which browser I want to use by default (which happens to be Chrome)
Pull to Refresh Safari (self explanatory)
This is very interesting information. Can you answer this question then. If a 2011 imac had an SSD added, via the intructions on the OWC site where they supply a cable which plugs into the motherboard...
If this was done which while not being done by an apple authorised technician is nevertheless an authorised modification in the sense that the airflow and circuit board have been designed to work with an SSD as was a BTO anayway...
If this was done and subsequently down the track there was a problem with the imac, would apple be able to refuse service on the machine even if it were requested not under warranty.
Further in your opinion another separate question is... if there was a problem with the imac that was not to do with the added SSD would you consider the warranty voided anyway.
@AnalogJack,
I guess there are 3 ways to answer your question.
1) Legal
2) Policy
3) Practice
One of the things to keep in mind is that in practice, Apple realizes that it's not in the interest of anybody involved for technicians to play the role of detective. Technicians look to see what the problem is, and then if there was any abuse that caused the problem or if the problem is unrelated to Apple's hardware. So if your product looks like it has been dropped or submerged in water, the repair will likely not be covered under warranty. However, there are all kinds of stories of customers being squeaky wheels, or favored customers, or just somebody being in a good mood, that result in all kinds of abused products being covered/replaced. My advice to people trying to get something repaired under warranty who get denied from one person is to try again with someone else... and be nice.
People have this weird sense of what the warranty is and what authorized technicians working on your machine means. Often people think incorrectly that if you turn one screw, you'll void your warranty completely, but this isn't true at all. On the other side, people often think that if they do a user-replaceable job (like replacing a hard drive) and do something stupid like tear a ribbon cable, that the warranty will still cover it (it won't in legal/policy, but in practice Apple probably will cover it).
Anyone doing work inside your product is responsible for any damage inside. It doesn't matter if the person is authorized or not.
So to answer your question. First, I'm not sure if the drive in a 2011 iMac is user-replaceable. There are so many models, and it's hard to keep track. The easy way to find out is to look in your manual. If there are no instructions for doing so, it's not user-replaceable.
However, whether it's user-replaceable or not, and whether it was done by an authorized technician or not doesn't really matter so much. If damage was done, the person who did it would be responsible.
If the drive was replaced with a SSD, and now the iMac is having problems, the key issue is what component has failed, and if the SSD or the work done to install the SSD had anything to do with it.
If you send it in and they find out that the SSD itself (or the cable) is the problem, they can charge you a diagnostic fee, and not actually fix your iMac. Essentially, they're telling you that nothing is wrong with the Apple part of your iMac and deal with what you (or someone else did) yourself.
If they find out that the damage was done because of the SSD (or cable) or during their installation to other components, they may offer to fix those components, but charge you for it.
Again, in both these situation, they may be nice and not charge you.
The one thing they are very unlikely to do is deal with the 3rd party SSD itself.
If the iMac is having some other problem, like the optical drive is bad, or one of the ports, or RAM, or whatever totally unrelated to the SSD and not damaged by the SSD or the installation, then they should repair it under warranty (legally, policy, and in practice).
That said, and also saying that Apple usually errs on the side of the customer (sometimes to the extreme), something you end up dealing with someone having a really bad day who doesn't want to help you at all, and may even be running afoul of Apple's policy or what legally they can do. Again, try dealing with someone else.
A lot of people think 3rd party authorized service centers will be less forgiving for warranty work, but often they can be better. They can charge you, and upset you, or they can charge Apple and make you a happy customer. Usually 3rd party authorized service centers bend the rules as far as they can.
Usually, I remove all 3rd party components before bringing something in for service, and I would recommend this to others. In part, you're eliminating the chance that the problem is due to a 3rd party component, however remote that possibility could be.
Here's another example of what happened to me (after I was no longer running the service center)...
I put a second hard drive in my MacBook Pro, and pulled the optical drive. Not caring about the optical drive, I carelessly tossed it aside, and even accidentally stepped on it (crushing it beyond use in the process). I had other optical drives, so this one was completely worthless to me. Several months later, my MBP ended up having a problem with the logic board. So before sending it in, I replaced the RAM with the original RAM, the hard drive with the original hard drive and the 2nd hard drive with the original (crushed) optical drive. When sending it in, I didn't mention anything about the optical drive not working. Yet they not only replaced the logic board under warranty, but replaced the optical drive as well. I felt kind of bad that they did that.
