iOS 8 users anxiously awaiting for a Cydia-enabled jailbreak can finally download Pangu and install the jailbreak-centric app store on their iDevices without too much hassle.
That is, provided that they understand Chinese (and have the language enabled on their computers). Sadly, an English-supported version is yet to become available, but we hear it’s coming any minute now.
Untethered jailbreak + Cydia now possible
The Pangu jailbreak for iOS 8 has been available for a while now, but this is the first time it can also install Cydia, the jailbreak alternative to the App Store, on hacked devices. We haven’t taken it for a spin yet because the GUI displays dubiously and we won’t risk bricking our iDevices in the process.
Not that we wouldn’t take the plunge eventually, but we hear that an English-supported Pangu 1.1 is on its way.
The Pangu team in China wrote on Twitter, “...we plan to release Pangu 1.1 in 24 hours with Cydia bundled and english support if everything goes well today. Pls be patient, tks!”
The tool is currently only available for Windows computers, with no word on when a Mac version will be deployed. We have faith in the Pangu team that they will bless OS X customers with a compatible version as well.
Installing the jailbreak reportedly takes minutes, and Cydia can be installed after the process is completed, by means of the bundled Pangu app.
The implications of jailbreaking
The practice of jailbreaking has certainly lost its Steam in the past few years. Mainly because Apple has finally opened up certain portions of iOS to developers, enabling more versatility in apps and general usage. Many people used to jailbreak solely to get basic functionality like themes, wallpapers, extra menus at the top or bottom side of the home screen, easy-access utilities and shortcuts, etc. All this is now available on iOS without hacking.
However, there are still those who pirate apps and there are still developers who create jailbreak tweaks that add even more functionality to Apple’s iDevices. This continues to provide some incentive for jailbreaking, hence the emergence of the Pangu tool.
The iPhone Dev Team and the Evad3rs have long abandoned their charitable iOS hacking practices and moved on to more serious things, like security companies. We won’t be surprised to see jailbreaking become fully obsolete by the time Apple rolls out iOS 10 (2016), perhaps even earlier.
Since english version of tool is not available now. Tips: u must disable passcode and turn off "find my iphone" before using Pangu for iOS8
— PanguTeam (@PanguTeam) October 22, 2014