As most of us already know by now, Apple’s iOS is known for its lack of flexibility, personalization and customizations by locking down several features to provide a uniform experience and consistent performance to users unlike Android. A software developer has now come up with an app that which allows Apple users change their iOS system font without needing to jailbreak their iPhone.
The app will only work with iOS 16.1.2 and below on unjailbroken devices. You will have the privilege of experimenting with nine different fonts, for now.
Developer Zhuowei Zhang (@zhuowei) originally posted the link to his app on Twitter on the 26th of December 2022. The proof-of-concept app overwrites the default iOS system font — San Francisco — using the CVE-2022-46689 security exploit.
Zhang has advised that users should back up their devices before using the app and that the font replacement is only temporary and all changes are rolled back after a reboot.
Also note that the exploit only affects certain text in iOS and is not systemwide. Some of the affected areas include: Apple Music app, the App Store, Messages, Contacts, and the Weather app. Meanwhile, the fonts in the app include:
- DejaVu Sans Condensed
- DejaVu Serif
- DejaVu Sans Mono
- Go Regular
- Go Mono
- Fira Sans
- Segoe UI
- Comic Sans MS
- Choco Cooky.
Other developers have been invited to use his code on GitHub so they could add more fonts to the app if they wanted to. The final release of WDBFontOverwrite was posted on Thursday, which also allows users import custom fonts that have been ported to iOS.
Please Note: The app is not available on iOS 16.2 as the latest update fixed the vulnerability that Zhang’s app exploits.
