The Electra team today released Chimera, the first true iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 jailbreak for all iPhones and iPads. Unlike Unc0ver, Chimera features CoreTrust bypass which makes it safer and faster than the former. The jailbreak has been written from the ground up for better stability and no battery drain. It also comes with Sileo, a new modern package manager which makes installing and managing packages easier.
Most importantly perhaps and unlike Unc0ver 3.0 jailbreak, Chimera has support for all iPhones and iPads. This includes A12-A12X Bionic devices like the iPhone XS and iPhone XR as well. Apart from iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 support, there’s also ChimeraTV which allows one to jailbreak their Apple TV running tvOS 12 – tvOS 12.1.2.
Similar to Unc0ver, Chimera is a semi-tethered jailbreak. This means if you reboot your device, you will have to jailbreak it again. Before using Chimera to jailbreak your iPhone, make sure to delete any OTA file on your device otherwise it would end up entering a boot loop.
From all the wording, it looks like Chimera is more stable than Unc0ver 3.0 and it has a better UI than it. You can download Chimera’s IPA file from its website and then sideload it on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 using Impactor. After that, you can use the app to jailbreak your iPhone.
If you have already jailbroken your iPhone using Unc0ver, you can still use Chimera to overwrite that jailbreak.
There’s no clear word on when Saurik will update Cydia Substrate for A12-A12X Bionic devices. The Unc0ver team is also working on Substitute as a replacement but there’s no ETA as to when it would be released. Thus, for the time being, Chimera jailbreak is the only option for iPhone XS/XR owners looking to jailbreak their phone.
