As promised, the iPhone Dev Team has released the first major update to the redsn0w jailbreaking tool in years. While the team of iOS hackers have kept redsn0w up to date so that users could hack nearly every new version of iOS shortly after Apple pushed out an update, the basic features of redsn0w haven’t changed in a while.
Redsn0w 0.9.9b1, on the other hand, offers a whole slew of new features for anyone looking to jailbreak a supported iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
First up, there’s a new button on the home screen that simply says “jailbreak.” If all you want to do is open up your device so that it can run code that’s not available from the App Store, click this button and redsn0w will guide you through the process of jailbreaking your device and installing the Cydia Store for jailbroken iOS apps.
One of the key differences between the new version of redsn0w and previous releases is that it can grab public IPSWs from Apple so that you don’t have to provide your own unless you want to use an older IPSW — in which case you can provide your own. The utility will cache these files so you only need to provide them once.
The rest of the new features are tucked away in the “Extras” section, where you’ll find advanced options to do things such as:
- DFU mode which will attempt to figure out what device and firmware version you’re using
- “Just boot” tethered boot
- Save, fetch, and verify SHS blobs
- Recovery fix which gets you out of recovery mode cause by iTunes restore errors
You can find more details at the iPhone Dev Team blog. Redsnow 0.9.9b1 is available for Mac or Windows.
