Updating extensions for iOS 8

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Revision as of 20:17, 25 October 2014 by Britta (talk | contribs)

Let's collect knowledge like we did with Updating extensions for iOS 7 - paste in your notes and share what you've learned, and somebody else will organize it later. :) If you want to ask questions and share tips over chat with other developers, see IRC for how to connect to #theos and #iphonedev.

Hey developer, you can add your knowledge here! Yes, you! Make an account and edit this page!

What has changed in iOS 8? (Classes, frameworks, etc.)

  • The term 'Display Identifier' has been removed from SpringBoard. Methods that used the term usually have a 'Bundle Identifier' equivalent; e.g. -[SBApplicationController applicationWithDisplayIdentifier:] and -[SBApplication displayIdentifier] are now -[SBApplicationController applicationWithBundleIdentifier] and -[SBApplication bundleIdentifier]
  • "Has anyone looked into granting entitlements in iOS 8? It would appear the popular method of hooking "_XPCConnectionHasEntitlement" no longer works." "I haven't had a whole lot of time to do testing or look for better methods but I found "_BSAuditTokenTaskHasEntitlement" which appears to have a similar function to "_XPCConnectionHasEntitlement", its part of the "assertiond" process which must be hooked in order to access it, so far it's worked. More specifically, part of the "BaseBoard" private framework within "assertiond"."
  • PLBatteryPropertiesEntry no longer seems to exist for getting current battery info such as: [PLBatteryPropertiesEntry batteryPropertiesEntry].currentCapacity. You can still use:
io_service_t powerSource = IOServiceGetMatchingService(kIOMasterPortDefault, IOServiceMatching("IOPMPowerSource"));
CFNumberRef currentCapacityNum = (CFNumberRef)IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(powerSource, CFSTR(kIOPMPSCurrentCapacityKey), kCFAllocatorDefault, 0);
  • launchctl appears to be slightly broken. launchctl start and stop work perfectly, but launchctl load and unload break with the cryptic error message /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mobile.installd.plist: The specified service path was not in the service cache
  • After doing some digging into iOS 8's installd binary, I (Karen/angelXwind) have found that MISValidateSignatureAndCopyInfo performs additional code-signing checks during app installation now, which is one of the reasons why AppSync Unified no longer works in iOS 8. The second reason is that installd can't be reloaded via launchctl anymore, which is what the ASU postinst script does in order for ASU to inject into installd.
  • NO PLS RECOVERY (which basically hot-patches EnterRecovery out of lockdownd using Substrate) still works in iOS 8.
  • Mobile application containers are at /var/mobile/Containers/Application
  • Looks like certain apps dont have privileges for IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty anymore (Safari, Mail)
  • xTM3x has been doing some research into preference saving (log, file atomicity takes long enough to see the auxiliary files)
  • PrivateFrameworks (and possibly others) in the iOS 8 SDK are missing the __TEXT section. Frameworks must be extracted from a device's dyld_shared_cache using a tool like JTool or IDA before they can be (statically) reverse engineered.
  • It seems that the PostNotification from the Preferences specifier plist is now posted before the plist is updated on disk — as opposed to after the plist was updated on disk which was the case on iOS < 8 (unless I'm doing something terribly wrong!).

What is new in iOS 8, and how does it work?

  • "would anyone happen to know what the view Reachability invokes is?" "Yes, in the new framework FrontBoard, you can hook it. It is a FBWindowContextHostView."
  • FrontBoard is a new thing
  • Apple seems to call the iOS side Octavia and the OS X side Nero

Which tools and other preexisting things are still working on iOS 8? Which ones don't work?

  • The package syslogd to /var/log/syslog seems to not be working. An alternative - also as listed on TheiPhoneWiki. In other words: while the syslogd package doesn't work, installing socat and running socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/var/run/lockdown/syslog.sock still works on iOS 8. You can pipe it to a file if you want.
  • libsymbolicate doesn't work on 8... (VMUHeader is gone from Symbolication.framework)
  • RocketBootstrap seems to work
  • "What works for dumping classes on iOS 8? I've tried using classdumpdyld and classdumpz but none of them seem to work. I'm trying to dump them directly on an iPhone 6." "You could use class-dump for i386 and the iOS 8 simulator" "This class-dump works for me." "If you want to dump on your iPhone then just compile its source to ARM; IIRC its distributed binary is x86/64 only."

Random assorted other notes

  • In things like SBStarkBanner* classes, Stark is the codename for the blur-heavy UI since iOS 7
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