This weekend the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team released tools to jailbreak the iPhone 4s and iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1. And it turns out an awful lot of people were waiting to do just that.

Just three days after the jailbreak utilities were first released, the iPhone Dev Team reports that nearly half a million iPhone 4S devices have been jailbroken. The iPad 2 numbers are a little funkier, with about 300,000 new iPad 2 jailbreaks and around 150,000 people who had jailbroken their iPads while running iOS 4.x now upgrading to iOS 5.0.1 and jailbreaking again.

The stats are compiled from the number of new devices pinging the server for the Cydia store for jailbroken devices. Cydia is installed when you jailbreak your iDevice.

In addition to enabling support for apps that aren’t available from the App Store, jailbreaking allows you to access hidden files and settings on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and make changes to the look and feel of the operating system.

Up until recently it was easy to jailbreak an iPad 1, iPhone 4, or earlier devices including all iPod touch models. But the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 both have new hardware that had proven more difficult to crack… until now.

A day after the first tools for jailbreaking an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S were released for Mac users, the iPhone Dev Team has updated their utility to work with Windows.

The process is a bit more involved since it relies on a command-line utility that walks you through the process one step at a time for debugging purposes. But if you don’t want to wait for the Windows version of the tools to get a graphical user interface, now you don’t have to.

Update: Chronic Dev Team has also released an easier-to-use program for Windows as well as a Linux utility for jailbreaking an iPhone 4S or iPad 2.

Just download the latest CLI from the bottom of the official post at the iPhone Dev Team Blog, unzip it to a folder on your computer, open a command prompt and type “cinject -i payloads/jailbreak.mobileconfig” (without quotes) to get started.

You can also find a step-by-step walkthrough at FSM or more information at iPhone hacker Musclenerd’s website.

Chronic Dev Team has released a utility that can jailbreak the iPad 2 or iPhone 4S. It’s the first jailbreak utility available for devices with Apple’s dual-core A5 processor. Up until now all jailbreaking tools only worked on phones or tablets with the A4 processor or earlier chips.

The new tool is called GreenPois0n Absinthe and you can download it from the GreenPois0n website. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The iPhone Dev Team also has also released a command line-based jailbreaking tool soon which walks you through the process one step at a time. It works on Mac or Windows.

This should help identify any remaining problem spots. Eventually the latest jailbreak tools will be incorporated in the next version of the popular redsn0w utility for jailbreaking iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models.

Jailbreaking an iOS device allows users to install apps that aren’t available in the App Store including software which can change the boot logo, notification system, multitasking tray, or make other system-level changes to the operating system. It will also probably void your warranty.

Absinthe performs an “untethered” jailbreak, which means you can reboot your phone or tablet without having to connect it to a computer via a USB cable.

Some of the top iOS hackers have announced that the great white whale of jailbreaking is about to go down: they’ve successfully jailbroken both the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

Update: The Chronic Dev Team has released GreenPois0n Absinthe, which you can now use to jailbreak the iPhone 4S or iPad 2. 

Apple’s two latest iOS devices use the dual core Apple A5 processor and aren’t vulnerable to the same tools used to jailbreak earlier devices — but a new exploit has been discovered that will jailbreak those devices.

Hacker pod2g and the folks at the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team are working out the last few bugs, but they each plan to release tools that will allow users to perform an untethered jailbreak on the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 soon.

Jailbreaking an iOS device allows you to install third party apps that aren’t available from the App Store or make other changes to the look and feel of the device by accessing files and settings that are normally hidden from end users.

This will be an untethered jailbreak, which means you’ll be able to reboot your device without connecting it to a computer with a USB cable.

Chronic Dev will release a tool with a graphical user interface which you can run on a PC or Mac to jailbreak the devices. The iPhone Dev Team will eventually incorporate the ability to jailbreak devices with A5 chips into its popular redsn0w jailbreak utility, but first iPhone Dev will release a command-line utility that walks you through the process one step at a time. This will help diagnose any problems users are having.

