[Updated] Downgrading iOS Becomes a Possibility as TinyUmbrella Gets a Fresh Release

Rafia Shaikh

Travel back a few years and it was possible for jailbreakers to downgrade iOS devices to older versions of the operating system. This was largely possible through saving SHSH blobs using an app called TinyUmbrella. Later however, Apple introduced more restrictions with iOS 5 making it impossible to downgrade iOS devices to previous versions. Fast forward a few years and various iterations of iOS and we are finally looking at the good news that is the very latest TinyUmbrella for iOS 8+.

Downgrade iOS to older versions using TinyUmbrella:

TinyUmbrella was developed by @notcom aka Semaphore which let users save the SHSH blobs; the app has just been rewritten and published with support for iOS 8.2 and iOS 8.1.3. While the latest version of the app is still in beta, TinyUmbrella iOS 8 is proving to be quite pleasing for the jailbreaking community.

TinyUmbrella let the jailbreakers use SHSH blobs of older versions to create an IPSW file making it possible to restore the device to an older version that Apple was no longer signing. Apple stops signing the firmware files as it releases the new iOS updates to restrict users to only the very latest version of the iOS. This mechanism helps Cupertino prevent users from possibly jailbreaking the iOS devices. As we have previously seen, many hackers find the hacks to jailbreak the older versions of iOS, however, because of no SHSH blobs, it became impossible for users to downgrade to those versions and jailbreak their devices.

It is yet to be known what exactly has caused this trigger for Semaphore to re-release TinyUmbrella after quite a many iOS iterations. It is being hinted that something in the iOS 8 code has made it possible for the system to potentially work again. The new TinyUmbrella iOS 8 tool has been re-written and redesigned offering more intuitive design and easy approach to the tasks too. Previously, you had to manually save your SHSH blobs - a task that the app now automatically performs on your device.

It [app] has the very basic functionality that the original firmware umbrella had years ago; that is, it saves your shshs. This one, however will save them automatically. There are no options. There are no cumbersome settings. There is one button. This one button will save the optional ‘OTA’ shshs. If you have a device selected, it will save them for that device. If no device is selected, it will save all OTA shshs for all known devices.

[Update]: TinyUmbrella has been released by Semaphore and you can download it from these links:

Share this story

Deal of the Day

Comments