Note: This writeup is for advanced users and developers. For a guide that will actually walk you through this, ios.cfw.guide is updated. guides.stkc.win should be soon™️.
13.x appears to have issues. 13.5 is confirmed to fail to check updates once you change the audience. If any other versions do this, please let me know.
So, I got bored and decided to do more research into alternates. Turns out you can still abuse it to update to 14.8 on iOS versions that don't support alternates. You're welcome.
This requires a jailbreak. Of course, you can do the backup editing stuff if you're not JBed but:
a. It's a wack method imo
b. I didn't try it so I'm not gonna explain it
Also, don't do this if you're already on 14.5-14.7.1, there's no point. Just get the alternate profile directly and follow the normal steps.
Steps:
- Go through the guide steps until you get up to the "installing the profile" steps (get supervised, etc).
- Install an iOS beta profile. It doesn't matter which, as long as it installs.
- Get the 14.8 profile marked "Alternate" from my site
-
- Option A: I know how to terminal
- install
plutil(default repo) plutil -key MobileAssetAssetAudience -string c724cb61-e974-42d3-a911-ffd4dce11eda "/Library/Managed Preferences/mobile/com.apple.MobileAsset.plist"
- install
- Option B: I don't know how to terminal
- Get Filza
- Open
/Library/Managed Preferences/mobile/com.apple.MobileAsset.plistin Filza - Set
MobileAssetAssetAudiencetoc724cb61-e974-42d3-a911-ffd4dce11eda
- Option A: I know how to terminal
- Reboot or
launchctl reboot userspace - Continue with normal delay OTA procedure (restore rootFS, install update)
- Remove the beta profile to remove the channel override.
This expires whenever the alternate expires.
Why this works:
Audience = channel. Channel = iOS release, iOS 15 dev beta, iOS 14 dev beta, iOS 14 public beta, iOS 14 security updates, etc.
The way alternate works is that your device checks the release channel, sees that there's an iOS 15 update, but also sees that the server said there's an alternate update and checks the alternate channel that the server replied with.
Now, if you're on <14.5, the code to check the alternate channel isn't there. However, you can abuse the fact that beta profiles set the channel by editing the plist where the channel is stored to change the channel to the iOS 14 security updates one. From your device's perspective, all it knows about is the alternate channel.
in some versions, the file is at /Library/Preferences/mobile/com.apple.MobileAsset.plist
if not do some search around, it may not be in the same folder as described in the tutorial. :)