Jailbreaking started with the release of the original iPhone in 2007. At the time, there was no App Store and Apple was pushing iPhone users to use Web apps through mobile Safari if they wanted to get software that Apple didn't include with the iPhone, such as games.

The iPhone Dev Team formed and came up with the first jailbreak that opened the door to running native apps on the original iPhone. Jailbreaking at that time was not for the faint of heart: the first jailbreak required the user to perform 74 steps and required use of the command line and wirelessly SSH-ing into the iPhone, something most people should not be and were not familiar with.

Jailbreaking iOS devices have become easier over the years; the most recent Evasi0n iOS 6.x jailbreak tool was easily performed with one click. Many believed the amount of people jailbreaking iOS devices would decline, as Apple was adding major features to iOS. The fact that there are over 14 million iOS 6 devices currently jailbroken shows that many users still want to have the option to make their iOS devices do things Apple has not implemented or allowed to run on its iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Apple is expected to make things a little more difficult to jailbreak iOS 6 devices when it releases iOS 6.1.3, which is currently in beta for developers. The Evad3rs team has confirmed that Apple has patched some of the major exploits the team has used to jailbreak iOS 6 devices. The team does expect to come up with a way to jailbreak iOS 6.1.3 after it's released.

The team is keeping quiet on how they will achieve this, as revealing it now would give Apple the opportunity to patch the exploit and make it harder for the team to provide a jailbreak tool. The team is urging users currently using an iOS 6 device with the evasi0n jailbreak tool to delay updating to iOS 6.1.3 when Apple releases the update, as it will break the jailbreak. The team will need a little time to update evasi0n to work with iOS 6.1.3.

(Edited by Lois Heyman)