Users were having issues with weather, boot times, more

Following the popular release of the evasi0n "jailbreak" tool for devices running iOS 6 and higher, the team behind it have released at least two updates to fix problems caused by the jailbreak, which has been claimed to have been downloaded more than 1.5 million times since its release on Monday. The most common bug was that the jailbreak caused the stock Weather app to crash or (on iPads) revealing a hidden but outdated iPhone version of the app.

As a point of trivia, the default Weather app on iOS devices is not actually an Apple app and is provided by Yahoo (with data coming from The Weather Channel), contrary to most media reports. The new patch replaces an early but difficult manual fix but can be applied to devices already jailbroken using the evasi0n jailbreak, and is available from the Cydia store.

The patch updates the UIKit Tools, and is accompanied by another update to the evasi0n app itself (now at version 1.1) that fixes an issue with protracted rebooting times for jailbroken devices. There's no word yet on a fix for users that report being unable to access their "Purchased" history (and thus unable to re-download any lost apps, music or other files) in iTunes.

An unofficial app designed to help pirate apps called AppSync is also said to have problems with the jailbreak, preventing today's fix from working and also interfering with iCloud functions such as syncing, according to evad3rs team member MuscleNerd. "Piracy has costs," he told one Twitter follower who complained.

Evasi0n jailbreakers also cannot (for obvious reasons) update to any future versions of iOS without losing the jailbreak. A later update of the evasi0n software could overcome that issue, but Apple continues to make improvements in iOS security that make jailbreaking more difficult to accomplish.

Problems such as app instability, battery drain and other mostly-minor issues are common with jailbreaks, as they rely on injecting new code to overwrite portions of the original Apple code. Other potential hazards, according to Apple, include security issues (as the jailbreak relies on an exploit, which could be found and misused by others to serve malware or foster hacking attacks as seen on the Android platform) and even an increase in dropped calls.

Apple has also warned that iOS devices that are jailbroken may in some cases be refused warranty or extra-warranty service, particularly if there is any chance that the jailbreaking is related to the complaint. Most devices can be easily un-jailbroken and returned to normal service if they are still operable, but if they are not (commonly referred to as "being bricked") then the jailbreak cannot be removed before servicing.

by MacNN Staff