The jailbreak community welcomed the release of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 untethered jailbreak yesterday which was released in the form of a new Chronic Dev Team tool named 'Absinthe'. At the point of release; the Mac OS X version was the only tool which had been packaged ready for distribution which left Windows users high and dry. Fortunately, the iPhone Dev Team had also produced a powerful Command Line Interface tool which was primarily designed to assist users with debugging and troubleshooting, but can also be used to perform the full jailbreak process.
For owners of older iOS devices running Apple’s A4 processor; that good news came on Tuesday, 27th December, with the release of the iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak, dubbed 'Corona'. But whilst the A4 owners were enjoying their belated Christmas present, the owners of devices running Apple’s new dual-core A5 powerhouse had to look on in envy. If you have been an iPad 2 owner since launch, then you will no doubt remember that, thanks to JailbreakMe 3.0, an untethered jailbreak was possible on iOS 4.3.3, but that's where the freedom ended.
The iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners waited patiently, then they waited some more, and finally after a little more waiting welcomed the Absinthe jailbreak software to the community. Produced by the famous Chronic Development Team, and supported by the conjoined efforts of Pod2g and the iPhone Dev Team, Absinthe offers users the ability to jailbreak iOS 5 and 5.0.1 into an untethered state.
We have waited nearly three months in total, and A5 owners have had to sit in envy for nearly four weeks as they watch their A4 device friends enjoy an untethered iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak, but the wait is nearly over. The release of the Corona A5 jailbreak is close and I can almost taste its liberating goodness.
The Cydia store can call itself a home to a plethora of tweaks, themes, utilities and tools which are all designed to enhance, modify or provide extra functionality to iOS devices. Like the official App Store, Cydia is populated with some software which is extremely professionally implemented, but also has tweaks which cause more problems than they solve due to sloppy development and corner cutting.
Those who have been patiently waiting for the release of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S untethered iOS 5.x jailbreak can breathe a tiny sigh of relief this evening, knowing that the time scales are shortening, and a public release approaching. We still haven't had the green light from any of the developers involved that the jailbreak is ready for prime time, but with every blog and Twitter update; the signs are all pointing to the fact they Pod2g and his Dream Team of developers are winning their battle against the A5 devices.
If you took a survey involving users who run jailbroken devices, I am pretty sure the majority of them would tell you one of the main reasons they jailbreak their iOS devices is due to the freedom it affords them. There is no doubt about the fact that the average jailbreaker loves Apple’s devices, after all, they wouldn't part with their hard earned cash if they didn't feel it was worth it. Like many other groups, the jailbreak community has its differences, but one thing that pretty much everyone agrees on is; that opening up the device for modification and enhancing can only be a good thing.
The remarkable FaceTime video calling service has been one of the most well received additions to the Apple range of services in recent times. FaceTime for iOS was originally introduced at the 2010 World Wide Developers Conference to coincide with the release of the iPhone 4 which had an integrated, front facing camera.
From a user experience point of view; for the most part, iOS generally tends to keep even the most hardcore mobile device users happy. As an operating system, iOS is purposely built to work seamlessly with the devices as it is installed upon and therefore the theory exists that it provides a much better UX. Obviously, different users have different expectations from their devices, and although iOS is a very feature rich operating system some users still do feel that certain areas are lacking in terms of function.
The pursuit of the untethered iOS 5 jailbreak has been a non stop, full on roller coaster ride which started in November, and looks set to continue for the next week or so at least. The development past has been anything but smooth, and all involved have had to overcome a series of technical hurdles just to get to the position we find ourselves in.
