Last week, it was revealed that an Apple TV 4 jailbreak is scheduled to be released in the very near future. That’s great, but the news comes with an asterisk: the jailbreak will only work with devices running tvOS 9.0 or 9.0.1. If you’ve updated to tvOS 9.1, 9.1.1 or any of the new betas releases, there’s no way to downgrade back to 9.0 or 9.0.1.
Thankfully, there are still plenty of fourth generation Apple TVs available in the wild that come installed with one of the first two versions of tvOS. In fact, in preparation for the upcoming jailbreak, I was able to easily purchase a new Apple TV running tvOS 9.0.
Check your current Apple TV 4
Before running out to buy a new Apple TV, check the one you own first. Go to Settings → General → About and look for the tvOS version. If it’s anything higher than 9.0.1, you’ll need to purchase a new Apple TV in order to jailbreak. Of course, this is only true if you wish to jailbreak on day one. You could opt to be patient and wait for an updated jailbreak that works with newer versions of tvOS, but that takes patience and there’s no guarantee that’ll ever happen.
How to decipher an Apple TV 4 serial number
I find that going to the store and purchasing an Apple TV 4 is the best option. You could do it online, but if you do it in store, you’ll have the peace of mind of being able to check the serial number of the Apple TV before purchasing.
On the back of the fourth generation Apple TV, you’ll notice the 12-digit Serial No. Be sure not to confuse the part number with the serial number. The serial number is at the bottom of the sticker on the back of the Apple TV’s box.
Here’s the serial number from my just-purchased Apple TV 4: C1MQ8G79G9RM
That may seem like a bunch of gibberish, but there’s lots that can be deciphered from that 12-digit number. The two characters that most interest us are the 4th and 5th characters, which are “Q8″ in the example above. The first character represents the year and the second character represents the week. By deciphering the year and week, we can determine when the Apple TV was manufactured.
Fortunately, some smart folks have already created a script so that we don’t have to go about figuring out the manufactured date in our heads. Simply visit the link and enter a valid Apple TV serial number.
https://twitter.com/nitoTV/status/708760664743882752
The script makes it easy, and takes the guess work out of translating weeks to months. Here are the results from my recent query:
- Family name: MGY52
- Group1: AppleTV
- Group2:
- Generation: 4
- Production week : -34- (August)
- Production year : -2015-
- Model introduced: -0-
- Capacity: 32GB
- Memory – flavour: xx
- Factory: C1
As you can see, the Apple TV that I purchased was produced in August of 2015. My new Apple TV 4 will have tvOS 9.0 installed on it out of the box, since tvOS 9.0.1 didn’t release publicly until November of 2015.
Here are the release dates for the currently available tvOS software:
- tvOS 9.0 – 10/29/2015
- tvOS 9.0.1 – 11/9/2015
- tvOS 9.1 – 12/8/2015
- tvOS 9.1.1 – 1/25/2016
This means that you ideally want to purchase an Apple TV made prior to 12/8/2015, although it’s possible that Apple TVs still shipped with tvOS 9.0.x after that date. Obviously, we can make no guarantees either way, but it’s generally best to try to find an earlier produced model.
Ready to go!
At any rate, the serial number checker worked just as expected. After unboxing and firing up my Apple TV 4, I verified that it was indeed running tvOS 9.0 by going to Settings → General → About.
Remember, turn off automatic updates!
This should be the first thing you do
Please turn off automatic updates as soon as you get your Apple TV. Go to Settings → System → Software Updates and turn off Automatically Update. I was absent-minded and made the mistake of not turning this feature off. Needless to say, I had to purchase yet another Apple TV 4 in order to get back on tvOS 9.0.
Purchase a USB-C Cable
Chances are that the Apple TV 4 jailbreak will require users to connect to their Macs or PCs via USB. But keep in mind that Apple changed the connector type for its fourth generation efforts. The new Apple TV uses USB-C instead of Micro USB. USB-C cables are inexpensive — you can purchase one for only $6.99 on Amazon.
Wait patiently
According to a tweet from the @PanguTeam, we should have an Apple TV 4 jailbreak sometime this week. They haven’t provided us with an exact day or time, but rest assured that we will let you know once it’s released.
We will release jb for Apple TV4(9.0.x) next week which only has SSH access. It's mainly for security researchers and jailbreak developers.
— PanguTeam (@PanguTeam) March 11, 2016
We’ll be back with more Apple TV jailbreak coverage as the week progresses. In the meantime, let us know if you plan on picking up a second Apple TV in order to jailbreak it.
It’s out!
The Pangu jailbreak has been released for tvOS 9.0 and tvOS 9.0.1. You can find our full Apple TV 4 jailbreak tutorial here, and watch our full step-by-step video walkthrough as well.
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It doesn’t even come with a USB-C cable? What are you supposed to do if it bricks itself during a fw update (not out of realm of possibility, almost happened to my Apple Watch a few OS’s ago). Bah. This is great and all but I am still waiting for a Jailbreak for the 3rd gen AppleTV lol. I guess it will never come?
3rd gen is out of the question for sure
Thank so so much for this! I just went to Radio Shack and picked up the ATV 4 on sale for $119 and it included a 6ft HDMI cable. I was able to run the serial number in the store with the link to the script and it told me mine was manufactured in September of 2015. It has version 9.0 on it and I am patiently waiting for the jailbreak!
9to5mac rocks!
Hi Jeff,
how did you get August 2015 from “Q8”? Is the “8” the month? But how can I get the year 2015 from the letter “Q”?
I just used the serial checker, but there’s a conversion method you can use for serials that correspond to certain half-years and weeks.
Thanks Jeff,
didnt hear/read about that conversion method to get the mfd from the serial number. Can you pls gave me a lil example how you get the 08/2015 from the 4th and 5th characters (Q8) ?
Sure thing:
Year values are letters C-Z with no vowels. 1st half of 2010 = c, 2nd half = D and so-on.
Week values go 1-9 and C-Y (no S and no vowels). Each character can correspond to 1 of two values. i.e. 1 = week 1 or week 27.
Hi Jeff,
I found two devices ;) One is has the mfd -october- and the other one has the mfd -november- Which one yould you choose, I think its safer to buy the one with the mfd of -october-, right?
Sure, but either should be ok.
Thanks alot Jeff,
or is it better to grab the -november- one. Maybe the chances are high, that this atv has tvOS 9.0.1 on it ;) Or are there no big advantages to tvOS 9.0?
ps. cant wait ro read the “potential of an ATV4 JB” article :D
What exactly will Jailbreaking an Apple TV do? I have the old one and barely use it. Am I missing out or should I scramble to buy this before it can’t be jailbroken in the future?
And just to be clear on a few things… I have an older gen Apple TV that I don’t use so is it worth my while to run out and spend $175 on one just for these tweaks? What will it really do for me? I know what jailbreaking does on the iPhone but don’t see all the things this can do.. Help?
We are actually working on a post that will talk about the potential of an ATV4 JB.
When is that article coming out Jeff? Trying to figure out if the $175 I just blew on one at BestBuy is worth my time or if I should just save money by plugging an HDMI into my MacBook and using PopCorn Time.. I’ve got 45 days to return it but the sooner the better.. hahaha
Keep the jailbreak coverage coming Jeff!
I follow all your steps and finally “a valid provisioning profile for this executable was not found”, what can I do? Thank you