If you’re the kind of person who sticks to the lowest possible firmware and avoids software updates because you hope your iPhone or iPad can eventually be jailbroken, then you’ve proven your wisdom. But that won’t stop the icon from appearing in your Settings app at some point after your device knows it has a pending software update.
In the past, users have installed a tvOS profile on their iPhone or iPad to block the over-the-air (OTA) software update mechanism on their iPhone or iPad so that it doesn’t see any pending software updates. Hence, it will also prevent the Settings app from displaying the annoying red badge reminding you of this every day.
But now that we have an extended MacDirtyCow exploit at our disposal, using a tvOS profile is no longer a necessary means of hiding OTA updates. This is because the new KillMyOTA add-on from iOS developer @haxi0sm for the MacDirtyCow exploit works exactly the same for iOS 16.0-16.1.2 devices.
It is important to note here that @zhuowei’s latest MacDirtyCow exploit code grants downloaded applications unused permissions, which means there is a sense of persistence. This means that even after rebooting your device, you won’t need to relaunch the app to enable the OTA lock effect again. In fact, restarting the app will cancel the OTA lock and allow the device to see pending software updates.
As some pointed out in the /r/jailbreak release post, this actually makes KillMyOTA better than using a tvOS profile because the latter can expire. So if you forget to update your tvOS profile after it expires, you’ll get a pending software update. KillMyOTA doesn’t expire, so it lasts as long as you want.
Using KillMyOTA does not require a jailbreak, so it’s a great way to keep using the lowest firmware for your device while waiting for it to run. Plus, you keep MacDirtyCow susceptible to errors, meaning you can keep installing compatible apps at the same time—a win-win for users in that boat.
If you’re interested in learning more about KillMyOTA, you can visit the developer’s GitHub page.
Are you planning to use KillMyOTA? Be sure to let us know in the comments section below.