Images have surfaced on Chinese blogging site Weibo which appear to show a working jailbreak for Apple’s current firmware, iOS 10.3.1. Whilst details are extremely thin on the ground at present, they appear to be genuine and are an encouraging sight for jailbreakers everywhere.

Remember: Demonstrating a jailbreak is not the same as committing to release a jailbreak. Many tools use exploits the teams wish to keep for research purposes. Jailbreaks are sometimes demonstrated with no intention of release.

The first thing to say is that these images are not fully verified, nor were they posted by Pangu themselves. For that reason, maintain a healthy scepticism for the time being. Having said that, the three images appear to have been posted to the Weibo account of one Min Zheng, who is known to be heavily involved in iOS security, and with jailbreaking.

If the Weibo account is his, which it appears to be, then I would consider him a trustworthy source of information, and the sort of person who would be present at conferences of this kind in which mobile security tools and jailbreaks are demoed.

The conference, which is taking place in the Mercedes Benz Arena, on Expo Avenue in Shanghai, appears to be called Janus. The image below shows the attendee’s ticket, in front of the venue:

The event seems however to be private and not publicly ticketed, as the Mercedes Benz Arena website and ticketing site Damai do not seem to list any such event, held in The Mixing Room, on this date.

Further details about the jailbreak are scarce; we know however that it does support the iPhone 7, which is nice news for flagship device owners who were only partially supported by Yalu1011.

It has been rumoured that the jailbreak supports only 10.3-10.3.1, not lower firmwares such as iOS 10.2.1 and 10.2, but this is not confirmed. Similarly, whilst it reportedly supports all 64-bit devices (implying not 32-bit) this is also unknown for sure at present. No facts were given by Zheng, only the three images. All the other alleged details were reported by an unknown Twitter user, not Zheng or Pangu. Certainly, the only thing Zheng’s image shows for certain is that it runs on the iPhone 7 on iOS 10.3.1.

The most tenuous, but most exciting piece of news is the following, which was posted by the unknown Twitter user mentioned above. It appeared that they were also attending the event, but this may not actually be the case, so be careful about trusting their pronouncements:

正在和pp助手公司谈合作。如果谈妥，一周之内发布10.3-10.3.1 jailbreak

The translation is roughly as follows:

We are working with PP Assistant company. If agreed, within a week released 10.3-10.3.1 jailbreak.

Please remember, this could be a lie or a mistake, I include it only in the interest of full information.

Remember too that just because the team have shown off a jailbreak does not mean that they plan to release it. Mobile security experts often demo these tools as part of talks on iOS security, for teaching purposes, without intending to publicly release anything.We’ll keep you up to date with any further developments as they occur; the conference is ongoing at the time of publication so more details may become available in due course.

In the meantime, remain calm! Do not update any jailbroken device. Save your .shsh2 blobs with TSS Saver for iOS 10.3.1, and you will be able to update later with Prometheus. If you are not on a jailbroken firmware, you have a tougher choice, update, or not update? I would not update any 32-bit devices, as they are likely not supported. 64-bit devices on iOS 10.2.1, and iPhone 7(+) on iOS 10.2 have the choice in their own hands. I would still not update these devices, and instead wait a few more days to see if this rumour is substantiated or debunked. It will then be possible to make the final decision a day or two before the closing of the iOS 10.3.1 signing. This is of course for you to decide for yourself however.

Are you in dire need of a jailbreak for your iPhone 7(+)? Do you have a device jailbroken on iOS 10.2, and are you thinking of updating blindly? Pray tell.