Tethered jailbreak for iOS 5 beta 5 now available

Another iOS beta, another jailbreak. Just a few days after Apple released iOS 5 beta 5, the iPhone Dev Team hackers have released an updated beta of redsn0w — a tool for jailbreaking iOS devices. Redsn0w 0.9.8b5 is now available for Mac and Windows.

You can use the utility to jailbreak an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running the latest beta version of iOS. Jailbreaking an iOS device allows you to run code that’s not officially supported. This lets you run third party apps that aren’t available in the app store, install custom boot logos, and make other changes to the operating system.

For now the iPhone Dev Team is recommending that only developers that want to see if their apps for jailbroken devices work with the latest beta use the new version of redsn0w. In order to use the software you’ll need to connect your mobile device to a computer via a USB cable and run the redsn0w app. Because this is a tethered jailbreak, any time you reboot your iOS device you’ll need to reconnect to a computer and run the software again.

Apple is expected to launch iOS 5 to the public in the coming months. Until then you’ll need an iOS developer account to try the new software which includes a new notification system, tight integration with Apple’s new iCloud service, a newspaper and magazine store, and Twitter integration.