Apple’s 4.0.2 patch for iOS 4 arrived yesterday and it breaks the Jailbreakme.com jailbreak. A similar patch was released for Apple’s iPad, upgrading its operating system to 3.2.2 and also breaking the same jailbreak. While I am certain that a lot of you are disappointed that the jailbreak has been broken, it worked through a PDF font exploit, which could have been used by hackers to gain complete control over your iPhone or iPad if you happened to surf a site with it.

The group Dev-Team—who specialize in jailbreaking and unlocking solutions for iOS-powered hardware—is warning everyone not to update however. According to the group’s blog,

“…the upcoming Cydia package will fix them [the security flaws] too (and then some!), everybody should sit tight on 4.0.1 (or lower) and install the Cydia package as soon as it’s out.”

Ah, you have to love hackers who have our best interests in mind. Special thanks to Comex and the rest of the Dev-Team. It’s too bad though that they have to play this cat-and-mouse game with Apple.

However, Apple still won’t say whether or not this software update will fix the proximity sensor issue that a lot of iPhone 4 owners have been suffering through. Personally, I think the sensor issue is much worse than ‘Antennagate,’ having used a smartphone with a faulty proximity sensor before. (I refuse to say which phone, but it’s not an iPhone.) With the rumors already shifting towards iPhone 5 nonsense and CDMA Verizon iPhones, I really hope that the proximity sensor problem is not lost among the new news. iPhone 4 users deserve a real fix here.

So there you have it, Apple has fixed that gaping security flaw and managed to come out on top at least for now in the jailbreaking game. Hopefully the claims of at least one hacker—George Hotz of iPhone hacking fame—are true, and an ultimate jailbreak/unlock solution is possible. When I say ultimate, I mean one that works forever despite upgrading iOS.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for another jailbreak to come out soon for iOS 4.0.2. In the meantime, let me know if you’ll be upgrading via the new patch or relying on the hackers to fix the security hole.