• iOS 9

iOS 9 (Photo : Twitter)

The Pangu jailbreaking team from China pulled off a surprise last week and issued a fully working iOS 9.1 jailbreak but as can be expected the modified software came with host of restrictions. The effort, while welcome, only stokes fears that JB version 9.2 or 9.3 will not be provided quick enough or not touchdown at all.

Like Us on Facebook

In making the 9.1 jailbreak, Team Pangu has made clear that 9.2 or even 9.3 will not be coming out very soon. The next attraction coming from the security researchers is the modification for Apple TV, which the group will be mostly designed for "security researchers and jailbreak developers."

As noted by iDigitalTimes in a report, "iOS 9 has proved particularly challenging to jailbreak and many of the old players have left the scene." The report added that even the elite ones left working on future jailbreak tools are playing the cat and mouse circle with Apple - always cautious in releasing their works lest everything will be nothing, no thanks to the dreaded security patch.

So the state of the jailbreaking scene at the moment is mostly wait and see, and it is highly likely that 9.1 will be the last from Pangu for the iOS 9 series. Either the team will re-focus on experimenting with iOS 10, which Apple will make accessible starting June 2016, or simply look beyond jailbreaking.

For those who remain hopeful that jailbreak 9.2 or 9.3 will eventually come out, the prospect is dim at best. It is likely that Pangu is not working on any of the tools at all, Gotta Be Mobile suggested in a report.

"You may need to wait for someone to develop a iOS 9.3 jailbreak. It is getting tougher to jailbreak, or at least the wait is longer," GBM said.

But there is a glimmer of hope that a 9.2 JB tool could still completed granted the exploit pointed out by developers before will not be patched following the iOS 9.3 release. In such case, the modified iOS could be finalized after the 9.3 rollout anytime this March, the same report said.

As for the jailbreak fans willing to try out the modified 9.1 from Pangu, it should be noted that it works only on the following devices:

  •  iPhone 5s
  •  iPhone 6
  •  iPhone 6 Plus
  •  iPhone 6s Plus
  •  iPhone 6s
  •  iPad Air
  •  iPad Air 2
  •  iPad mini 2
  •  iPad mini 3
  •  iPad mini 4
  •  iPod touch 6th Gen

The iOS 9.1 jailbreak is relatively small, packing only 80MB in size, and is ready to use for Windows and Mac users. For both platfroms, the YouTube clip below should be helpful: