By John Gruber
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“Chpwn” — a young developer of apps for jailbroken iPhones — says I’m wrong that Apple is not fighting jailbreaking:
If that was actually how Apple felt, they would not block downgrading to 4.0.1. They would continue to sign the SHSH hashes required for a downgrade. Their SHSH system — which prevents any unapproved firmware installation — is direct proof that they are strongly against jailbreaking. There is not other benefit to the server-side firmware signing mechanism they are using except preventing us from freeing our phones. […]
I also want to point out that a jailbroken 4.0.1 with saurik’s PDF fix is no less secure than 4.0.2 from Apple.
It’s not about jailbreaking. It’s about security and support. Once 4.0.2 was released, it became the only supported version of iOS 4. Apple isn’t going to support downgrading to an older version of the OS with known security vulnerabilities. And they’re certainly not going to support or trust a fix for the vulnerability from a jailbreak developer.
Put another way: I know that many App Store developers wish that Apple were “fighting jailbreaking”, because App Store piracy depends upon it.
★ Monday, 30 August 2010