Riding in the Nemo’s brand new Canyonero was outstanding and I told Liam and Ella all about it. Inspired by the vehicle’s high-tech gadgetry, Liam and I talked about upgrading our New Beetle with a flat panel display. I told him about Adam Bell’s Ignition and mentioned the idea of repurposing our old iPad 4 to the Beetle’s dash. He seemed to be game, so we looked more into it.
By installing a semi-tethered jailbreak and ReProvision, we could keep everything signed on the jailbroken iPad. Unfortunately, our iPad 4 has been upgraded to iOS 10.3.3 and Ignition is only compatible with iOS 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3; while it’s possible to downgrade the iPad’s iOS, we can only get back down to 8.4.1 and Ignition doesn’t run there.
Not easily giving up, we found CarPlay iOS, available through Cydia for $4/license and ventured on. Next step: jailbreak the iPad.
The iPad 4 is 32-bit and Big Sur and Xcode 12.3 only sideload to 64-bit devices. We have a Mac mini still rocking High Sierra and after reviewing this guide we grabbed a 32-bit compatible version of Xcode to side load the iPad 4 jailbreak using these instructions:
- Get access to a Mac running High Sierra
- Install Xcode 8.3 from here: https://developer.apple.com/download/more/
- Launch Xcode 8.3 and tap Agree on the License Agreement
- Connect your iPad to your Mac and, if asked, tap “Trust” on the iPad
- In Xcode, choose your iPad as a Build Target, go to Product->Destination->Devices->(choose your device), quit Xcode, and then open Xcode again
- Create a new application (File->New->Project…), choose Single View Application, and give it a name (e.g. break) and an identifier (e.g. jail)
- Xcode will then ask where you want to save the project, choose the desktop for simplicity
- Go to the Xcode menu and choose Preferences…
- Click the Accounts button, in the left hand pane click the “+” sign, and add a profile by logging in with your Apple ID (you do not need an Apple Developer account, an iCloud account works fine)
- In the right hand pane, you should now see your name followed by “(Personal Team)” with the role “User”
- Next, grab the file h3lix-RC6.ipa from here: https://h3lix.tihmstar.net
- Move the downloaded .ipa to your desktop
- Next, download this script (or read about patch here)
- Move the script to the desktop
- In Terminal.app, make the script executable with this command: “chmod +x patch.sh”
- Run the command by typing (without quotes) “./patch.sh h3lix-RC6.ipa” and then press enter
- Download iOS App Signer, unzip it, and launch iOS App Signer
- Drag the .ipa file modified by patch.sh and drop it on to iOS App Signer’s “Input File” field or click Browse and navigate to the .ipa on your desktop
- In iOS App Signer, go to the dropdown menu for Signing Certificate, choose the Apple Development certificate with your name, click “Start”, and iOS App Signer should produce another modified .ipa on your desktop
- In Xcode, go to the menubar and click on Window->Devices
- Locate your connected device in the list and click the + sign
- Choose the file iOS App Signer just created for you
- Moving to your iPad, notice an .ipa will appear on your device home screen, but don’t launch it yet
- Tap Settings->General->Device Management
- Find and tap the new profile
- Tap “Trust” and the .ipa you installed can now be tapped
To keep the jailbreak intact, we also installed ReProvision through Cydia. Fire up Cydia.app, go to Sources->Edit->Add, enter “http://repo.incendo.ws”, and tap “Add Source”. In Sources, tap Matchstic->System->ReProvision->Install. From the home screen of your iPad, tap “ReProvision” and on the right hand side of the screen and “h3lix” as an app to sign and then tap “Sign”. It will take a minute or so, but eventually ReProvision will sign the app and then continue to sign the app when it is within 2 days of expiring.