Oliver Haslam on January 28, 2017, 8:47 am

How To Permanently Preserve Your iOS 10.2 Jailbreak

Here’s how you can permanently preserve or protect your iOS 10.2 jailbreak on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch device.

Jailbreaking iOS devices is a serious undertaking these days, what with Apple seeking to block the practice at every turn. Each new release of iOS gets one step closer to stopping jailbreaking in its tracks, and often a new release will simply make it impossible for jailbreakers to update – unless they want to lose their precious jailbreak, of course.

iOS-10.2-Jailbreak

With so many iOS updates breaking jailbreaks, and new public jailbreaks taking longer than ever to show up, it’s important to attempt to preserve your existing jailbreak for as long as possible. That might sound difficult, but there are a couple of specific routes you can take in order to try and make sure you’re jailbroken for as long as possible. The two options are to prevent new iOS updates from being automatically downloaded and installed, and to save your SHSH2 blobs should a jailbreakable version of iOS end up in the position of Apple no longer signs it.

A public iOS 10.2 jailbreak solution called yalu102 is out and about, but it’s currently in beta even though we have found it to be stable enough for day to day use. If you plan to wait for the final version of the tool though, you might want to read through the following to ensure that your device remains jailbreak-ready for whenever you do plan to make the jump. This is, of course, also useful for those who are already jailbroken on 10.2 as blocking OTA updates will help remove that dreaded “1” update sign on Settings.app icon, and saving SHSH2 blobs while Apple is still signing 10.2 is important so that they can always restore to 10.2 in case there’s ever a need to start on jailbreakable firmware from scratch.

Block iOS Updates

Stopping Apple from automatically updating your own devices can be difficult, but there is one surefire way of making sure your devices are only updated on your terms. That method involves installing an Apple TV beta profile on your iPhone, meaning that when it checks for a new version of iOS against that profile, it will never be able to find one because such a thing doesn’t exist. It’s a little sneaky, and it’s using Apple’s own beta system against it, but we do like it. There’s a certain beautiful irony about the whole thing that cannot be escaped. We’ve covered the process of doing this over here: Disable / Block iOS OTA Update On iPhone Or iPad [No Jailbreak Required].

Saving SHSH2 Blobs

Apple has become very good at refusing to sign older versions of iOS that have been jailbroken. That prevents anyone who updates to the latest version of iOS from downgrading to the jailbreakable version because Apple’s servers won’t give the OK when the iPhone or iPad in question checks that the software is legit. Luckily, there is a way around that if you saved your SHSH2 before the signing window for the required firmware was closed. Again, that’s something we’ve covered in detail before so be sure to have a read of that right here. And remember, you must save your SHSH2 blobs as soon as possible because once Apple stops signing iOS 10.2, you won’t be able to save the blobs. Whether you are already jailbroken or not, SAVE THE BLOBS NOW.

The art of jailbreaking isn’t dead yet, but Apple wishes it was. With each new version of iOS, Apple tries to kill the act of jailbreaking, but until that happens, be sure to use methods like those outlined above. You never know when you might be thankful for them.