Limera1n iOS 5 Jailbreak Announced

Musclenerd, the ever vocal member of the iPhone Dev Team, has tweeted information regarding the iOS 5 jailbreak status.

The hacker confirms in a tweet that iOS 5 was jailbroken using a fourth-generation iPod touch hours into the beta release.

According to Musclenerd, the hack was achieved with limera1n, a tool developed by hacker extraordinaire George Hotz, or Geohot as the jailbreak community best knows him.

The hack, unfortunately, is ‘tethered’ right now, which means that a device shut down will require it to be connected to a computer running limera1n in order to restart to jailbroken state.

“iOS5 jailbroken on ipt4g […] via limera1n + tethered boot..not too many surprises,” reads Musclenerd’s tweet.

As avid iOS jailbreakers should know, limera1n is a bootrom exploit that Apple is unable to patch through firmware alone. The company would have to release altogether new hardware to patch it. The iPad 2 can be considered one such ‘patch.’

Also on Twitter, the hacker warned iPad 2 GSM and CDMA owners that iOS 5 betas are to be avoided if they’re hoping for a potential iOS 4.3.3 jailbreak.

Both the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev have long announced plans to issue reliable jailbreaks for the second-generation Apple tablet, but the tools are yet to reach end users.

Musclenerd’s warning should not be interpreted in any way other than: install the latest iOS only if you don’t plan on jailbreaking.

Although the practice has been deemed legal in the United States, we don’t encourage jailbreaking your iPhone / iPod touch / iPad, so you shouldn’t refrain yourself from applying iOS 5 final when it arrives.

Speaking of which, Apple said it would become available this fall alongside iCloud, the company’s new suite of Internet services.