Last year, in March 2011, the iPad 2 was released by Apple. Just a few months after that device was released the iPhone 4 was revamped and the iPhone 4S was released on October 4, 2011. Thousands of consumers flocked over to purchase these new gadgets – marveling in their capabilities and features however the new-ness quickly wore off and they began anticipating the release of something else: the jailbreak.
After months of waiting the Chronic Dev Team (a team of iOS hackers dedicated to freeing Apple products from their obnoxious constraints) began teasing followers with tidbits of information on the release of the jailbreak.
At first it was just tweets stating they were working on it tirelessly and that they “were close” and then, much to everyone’s delight, a video was released showing an untethered iPhone 4S sporting Cydia (see it here on YouTube). This video literally sent many into “check twitter every 10 minutes” mode – their perseverance was only rewarded with more frustration when the Chronic Dev Team released the Mac version of the iOS 5 jailbreak. Finally on the 21st the jailbreak titled Absinthe was released for Windows.
Since the jailbreak was hosted on the Chronic Dev Team’s servers the first hours after the release the servers crashed multiple times with only a lucky few getting their jailbreak done. Now, days later, the Dev Team is totaling the amount of jailbroken devices.
Jay Freeman (aka saurik) is a leading part of the hacking team that produced the jailbreak. Via Twitter saurik released some astonishing figures: “So, @MuscleNerd’s 205k number was just the number of on-Cydia iPhone 4S’s; I believe that is now 494k. iPad 2 5.0.1 adds an additional 463k.” Additionally it was reported that Absinthe was downloaded over a million times so far and this is only a few days after the release of the jailbreak – imagine what the totals will be a week from now!
Jailbreak Your Device in 5 Easy Steps!
- Jailbreaking your iOS 5 device is incredibly easy. First go to the Chronic Dev Team’s site http://greenpois0n.com/ and choose the correct file at the top right (there is Mac or Windows).
- Once you’ve downloaded the files connect your ipad 2 or iPhone 4S to your computer and then launch the Absinthe program.
- Once that is launched you’ll be told to back up your device so do so. If you attempted to download the Mac jailbreak and use that on your iDevice then you will likely lose all of your data when reverting the jailbreak as we attempted that and found out firsthand what impatience does!
- Now that you’re all backed up and ready to go then hit the “Jailbreak” button on the right side of the Absinthe program. It will now begin the jailbreaking process starting off with a restore so be patient as it can take a while!
- After the restore is done unlock your phone and then click the Absinthe icon and your device will reboot after it’s made contact with the GreenPois0n servers. In a few moments your device will be done rebooting and your Absinthe icon is going to be replaced by a glorious Cydia one!
