More than two years after its release, the HomePod has now been jailbroken by the checkra1n team. This is the world’s first jailbreak that’s available for the Siri-powered smart speaker.
The news of HomePod being jailbroken using checkra1n was posted by @_L1ngL1ng_ on Twitter. He posted a photo of the terminal window showing root access on the HomePod via SSH.
Hello Homepod, meet checkra1n.
Huge thanks to @DanyL931 for helping to get this running. pic.twitter.com/FjH7253RFR
— L1ng (@el1ng0) November 19, 2020
At the moment, it is unclear how one can jailbreak their HomePod using checkra1n as the steps have not been detailed. The benefits of jailbreaking the HomePod are also not as clear as of now. This does open the door for a lot of possibilities though, including using the HomePod as a traditional Bluetooth speaker so that it can be paired with other non-iOS devices as well, and more.
It is also entirely possible that not much happens in the end and this HomePod jailbreak just fizzles out. The Apple Watch was also jailbroken but the developer community did not really care much about it and no useful tweaks or mods made their way to the wearable. At this point, it is up to a talented developer and just how frustrated they are with their HomePod that they end up taking advantage of this jailbreak.
What mods or features would you like to see being added to the original HomePod via jailbreak? Drop a comment and let us know!