Sorry, it's late and my response isn't as concise as it could have been. Hope it helps.
TL;DR: Authorized service technicians really just look at what the damaged component is, and whether or not the customer obviously damaged it. Additionally, a manager may still cover things otherwise not under warranty, even due to obvious abuse. Furthermore, there is a lot of discretion and you can get different results with different people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ontheinside
It's important to note that 7 million represents only 1.4% of iOS devices out there.
It's also important to note that:
1) This exploit is targeted only at those devices running iOS 6.0.1 and 6.1. Most jailbreakers are still running the GreenP0ison jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1 and earlier. They'll catch up, give them time. Most people initially taking advatage of evasi0n are using iPhone 5's, iPad Mini's, and iPad 4's, which until now couldn't be jailbroken at all. How large a slice of the iOS ecosystem do those make up?
2) 7 million is still 7 MILLION. I'd say the users have spoken, again: we want features and functionality Apple doesn't offer. For me, it's a great app called iBlacklist, which lets me block phone numbers from calling or texting, something that most Android phones can do with a free app download (or even out of the box in some cases) yet Apple forces me to jailbreak for.
OK that is a pretty thorough and excellent response. I feel that I need to elaborate on my situation in order as your opinion on another more specific question.
First let me say that I'm talking of a 2011 imac which originally had a bto option of an ssd in addition to the already installed hdd.
So I did not replace the hdd with an sdd, the hdd remained and the sdd was plugged into a spare sata port that was already on the logic board. It's a pretty common thing to do as it is not very difficult. It all went very smoothly and everything was fine. Boot up in less than 20 secs. I elected to keep the two drives separate rather than create a single fusion drive.
Then after using the computer for about a month or more with not the slightest indication of any problem, the computer refused to boot up one day.
Everything would be fine up until the grey screen with the spinning wheel which usually is there for a few seconds. It just stayed at that spot.
I did all the usual checks and all was good. Booted up into single user mode and ran the diskutil operations and it reported back all was fine, no indication of any thing wrong in the boot up procedure either.
The behaviour was the same when booting from my bootable drive, ie stopped at the spinning cog on the grey screen. So I knew it was not the ssd which had the OS on it. It would not boot into internet recovery, although it would spend 10 minutes downloading it and then stop at the grey screen.
I spoke to apple on the phone and told them that I had added an ssd and we tried all the usual stuff which I have already detailed. They told me to take it to an apple store which I did.
When it was finally on the bench I told the technician that I had put in an ssd in addition to the hdd, which he could see when he went to conned it to the shop system I told him that it refused to boot up and he tried to boot into it with one of their repair partitions and it behaved the same way. He then booted into a volume that contained an apple diagnostic set of tools and ran the suite. It still used OS9 style windows which was cute.
I could see that there was an icon for each component and as it ran through the suite each icon had a big green tick through it except for the ram because as he said it was not apple ram and it would always fail. So he took the computer backstage to check the ram and came back and said he replaced the ram with known good ram and the problem persisted therefore it was not the ram.
It was from this point on that things started to get a bit weird. You see they had already been working on it under warranty in the knowledge that I had added an ssd and no one mentioned that it might be a problem, and then he suddenly says that they won't repair it because the warranty is voided. I presume that he was told this while backstage as he seemed like he was told to say it. He wanted to argue the point a bit and I asked to speak to the manager.
When the store manager came out I could see straight away by his body language, slight smirk and cocked head that I was not going to have a good time talking to this person.
Let me set the scene, when the computer suddenly stopped it just so happened to be right before my flatmate was about to depart to the country for a week and was handily able to give me a lift to the Apple store which I would be unable to get to otherwise as it is 45 minutes away by car and very difficult to get to by public transport.
Also there was a tropical hurricane that was causing a bit of foul whether the past week and there were floods and general chaos all down the east coast.
He dropped me off in the parking lot and I carried the 27" imac in it's box to the other end of the mall where the shop was. This was not easy to do. When the technician was telling me that the warranty was voided I had been in the shop for about 45 minutes and by now it was past their street closing time and it was a dark and stormy night it was pissing down raining and it was already going to be a long 90 journey on the bus home.
