In the iPhone world, the phrase “cat and mouse” brings to mind just one thing: the perpetual struggle between the iPhone Dev Team and Apple when it comes to hacking iOS devices to run unsigned code, commonly referred to as a jailbreak.
Most recently, it seemed like the mouse had managed to drop a ten ton anvil on the cat’s head with the SHAtter exploit, a jailbreaking technique which will work on all iOS devices that is only patchable by Apple through hardware. If what’s going on in the Android landscape is anything to go by, Cupertino might soon regain the upper hand.
Recently, T-Mobile released the HTC G2, their latest Android handset, and it’s got a trick up its sleeves Apple’s iOS engineers must be dying for: a little wafer of silicon that makes the handset effectively jailbreak proof. If you try to install modified software on the device, the G2 automatically resets itself, flushing out the new software and returning the operating system to factory settings.
It’s too early to say if Android’s jailbreakers will find a way around this limitation, but the Dev Team would do well to pay attention anyway: this might be the next hurdle they have to deal with.
