Apple is likely to release iOS 5 on October 10 and we're quite sure that once iOS 5 is made available to the public for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, iPad 2, Apple TV 2G, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G most of our readers are going to ask one question. Can you jailbreak iOS 5? Well you can jailbreak all iOS 5 betas tethered at the moment but soon after its public release, you may be able to jailbreak iOS 5 untethered as well.
If you have been an ardent follower of the jailbreaking scene, you might be aware of the fact that the Chronic Dev Team, developers of Greenpois0n jailbreak tool, have not released any new exploits or jailbreaks for quite some time now. Most recent releases were from Comex who released iPad 2 jailbreak exploit and Stefan Esser who release untethered jailbreak exploit for iOS 4.3.3. In a bid to make people remember that the Chronic Dev Team still exits, member @pod2g tweeted earlier this week that the team is working actively on iOS 5 untethered jailbreak for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. They might also release iOS 5 untethered jailbreak for iPad 2 as @p0sixninja was working on dumping the A5 iPad 2 bootrom. If they succeed in dumping A5 bootrom there's a possibility that we might even get an iOS 5 untethered jailbreak on iPhone 5.
If you are a regular reader here at iPhoneism you might be aware of the fact that all iOS 5 betas up till now can only be jailbroken tethered using either sn0wbreeze, redsn0w or PwnageTool bundles. The iPhone 3GS (old bootrom) is an exception as its the only iOS device on which you can jailbreak any iOS 5 beta untethered using sn0wbreeze. Tethered jailbreak requires that you connect your device to the computer when it runs out of charge or you have to reboot it. An untethered jailbreak is devoid of such problems but when iPhone Dev Team released iOS 5 beta 1 jailbreak, we told you that there will be no iOS 5 beta untethered jailbreak as devs would obviously not release an untethered jailbreak exploit only to have Apple patch it in the next beta update.
All untethered jailbreak exploits used up till now have been patched by Apple. The PDF based exploit that Comex developed for iPad 2 jailbreak was patched by Apple in iOS 4.3.4 firmware release and even after patching it, Apple released iOS 4.3.5 which also can only be jailbroken tethered as there's no iOS 4.3.5 untethered jailbreak. However we can be sure about an iOS 5 tethered jailbreak release merely hours after the firmware goes live for the public. This iOS 5 tethered jailbreak will be compatible with devices vulnerable to the Limera1n bootrom exploit.
As of now, there's no official word on iOS 5 release date and obviously none about iOS 5 untethered jailbreak release. However a lot of things are going to happen next month which will include the release of iOS 5 that will soon be followed by iOS 5 jailbreak related releases, news and rumours. By now you obviously know about the best place to keep up with all of that. Hint: iPhoneism.com.