Restore function now supports iPad Air 2 / iPad mini 3

Nov 5, 2014 12:01 GMT  ·  By

The Pangu hacking group in China has released an updated version of their untethered iOS 8 jailbreak with fixes and optimizations. Users are still advised to play it safe and back up all their data before attempting to use the tool, but it’s more recommended that they just stay put.

Pangu has been around for about a year now, starting off on iOS 7 and currently supporting iOS 8 firmware up to 8.1. Its developers released the iOS 8-compatible build in October, and they have since incremented the software with fixes and enhancements based on user feedback.

We reported on the emergence of an updated Pangu app a few days ago, informing our readers that the tool finally supported English and that it bore an IPSW restore tool that allowed any failed jailbreak to be repaired with a stock installation of iOS 8. However, we also warned our readers that Pangu was not entirely fool-proof, and that even its creators had posted quite a few warning signs around the download links.

What’s new in Pangu 1.2.0

Fast forward to today, Pangu 1.2.0 is now available. The updated tool promises to fix an issue associated with “launchd” over-taxing the CPU on 32-bit devices, fixes a reloading bug in Safari as well as some occasional crashes, optimizes the jailbreak process, and adds support for iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 for the restore function.

Interested parties should take note of the warnings put forth by the Pangu team, including this one: “DO NOT delete this file “com.apple.mobile.softwareupdated.plist” or disable the service. Otherwise, It will cause your devices unable to reboot.”

Whatever course of action you choose, don’t embark on any journey with Pangu without first ensuring that you’ve made a local backup of your iDevice using iTunes. A simple iCloud backup won’t do in case you need to restore manually.

The team brags that its built-in restore tool will help in case of emergency: “We integrate restore in our new Pangu jailbreak, and it's very easy to use. By selecting the firmware and click the restore button, Pangu will do the restore job for you. Even it's possible to keep your personal data after restoring.”

Proceed carefully

However, the bundled restore function will be unable to restore your data without your backup files. The Mac version of Pangu is still in the works with no word on when it will become available.

“We will definitely release a Mac version. But pls give us some time. If there is no major problem for v1.1 we will then focus on Mac version,” the team said. Considering there has been quite a bit of bug fixing lately, it’s understandable that the Mac build is nowhere to be seen.