Houdini for iOS 10.x Brings ‘Semi-Jailbreak’ Experience to Your iPhone

If you have been patiently waiting on iOS 10 for a jailbreak, then we have some interesting news. Hacker Abraham Masri has released a tool called Houdini that brings some jailbreak functionalities like the ability to theme and customize your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 10.x. Masri is quick to point out it is not a jailbreak nor does it allow you to install jailbreak tweaks, like some websites are reporting.



The tool currently works only on iOS 10 – iOS 10.3.2. It does not support iOS 10.3.3. Masri has published a detailed reddit post to explain how it works. He writes:

Unlike a full jailbreak, we do not have / mounted as RW. In this case, there isn’t much for us to do. That’s where Houdini’s magic comes to place. Houdini uses launchd’s task port (root) to perform a long list of workarounds by reading and editing/overwriting certain files in /var and eventually, mimic a “semi-jailbroken” experience.

Here are all the cool things you can do with it:

1. Theme user-installed apps
2. Hide/rename user-installed apps’ labels
3. Add Cydia sources and install themes
4. Clean all apps cache
5. Change device’s display resolution
6. Hide/rename 3D Touch icons’ shortcuts.
7. Edit Siri’s suggestions list
8. Theme passcode keypad (iOS 11 style or custom pictures)
9. Colorize and resize icon badges.
10. Theme Control center icons and sliders
11. Theme Lock Screen ‘Music Control’ icons

You can see it in action below:



It is still in beta so do proceed with caution. But if you want to run Houdini by following these steps:

1. Download the .ipa file from Houdini’s website and download Cydia Impactor.
2. Open Cydia Impactor and connect your device 3 .Drag the Houdini.ipa file onto the Cydia Impactor window
3. Enter your Apple ID (email and password).. Ignore any PLIST_STRING errors.
4. Open Settings → General → Profiles & Device Management
5. Trust the new certificate → open Houdini
6. Tap ‘start’ and enjoy! (Note: this might fail a couple of times at escaping sandbox)

So if you’re looking to customize your iPhone with themes then Houdini seems like a great jailbreak alternative.