Jailbreaking

Apple isn't playing nice with the jailbreaking community and has recently started blocking devices from restoring to older firmware. If you accidently updated to 5.0.1 and want to restore your device, hacker iH8sn0w has a new solution for you. iFaith v1.4 allows you to save your iOS device’s SHSH blobs which should allow you to downgrade your device in the future.

Unfortunately it doesn't support A5 devices. Meaning if you recently purchased an iPhone 4S, or upgraded to iOS 5.0.1, you're still out of luck for now. A4 owners are being urged by the jailbreaking community to download the latest update of iFaith and to save their SHSH blobs immediately.

If you're considering jailbreaking your iPhone for the first time, you should know there is an iPhone 4S jailbreak in the works, but it's not available to the general public yet, and it will be free. You should also know Apple is not a fan of jailbreaking, so it's never going to be available as an app in the iTunes App Store.

Apple recently pulled a $9.99 app by RiliSoft because it tricked people into believing it could jailbreak the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The app cleverly named "Jailbreak" is actually a game, but Apple didn't like the way it tricked its users. You can see how the app's description mislead people from the screen shot taken by GottaBeMobile posted below.

Those looking forward to an untethered jailbreak solution on the iPhone 4S should heed the words of developer pod2g, who warns that the iOS 5.0.1 update should be avoided for now. The reason is because security exploits found in iOS 5 have been closed by Apple in iOS 5.0.1. These security flaws, publicized by security expert Charlie Miller, will simplify the untethered jailbreak process on the iPhone 4S.

If you're concerned about the security flaws, there are no reports of any malicious software actually using these exploits to do harm. Regardless, after the iPhone 4S is fully jailbroken developers will patch iOS 5 on their own with updates available through the Cydia jailbreak app store. The point is that if you plan to jailbreak your iPhone 4S untethered in the near future, the iOS 5.0.1 update should be avoided until further information is available.

Apple is currently working on iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 to solve the iPhone 4S battery issues. As of now the new firmware is only available to registered developers, but iPhone Dev Team member, MuscleNerd, let us know that it still works with the current redsn0w jailbreak.

MuscleNerd tweeted: "The latest redsn0w will JB today's 5.0 1b2, but point it at either 5.0 or 5.01 IPSW for now. (Apple's being ruthless with betas!)"

The Dev Team recently released a tethered version of redsn0w for iOS 5. However, there is a simple solution to "semi-tether" your jailbroken device. The SemiTether package ensures you will not be stuck with an iPhone paperweight during a crash or unexpected reboot. You can read more about tethered vs. untethered iPhone jailbreaking here.