The iPhone 5 runs the iOS 6 operating system and it’s the first device to ship with an Apple A6 processor. But neither of those things has stopped hackers from figuring out how to jailbreak the new phone.
Grant Paul (@chpwn) has posted a few pictures showing his jailbroken iPhone 5.
Jailbreaking an iOS device involves finding a security vulnerability and exploiting it to get the phone to run code that’s not officially supported by Apple. This lets you load apps that aren’t available in the App Store, including software that changes the look, feel, and behavior of an iOS device.
For instance, on a jailbroken iPhone you can change the default web browser, or alter the way notifications or multitasking features work.
Chpwn’s iPhone is already running the Cydia Store, which is a third party app store for software that runs on jailbroken devices.
He hasn’t yet released the tools that would allow other users to jailbreak the iPhone 5, and there’s no telling how long it will take to put together a user-friendly package for public consumption. But at least we know it’s already possible to jailbreak Apple’s latest device.
Well THAT didn’t take long.