iOS 5 Untethered Jailbreak May Arrive Thanks to Charlie Miller

Giving new meaning to the expression ‘take one for the team’, Charlie Miller got himself kicked out of the Apple Developer Program by exposing a bug that may lead to ‘untethered’ iOS 5 jailbreaks.

Fellow hacker @pod2g wrote on Twitter that “the bug Charlie MILLER found can simplify exploits dramatically and will be closed.”

He advises those who plan on jailbreaking not to update to iOS 5.0.1 when it’s released. The same piece of advice should apply to those who have been tapped to enter the AppleSeed Software Customer Seeding program.

Pod2G earlier said on Twitter, “Hey jailbreaking friends, I’ve found a bug that can untether iOS 5. Don’t expect a release soon, but I’m gonna work hard in it. [sic]”

So we now have all the indications that a proper untethered jailbreak is coming for iOS customers. The only problem, however, is that iOS 5.0.1 will be an extremely important software update for many.

The release is scheduled for this month, or early next month, the latest. It will deliver fixes for a severe battery drainage issue reported by numerous customers, as well as fixes for other reported issues, and even a major security flaw on iPad 2 tablets.

In a nutshell, iOS 5.0.1 will be a must have. Jailbreakers, however, will have to choose between updating fresh, or waiting for the untetherd JB to arrive.

To clarify one thing for the less-savvy user, an ‘untethered’ jailbreak means that once you hack your device, you're free to do whatever you want without having to re-jailbreak every time you reboot your device.

With the exception of an old-bootrom iPhone 3GS, all current iOS devices can only undergo a ‘tethered’ jailbreak, which means that every time a user reboots, they need a computer nearby with the jailbreak app ready to do its thing again.