A YouTuber managed to trick Apple into thinking their iPad was in the EU and installed Fortnite. However, the Cupertino company quickly released a patch for this exploit.
Epic Games announced its app market for iOS in the EU last week, bringing Fortnite back to iPhones and iPads. In places like North America and the UK, you still can’t install the game.
However, YouTuber Saunders Tech figured out a workaround that let him get the game in the UK, even though it’s not officially available there.
The YouTuber managed to bypass Apple’s EU region lock using their iPad. First, they set up a router with a VPN connection and created a Swedish Apple ID specifically to download Epic’s battle royale.
After that, they downloaded and installed 3uTools on a Windows PC. For those unaware, 3uTools is a free tool for Windows that allows you to manage your iOS device and supports flashing and jailbreaking.
The iPad was then unplugged from the PC and factory reset. Following the reset, they carefully set up the iPad with the necessary configurations.
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Next, Saunders Tech sideloaded the VPN and set up the Swedish Apple ID on the iPad. With that done, they accessed the Epic Games Store. After completing the necessary steps, was able to download Fortnite from Epic Games.
Apple fixed the exploit in 24 hours
Saunders Tech said in an X post that Apple patched the exploit within 24 hours of their video going live. They are now seeing an error when trying to install Fortnite.
“Bad news! Apple patched this via a server update in just 24 hours. They now require the IP for the initial sign-in to be the same as after entering the 2FA code. Otherwise, you get an error,” the YouTuber wrote.
If you want to access Fortnite on iOS outside the EU, your options are limited. One option is to try using a decrypted IPA file, which can be easily found online. The other is to use a paid developer account (which costs $99 per year).