Four Island

Good news for all of you who, like me, bought an iPhone 4 and received it pre-loaded with the unjailbreakable iOS 4.0.2: your suffering may soon be over. iOS 4.1, the first major update to iOS 4, is expected to be released today. Yes, today. Obviously, Apple has kept quiet about the release date, but two pieces of evidence clearly point to today as the final release date:

• After iOS 4.1 was announced at last week's Apple Music Event, the Apple website was updated to include information about the upcoming iOS 4.1 update. However, for a few days, the British and French versions of the Apple website clearly stated "Coming September 8th", while the American one still said "Coming Soon". This has been fixed.
• Apple releases beta and RC versions of it's iOS software for people with registered Developer iPhones and iPod touches to test out. However, another Apple goof has resulted in everyone being able to utilize the iOS 4.1 RC image, not just the developers. While this in itself is not indicative of an impending release, the fact that early this morning, the Game Center feature included in iOS 4.1 went live, is.

However good the chances seem that iOS 4.1 will be released today, though, it doesn't necessarily mean that the iOS 4.1 jailbreak will be as well. A series of misinformation from unreliable sources and contradicting confirmations from reliable sources has led to a lot of confusion about the upcoming jailbreak. One thing that we all seem to know for sure, however, is that the new jailbreak could take one of two forms: a userland jailbreak (like the JailbreakMe website jailbreak) or a bootrom jailbreak. A userland jailbreak, if a usable exploit was found, would be much easier to make and therefore would arrive faster. However, as seen with JailbreakMe and iOS 4.0.2, Apple can also patch them very easily. A bootrom jailbreak, conversely, would be a lot more difficult to create, but would be impossible for Apple to patch without releasing a new hardware device. The bootrom hole primarily used to jailbreak in the past was present in all iPhone 2Gs, iPhone 3Gs and iPod touches (first gen) and half of iPhone 3GSes and iPod touches (second gen) before Apple finally got around to patching it. A new bootrom jailbreak, if found, could be used to jailbreak iPhones and iPod touches for a long time to come.

However, that's where our definite knowledge ends. Many people suspect that Comex, the author of the JailbreakMe exploit, is going to be the one to provide the next jailbreak, and that seemed to be confirmed by iPhone hacker MuscleNerd:

@TechXero it'll be userland JB if @comex can pull trifecta.
Else, wait for new HW cycle (also remember: hole!=exploit)

However, Comex has very recently posted a tweet which may imply that this is not the case:

@ariif next jb might not come from me :D

Hopefully, if this is the case, it still means that a jailbreak will be ready for release very soon. Also, rumors have been making their way around the Internet that the iOS 4.1 jailbreak is already done and will likely be released today. While this would be a great outcome, it's fairly unlikely and we should all just cross our fingers that Comex is able to pull off "trifecta". :)

Lastly: while jailbreakers everywhere have informed several times that it would be unwise to update to iOS 4.1 without a jailbreak being available, those who are not yet jailbroken should at least give it a try. However, there is a chance, albeit small, that a new jailbreak might not work with iOS 4.1, instead relying on iOS 4.0.2. Even though this is incredibly unlikely, I suggest that you use TinyUmbrella to save your SHSH blobs (no jailbreak required) before upgrading to iOS 4.1 so that if this actually happens, you can safely go back to iOS 4.0.2. The newest version even includes the ability to prevent your baseband from being upgraded, for those of you who wish to unlock their phones, as the new baseband included with iOS 4.1 is not yet unlockable.

EDIT: It seems I forgot to post this post in the morning and now it is too late: iOS 4.1 is now out and more information about a jailbreak has been released. A hacker named "pod2g" apparently found a bootrom exploit (remember, hole doesn't equal exploit, but they definitely said "exploit", which means it's likely to work) just as Apple went public with the final release of iOS 4.1. The good news is that, yay, there will definitely be a jailbreak. The bad news? It might take a while.

In the mean time, I'm currently upgrading my iPhone 4 to iOS 4.1 because I have no jailbreak to lose and I can always go back to iOS 4.0.2 if need be. However, this will still probably not be necessary because the expected jailbreak is going to be a bootrom exploit. Regardless, let's all hope it comes out soon because I want my iPhone jailbreak! :P