Jailbreaking isn’t something we deal with a lot these days, with Apple continuously patching jailbreaking methods for iPhones and iPads, it’s not as common as it once was during the height of the jailbreaking era. However, while it may be common to jailbreak iPhones, the Checkra1n team has done something that’s definitely not common — they have jailbroken a first-gen HomePod.
The news was shared by a Twitter user with a screenshot that showed him accessing the root of a HomePod operating system via SSH. The exploit is now available to users with Checkra1n 0.12.1 beta, so anyone interested in jailbreaking their HomePod can get this now.
Hello Homepod, meet checkra1n.
Huge thanks to @DanyL931 for helping to get this running. pic.twitter.com/FjH7253RFR
— L1ng (@el1ng0) November 19, 2020
So what’s the point of jailbreaking a HomePod? Your guess is as good as ours. On the iPhone, jailbreaking lets you modify all sorts of system settings, side-load apps, and install apps from places other than the App Store. It also brings more customizability to the iPhone. However, those things don’t really exist on the HomePod. My guess (and hope) is that Checkra1n will allow users to load a different smart assistant on the HomePod. Honestly, Siri is just not that great at getting things done. I would love to have the sound quality of a HomePod with the smarts of Google Assistant or Alexa.
