If you're big on having access to third-party apps, tweaks, and modifications on your iPhone, but also enjoy having the most up-to-date version of iOS that you can get your hands on, then you have a bit of a conundrum. Jailbreak your iPhone, and you'll likely have to keep your device on an older version of iOS for longer than expected. Updating iOS frequently breaks jailbreaks and, worse, patches the exploits that made those jailbreaks possible in the first place.

This cat-and-mouse game between Apple and Apple-enthused hackers isn't really news; what is, however, is that a brand-new jailbreak is being shown off for iOS 7.1  the update that ruined hackers' previous (and simple) evasi0n7 jailbreak tool.

As always, there's a catch.

The video that reportedly shows off the jailbreak for iOS 7.1 does so using an iPhone 4 as the target. That might seem a little odd at first  that someone is testing out a brand-new jailbreak on a relatively older device. However, according to a comment posted to said video by YouTube user "All things jailbreak," the undisclosed method only allegedly works on devices running one of Apple's A4 chips at the moment.

On the plus side, it seems as if a jailbreak for other chips is being investigated, so all hope is not lost for those eagerly awaiting a means for unlocking their iOS 7.1-based smartphones. Otherwise, the current jailbreak  which doesn't appear to be released anywhere as of this article's writing  is currently restricted to just the iPhone 4, iPod touch (fourth generation), and the first-generation iPad.

"If you've followed the work of Winocm in the past, you'll probably be aware that he tends to look at older devices and pieces of firmware, and while, in his accompanying tweet for the video, he didn't stipulate the device on which he had achieved this untethered boot, it's almost certainly an iPhone 4 powered by the Apple A4 processor," writes Redmond Pie's Ben Reid.

"The older models are inherently easier to hack, and, of course, less relevant than the more recent devices, but nevertheless, this is very good progress as far as an eventual jailbreak for iOS 7.1 goes. If nothing else, it shows that work is being done to try and find exploits," Reid adds.

As always, if you've jailbroken your iPhone, it's worth your while to not upgrade when newer versions of Apple's iOS hit the airwaves.

For more, check out What's New in Apple iOS 7.1?

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