It will be interesting to see if the checkra1n team can get this to work on the A11 SoC. They'll have to do something, since the new iOS betas now check the "Boot Progress" Register. As this check is done by the SEP core, bar an exploit, the system can refuse to decrypt the user's data partition.

I'm fairly sure this bug is related to how the SEP handles it's 64 bit numbers... so it might not be exploitable on newer chipsets. IIRC the iPhone X has an ARMv8 SEP vs Cortex-A7 in earlier models.

A lot more than those with XS or newer, I bet.

Most recent data I’ve found, dating from last fall, indicates the vast majority fall into that category. Makes sense, the days of exponential growth are over.

https://deviceatlas.com/blog/most-popular-iphones

This chip is specifically designed to avoid physical access meaning game over. Which, given you carry the device around with you (smartphone, tablet, laptop, etc), is an important feature.

Not just against theft. Some countries are not very free, and might confiscate your device for no good reason. Another important feature is that you can resell the device without having to worry about data recovery.

Obviously, its a knife which cuts the other way too. It has disadvantages. For example, for law enforcement all around the world.

I think you are missing the point that they don't open source any of there security in the iphone and that this vulnerability brings researchers a ton of freedom to execute arbitrary code