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About six months ago, the launch of the iPhone 4 and the associated release of iOS 4.0 quietly brought a very little known functionality to iOS devices: a jailbreak detection API (Application Programming Interface), able to detect changes in the iOS device file system. According to Network World, the API was short lived, as it disappeared from iOS 4.2.
The reason why the API disappeared is not clear, but it is believed that work on the API was abandonned after the U.S. government agreed to legalize jailbreaks earlier this year (click here for more details).
Interestingly enough, some developers focused on building apps for the enterprise market such as Sybase actually used the API, in order to prevent their apps from being hacked or redistributed without a license – note that these developers were not notified by Apple that the feature would disappear after the introduction of iOS 4.2.
The API was originally built by Apple as a way to prevent:
- iOS devices from being hacked
- Apps piracy
- Users from unlocking their subsidized phones and tablets
Apple never really had the chance to enforce the use of the API, as the U.S. government decision to legalize jailbreaking came right after the launch of iOS 4. Moreover, given the fact that the API didn’t prevent the introduction of new jailbreak methods well after the introduction of iOS 4, Apple engineers may have simply decided to abandon the concept, to move on to other detection mechanisms.