First HomePod Jailbreak Stokes Speculation About Smart Speaker's Hacking Potential

The team behind the "Checkra1n" jailbreaking tool for iOS claims to have used it to successfully jailbreak Apple's HomePod, although it's unclear what that could mean for the smart speaker in terms of hacking potential.

HomePod power cable plug
The news was announced by Twitter user L1ngL1ng, who shared a screenshot of a macOS Terminal window that appears to show command line root access to the ‌HomePod‌ over a secure shell (SSH) connection.

The command line grab suggests the device in question is an original 2018 ‌HomePod‌ model (with the identifier AudioAccessory 1,1) rather than Apple's new HomePod mini (AudioAccessory 5,1). The original ‌HomePod‌ runs on an Apple-designed A8 chip, which is the same chip that was first introduced with the iPhone 6.

The development is a novel one indeed, but the practical utility of jailbreaking a ‌HomePod‌ is largely unknown, although that hasn't stopped commenters on the r/jailbreak subreddit from speculating on the possibilities.


So far ideas have included opening up the speaker's locked-down Bluetooth connectivity, changing Siri to a rival virtual assistant, displaying custom colors on the top screen, and enabling support for more third-party streaming services.

The checkm8 bootrom exploit that powers the checkra1n jailbreak has previously been demonstrated to be capable of hacking Apple's T2 Security chip present in new Macs, which could theoretically open the door to circumventing disk encryption, firmware passwords, and the whole T2 security verification chain.

Related Roundup: HomePod
Buyer's Guide: HomePod (Neutral)

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Top Rated Comments

macguru212 Avatar
63 months ago
Can it run Doom?

:p
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kobayagi Avatar
63 months ago
Wish Apple just opened up this thing on their own, so stuff like this wouldn't even be considered. Especially for something simple as connecting to it with bluetooth to play music, something the cheapest wireless speakers can do. I'm sure they would sell more of them too then. Their ''my way or the highway'' approach is what often turns off a lot of potential customers.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iapplelove Avatar
63 months ago
“Changing Siri to a rival virtual assistant”

lol poor Siri
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
il_teo77 Avatar
63 months ago

I’m not into jailbraking.
Me neither. But if Apple refuses to expand the supported languages... After 3 years and with many languages supported on iPhones, iPads and MacOS it should be about time.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MvdM Avatar
63 months ago
Wish they would hack a 3.5 mm input into these things.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sniffies Avatar
63 months ago
If it can be connected, it can be hacked
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)