The jailbreak will work on iPad 2 models running iOS 5.0.1 and iPhone 4S devices running iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1. If you’re hoping to carrier unlock an iPhone 4S you should stick with iOS 5.0.

Zephyr is a utility for jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch devices running iOS 5 and later. The app currently adds support for two new gestures:

1. You can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to reveal the multitasking app switcher without touching the home button.
2. You can swipe from the left or right edge of the screen to switch between currently running apps without using the task switcher at all.

In other words, Zephyr can save you time if all you want to do is flip back and forth between two apps — but if you often find yourself swiping from the edge of the display to play games or perform other actions you might accidentally end up switching apps. It’s a neat idea, though.

Developer chpwn plans to add support for additional gestures in the future, and you can disable any gesture that you don’t like in your devices settings.

You can purchase Zephyr from the Cydia store for jailbroken devices for $2.99.
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Hackers have been jailbreaking iOS 5 devices since Apple’s latest mobile operating system was still in beta. But up until now the only way to jailbreak an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 5.0 and up was to perform a tethered jailbreak. That means that you needed to connect your mobile device to a computer and run the jailbreak software again any time you reboot.

Jailbreaking allows iOS users to access files and settings that would not otherwise be available, install apps that aren’t available in the App Store, unlock iPhones for use on alternate cellular networks, and make other changes.

Now a hacker named pod2g has released the tools to perform an untethered jailbreak, and the folks at the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team have packed them up into some easy-to-use utilities.

This means that it’s easy for almost anyone to perform an untethered jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1 so that you can reboot your mobile device without losing any functionality.

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LogeMeIn‘s mobile apps for iOS and Android let you login to a remote computer to run applications, access files, and perform other functions that can make your smartphone or tablet feel like a full-fledged computer. But at $30, LogMeIn is kind of expensive for a mobile app.

Now the company has released a free version of its iOS app that offers basic remote desktop functionality.

You can use the free app to login to a Mac or PC using the free app to run programs. For instance you can view documents stored on your PC or surf the web in a full version of Firefox or Internet Explorer from your mobile device.

What you can’t do is stream video, transfer photos or other files from your remote PC to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, or use the remote printing function.

For those features you can pay for an in-app subscription update to LogMeIn Pro which costs $40 per year. Or you can make a one-time payment of $100 for the LogMeIn Ignition app.

This new freemium model is similar to the way LogMeIn’s web-based service works. You can install the LogMeIn client on any desktop computer you want to remote control for free and login from any supported web browser for free. But if you want advanced capabilities you need to pay.

via Lifehacker

If you want to adjust the screen brightness, disable WiFi, or access most other settings on an iOS device you usually have to open the settings app and then navigate through a series of menus to find the feature you’re looking for.

Folks that have jailbroken devices have long been able to use apps like SBSettings to toggle various settings with a single-click from the home screen or app tray. But now there’s a way to do that without jailbreaking your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

IconSettings uses the Safari web browser to create shortcuts to a number of frequently used iOS settings. All you have to do is add browser shortcuts to your home screen for the features you want.

For instance, here’s how to add a shortcut to your screen brightness settings:

1. Open the Safari web browser on your mobile device.
2. Navigate to the IconSettings page at iPhoneZA
3. Scroll down until you see the list of Settings shortcuts and click the “Brightness” link.
4. It will open in a new window and a box will pop up asking if you want to “Open this page in ‘Settings’?”
5. Tap the Cancel button.
6. Tap the sharing button in your web browser (it’s a box with an arrow pointing outward).
7. Select the Add to Home Screen option.
8. From the following screen either tap the “Add” button, or rename the icon first if you like.

That’s it. An icon with a pretty graphic should show up on your home screen. You can drag several of these icons together to create a Settings folder if you like.

Now whenever you click on one of those icons, the web browser will load and then quickly redirect you to the appropriate page in your iOS settings.

The process isn’t quite as elegant as SBSettings or other jailbreak apps — but it won’t void your warranty. Unfortunately IconSettings shortcuts only work with iOS 5.0 and up.

via Engadget