In an unfortunate turn of events for the jailbreak community, it seems that Apple will not be supporting the iPad (7th generation) with this year’s release of iPadOS 26, which means that the last remaining checkm8 bootrom exploit-vulnerable device will no longer receive major software updates this year and that checkm8-based jailbreaks will not be able to pwn iPadOS 26.
Despite this news, Apple is likely to continue releasing smaller critical security response patches for the iPad (7th generation), but it will remain on iPadOS 18 indefinitely as major updates will not be made available for it.
This is a historical moment in the jailbreak community, as we are not aware of the development of any jailbreaks for Apple’s latest devices for any firmware newer than iOS or iPadOS 16. Older devices like the iPad (7th generation) have only remained jailbreakable on the latest firmware thanks to checkm8, a hardware-based bootrom exploit that Apple couldn’t patch with just a software update.
It’s worth noting that the checkm8 bootrom exploit also applies to certain Apple TVs and to the T2 chip. While some of those Apple TVs will get the tvOS 26 update, they will not support new Liquid Glass user interface, which implies that Apple could be close to leaving those devices in the dust in just another year or two.
Moreover, the T2 chip only came on certain Intel chip-equipped Macs, which Apple confirmed macOS Tahoe 26 will be the final update for. This means that the T2 chip is about to Sunset as well.
The checkm8 hardware-based bootrom exploit, first announced in September of 2019, is only the second major bootrom exploit to be released for Apple’s platforms in recent memory, or at least for as long as I’ve been a part of the jailbreak community. Before that, George Hotz’ Limera1n bootrom exploit was all the rage back in 2010. Just from looking at the dates, you can see just how exceptionally rare bootrom exploits are.
Because of the hardened security mitigations put forth by Apple in recent years, it remains to be seen if we’ll ever see a jailbreak for Apple’s latest firmware. Various jailbreak developers have spent the past few years pointing at the writing on the walls, indicating that this game of cat and mouse has gotten so hard that Apple is seriously winning the fight.
