Cydia Store Opens for Business on iOS 8

Anyone waiting to update to iOS 8.1 and jailbreak can breathe a sigh of relief. After several updates released by Cydia creator Jay Freeman (saurik) and the Pangu jailbreak team, the iOS 8 jailbreak has stabilized. Saurik announced that thanks to everyone's hard work, including his own, the Cydia store would begin accepting payments for jailbreak tweaks and software.

At the moment, the Pangu jailbreak version 1.2.1 is available for Windows only. China-based Pangu Team is actively working on an OS X version, which could be released by the weekend. Cydia Installer version 1.1.16 introduced several bug fixes for iOS 8 users. Developers can now mark their creations as iOS 8 compatible and begin using Cydia's payment structure.

To get started, click here for a complete tutorial on jailbreaking iOS 8 with Pangu. iOS users interested in jailbreaking should update to iOS 8.1 using iTunes on a computer for best results. The clock is ticking, as Apple has reportedly closed off the jailbreak in the first beta release of iOS 8.1.1, which is already in the hands of developers. This means when the public release of iOS 8.1.1 happens, there will be no going back to iOS 8.1 and no jailbreaking with the current version of Pangu.

The span from iOS 8 release on September 17 until Pangu 1.0.0 for iOS 8 hit the streets was only five weeks, with saurik's declaration of stability coming just two weeks later. With the next firmware update slated to kill jailbreaking, the window to update and install Cydia is a brief one. Now that Cydia is stable and payment functionality is back to normal, developers can continue updating tweaks and creating new ways to modify stock iOS 8.1.