Two important events have occurred that will make Apple and iOS a little more open. First and foremost, there is already a jailbreak technique for iOS 4.1 that has been reported to be in working order. Secondly, Apple has reversed their position on the restrictions placed on iOS developers. This means you may soon be able to easily jailbreak your iPhone and the App Store may see a plethora of new applications.
This is a different type of jailbreak technique than what we’ve seen before. It doesn’t rely on a simple software bug, but gets right at the lower level code. This makes it impossible for Apple to “fix” with a simple software update.
“[I]t will require Apple to release a revised hardware version of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad and the iPod Touches with new bootroms in order to patch the bootrom exploit. This is the reason why iOS devices (like iPhone 3GS (new bootrom), iPhone 4, iPad, iPod touch 3G / 4G) which shipped after November 2009 are currently not jailbreakable via PwnageTool because it uses the 24kpwn bootrom exploit, already patched by Apple.” — Redmond Pie
It’s unclear when this exploit will be available to the masses, but those with jailbroken devices are advised to skip the 4.1 update for now.
On a related note, Apple just released a statement today on developer restrictions put in place earlier this year. In response to some applications being developed using third-party development tools (namely, Adobe), Apple changed their policy so that you absolutely had to use Apple’s Objective-C tools to publish software for the iOS platform. Nothing else was acceptable.
Developers protested as this killed any projects which were developed using cross-platform tools. Suddenly, you had to own Mac hardware and software to develop for iOS. Game developers using platforms like the Unity 3D Engine were left out in the cold. Jobs himself said, “intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces substandard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.” Which made no sense at the time and makes even less sense given that Apple has changed their minds. In their press release, they say:
“We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.
In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.”
One side-effect of this change may be that we see more apps and games showing up consistently across all platforms. Developers may be able to code once and compile for everything. Another interesting twist in the story is that Apple is, for the first time, posting their App Store Review Guidelines. This may be a major step in transparency and avoiding hard work going to waste with no explanation from Apple. Why have they changed their minds here? Probably because the Epic Citadel game, with its stunning graphics and gameplay, was developed using the Unreal Engine 3, which is absolutely not part of Apple’s official Objective-C development tools.