By now you’re probably aware of the fact that Apple has announced the successor to the all-time famous iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S. If you’re an iPhone enthusiast, you might likely already be asking yourself how long it might take for users to get their hands on an untethered jailbreak for the new device. If recent indicators are to be believed, that might happen much sooner than you originally think.
Unlike tethered jailbreaks (currently only available on A4-based devices like the iPhone 4, iPod touch 4G and the iPad 1), which are common for devices before a better solution is worked on, untethered jailbreaks does not require the user to plug their devices into computers running custom tools in order to boot their iPhones, iPads or iPod touches into a jailbroken state. Given this great advantage, you’re now likely able to understand why untethered jailbreaks are such a great deal and why everyone wants them.
Typically, untethered jailbreaks take months, if not several weeks, to reach the hands of excited enthusiasts, but that might be different this time around. A few weeks back, five ‘userland’ exploits were discovered in iPad 2 (which shares same A5 processor as the just announced iPhone 4S) by the most prominent figures of the iOS jailbreaking scene, namely p0sixninja and iOPK, the masterminds behind the famous untethered jailbreak tool GreenPois0n. Userland exploits are found on the software side (in iOS 5, likely tested on iPad 2), not the hardware, yet they can be just as powerful at granting jailbreakers full access to the device’s file system, and therefore implement a fully untethered jailbreak. This also means that jailbreaking solutions for the next iPhone can be developed even before the device has reached the shelves anywhere in the world. In order to stop Apple from correcting these vulnerabilities in iOS 5 before its release, details about these 5 exploits haven’t been released, yet once the new device is out, a full-blown jailbreaking tool for the iPhone 4S isn’t expected to take too long to be unveiled, perhaps just a few weeks.
The iPhone 4S was unveiled today at Apple’s "Let’s talk iPhone” event, which centered around the company’s mobile strategy, namely the iPhone and the iPod touch, which both saw significant upgrades today, along with iOS 5. Apple has also officially announced the debut of iCloud, its suite of several online offerings, which was previously only vaguely scheduled for release "this fall". This was also the first time that Tim Cook addressed the press as Apple’s CEO, after Steve Jobs abruptly resigned this summer over larger-than-expected health concerns.
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