From my point of view I am in the store my computer is not working and it needs to be fixed. Under warranty not under warranty whatever, it needs to be repaired.
Now the manager tells me that the warranty is voided and that I should leave the store with my computer. I explain to him that I do not feel that the warranty is voided and that I'll need to take this up with the office of fair trading to get them to arbitrate in this issue because this is really one for the lawyers.
At this point you'd expect a normal person to simply say, realising that it needs to be repaired, 'OK we'll have a look at it and see what the problem it', then it can be handed upstairs for someone more qualified to make a decision.
But he is going to have none of this, he tells me that I have to take my computer out of the store, I say that I can't take it home, he says why? I say because I got a lift here and it raining and there is no way that I am able to take this computer to the bus stop in the rain much less get it on the bus.
He says...wait for it...'well you can't leave it here.
Now I just said I can't take it home and I meant it. I didn't mean I won't take it home because I'm being belligerent, I meant I CAN'T take it home. But he say 'you can't leave it here'.
Digest that for a moment. I said, well what are you going to do put it out on the street because I can't take it home. After thinking about it for a while he decides that he is going to make an exception in this case and allow me to leave it here for between 3 and 5 days, (and makes me sign an agreement to do this).
As I'm about to leave he tells me that 'you can't leave the box here'. I say why not, he says because they don't have any room. It's getting a bit silly now, I tell him I'm not taking the box home and he says well I can't guarantee it will be here when you get back.
Why the computer can't be put back inside the box, I don't understand but it's pretty clear that he's just being very unpleasant and deliberately so. Then we moved into Monty Python territory because a part of his brain must have still been wondering about me saying that I can't take it home due to not having any way to get it home, when he suddenly burst out with what he must have thought was a brilliantly deduced flaw in my argument.
He said, regarding me not being able to take it home, "what if we had fixed it then", I said what do you mean, he said, when we had it on the bench what if we were able to fix it? What would I have done then?
Well I said, I still wouldn't have been able to take it home, what's your point.
Roll that one around in your brain for a while.
When I related that part of the story to the senior apple technician whom I spoke to a few days later, he burst out laughing.
A few days later I got an email to tell me my computer is ready to pick up. I wrote them an email asking if that means they repaired it or what. I explained that it needs to be repaired, under warranty or not under warranty whatever but I'm not collecting it otherwise.
I eventually get a message that another sort admin person want to talk to me to 'resolve' this matter. I knew that if I spoke to them on the phone that I was just going to get more abuse so instead I wrote an email asking her to explain to me what her suggested 'resolution' might be.
It was then that I simply received another email telling me to collect my mac with no reference at all about my previous suggestion that it needs to be repaired.
By now I'd had enough of this BS and sent another email simply saying that I am now requesting a PAID FOR quote for a diagnostic and repair.
So I have completely bypassed the warranty issue, my thought was that I'd just take it elsewhere to get it repaired under warranty depending what the problem was so I was prepared to pay for a quote.
She wanted me to get the computer out of their store so I gave her a simple yes or no ultimatum. Will they give me a PAID FOR not under warranty quote for repair. Yes, or No.
Of course she wanted to say 'no' but she dare not write that down. There is no reason not to say 'yes' because I'm just asking for a paid for quote. But she does not want to say 'yes'.
Two days later I get a call from someone more senior who is not at the store. He immediately begins by mentioning the word 'warranty'. I cut him off and said it's not about that any longer, if he looks at the correspondence he will see that I simply asked for a paid for quote. Will they do it, yes or no.
I explained to him that it was only at that point that they sent it upstairs to him. In the end he decides that what they are going to do is to repair it under warranty.
I said to him that all I am demanding at this stage is a paid for quote, if he wants to offer to repair it under warranty then I suppose that is the least they could do.
Now while I am typing this up, I get a call from the senior technician to explain what is happening. I've just got off the phone. This is the story now.
Apparently it is all fixed and they have removed the drive because it was the drive that was causing the problem. Then when I ask for more details it turns out that it was not the drive that was causing the problem because they couldn't get it to work without the drive, but when they finally got it working, when they connected the drive it would not boot up again.
So they say. This sounds like BS to me and when I asked for further information he says he has the whole printout in front of him and that the problem has to do with the ALS cord. I say, 'you mean the ambient light sensor'? He says yes. Somehow my SSD makes the ambient light sensor cable not allow the computer to boot up.
