A company that sells phone-unlocking tools to the police says it has found a way around an Apple feature meant to make locked iPhones harder to crack, according to a video obtained by 404 Media and published on Thursday.
The company, Magnet Forensics, is behind GrayKey, a device sold to law enforcement agencies to unlock and extract data from iPhones and Android phones. In the video, Magnet describes a new device called GrayKey Preserve and a feature called Evidence Preservation Mode for its existing GrayKey units. Together, the company says, they freeze a seized iPhone in a state that lets officers more easily reach the data inside it.
The target is a defense that Apple quietly introduced in 2024: an iPhone that has gone 72 hours without being unlocked reboots itself. 404 Media revealed the feature, known as inactivity reboot, in November of that year. A freshly rebooted phone returns to a condition that is far harder for forensic software to work against.
Law enforcement agents complained at the time that they often cannot try to open a seized phone right away. Some are waiting on court authorization. Elsewhere, the backlog of devices awaiting examination is simply too long.
The new tool is the latest turn in a running fight between Apple and the forensics industry, whose products are used by the police in many countries, sometimes in authoritarian ones.