There’s been a press release floating around the Web regarding an iOS 5.1 jailbreak solution. Since a similar one was posted to OMG OS X! last night, we’ve gotten a massive influx of search terms from Google about that very subject. Being an Android user rather than iPhone, I didn’t notice anything fishy about the post, but after talking to a few readers, I decided to investigate a little bit. It took me about five seconds of Googling to realize how obvious of a scam it was. Needless to say, I felt a little concerned for the less tech-savvy crowd – which could possibly have a decent population of folks who’ve already shelled out the 20 bucks for this phoney jailbreak tool.
Apparently, there was an April fools joke going around that claimed to have the ability to jailbreak iOS 5.1 devices – it was a harmless joke. However, it must have inspired a few people to buy some domain names and set up mock sites that make the same claim – but at the rate of $20 a pop, there’s nothing harmless about this exaggeration of the joke.
As far as the real iOS 5.1 jailbreak – it’s not going to be ready for at least a few more weeks. It has been done by the iPhone Dev Team, but they said not to get your hopes up right away; there are some kinks to work out before it’s ready for the public.
Pod2g announced on Twitter, “It turns out that all three of the jailbreak methods mentioned above have had great success today! We’re off to a good start (but remember there’s still lots of work to do)! But right now we have some pieces of a userland jailbreak, but we miss some, and even if we had them all, there’s weeks of work.”a
We’ll keep an eye out for the official releases, but in the mean time, there are a few guidelines you should follow when looking to mod your iDevice. For one, you shouldn’t have to pay a cent for any jailbreak solution – the real developers are kind enough to give it out for free. Also, be wary of those flashy sites that promise to have your iPhone jailbroken in no time, right after you fill out an invasive form with all of your personal information.
Really, the only places you should trust for your iOS hacks and tweaks are well respected sites – such as Chronic Dev Blog and Dev-Team Blog.
Update: Be sure to follow @pod2g, @musclenerd and @chronicdevteam on Twitter for frequent updates on the progress of the untethered jailbreak development. Kudos to Electric Sproket for the info!