I say to him that this sounds like nonsense. He then tell me that there's also a problem with the BT cable. I ask what the BT cable is, he says he doesn't know.
I say what do you mean you don't know you're a senior technician, then he says maybe they meant to say the BL cable. What's that I ask, he says 'a back light cable'.
Now I say so what is the story, well he says they have removed the SSD and it's all working again. Which means they have wiped my HDD which doesn't matter as it's all backed up.
So I tell him that it sounds like they have simply removed to SSD in order to be ratbags and fabricated some utter tosh about the SSD via the ALS cable is causing the problem. I'm not a technician but I'd bet the ranch that this is patent garbage.
Not only that but they still are trying to maintain that my warranty is voided. Yes this is what it's like dealing with apple geniuses in Australia, not much fun.
@macslut
I've just spoken to a senior person at the store who is also a technician in order to clarify the current situation. She has restored by faith in Apple by being intelligent and not bringing any preconceived ideas to the table and she was also glad to hear my side of the story.
She said straight out that the SSD is not the cause of the problem and that in fact the technician has not been able to locate the precise cause other than to ascertain that the SSD *seems* to expose the problem.
I explained that seeing as the imac is blueprinted to work with an SSD that it could be a fault that is only being exposed by the SSD. In which case if they hand it back without my SSD I will go to an apple authorised repairer and pay to have it reinstalled and then we will be right back where we are now which is that they will have to hunt down the problem and repair it under warranty. Therefore since they have already ascertained that at first they could not get it working even without the SSD that it would be prudent to make sure it's working properly rather than removing a part that is not causing a problem and crossing their fingers.
She also agreed that the terms of the warranty are indeed ambiguous and that it is not possible to understand the correct policy by ready the terms of the warranty.
The computer itself has a peculiar history being bought as a refurbished 2.8Ghz 1GBHDD 1GBVram imac but being supplied as a fully specced up 3.4Ghz 2GB HDD with 2GB vRam plus extra DDR3 Ram. Not only that but it appears to never have been used as it still had the plastic on it and the date of manufacture in China was only a month prior to me buying it. Meaning it appears to be a BTO specced to the eyeballs that was not delivered.
So I wonder if it was ordered with a 256 SSD and that there was some problem with the SSD so it was simply put back in the refurb store without the SSD. This is just speculation but it does have an unusual history.
Because at the end of this saga Apple, in Australia at least is going to have to clarify their warranty terms because this arbitrary decision making based on personal preferences is not a professional way to go about business. Of course this sort of parochial nonsense would be unheard of in America
@AnalogJack,
First, Australia... I was just there a year ago... LOVED it. Unfortunately, much of what I was writing about was USA based, in part because of laws that had to be followed as well as policies that were perhaps dictated by a US marketing/product manager. So I'm sorry if a lot of this doesn't actually apply in Australia. I don't know *anything* about Australian law, so I don't know if you have something like the 1975 Magnuson Moss Warranty Act which in the US means that they can't deny warranty repair for something unaffected by non-warranty work or 3rd party components.
Besides the legal issues, Apple employees shouldn't be dicks. That goes against Apple policy. Try contacting Apple corporate in Australia. You might also try talking (as nicely as possible) with a manager at another store.
It is common for warranty work to start by first pulling all 3rd party parts. Especially in this case, since you've got 3rd party RAM and a 3rd party SSD, both which could cause booting problems. So it doesn't surprise me that the warranty repair work that they did was to pull these items and say, "done, it's fixed".
Again though, they didn't have to be dicks about it. That benefits nobody, including themselves.
Even at the point of pulling the 3rd party components, there could still be additional problem that prevent RAM or an SSD to be installed. For example, I once had a logic board that refused to read the RAM in both slots. I knew that if I sent it in with the 3rd party RAM, that they'd just pull it and send it back, so I replaced it with the original smaller RAM cards it came with before sending it in.
Likewise, you could have a problem with your logic board, or cables which may prevent your iMac from running with any SSD installed. You might want to ask them... or better yet another Apple service center where the employees aren't dicks, to test your iMac with another SSD installed in that bay.
BTW: check your manual and see if it mentions installing a SSD. If it has the instructions for doing so, then it shouldn't be a warranty violation (it wouldn't be in the US).