A couple of days ago, security researcher Charlie Miller discovered a doozy of a bug in iOS 5’s Nitro Javascript engine that allowed any app to remotely download and execute malicious, system-level code on an iPhone.
Apple was pissed. So pissed, in fact, they kicked Miller out of the App Store and Developer Program within hours of his exploit becoming known.
While most of the aspects of this bug may seem pretty dire for users of Apple devices, especially those who can’t even trust App Store apps anymore, it is great news for jailbreakers. In fact, Miller’s bug may lead to a proper, untethered iOS 5 jailbreak for all iDevices, including the iPad 2 and new iPhone 4S.
According to jailbreak hacker pod2g, who has been working on an untethered iOS 5 jailbreak, Miller’s code signing exploit will make jailbreaking iOS 5 “dramatically easier.”
There’s a caveat, though. pod2g strongly recommends that when Apple releases iOS 5.0.1, jailbreakers shouldn’t update. Why? This code-signing bug is what would be considered an extremely high priority update for Apple to fix, and they are likely to close it ASAP.
That puts people who want to jailbreak their iPhone 4S in a pickle. iOS 5.0.1 is scheduled to have some big fixes to the way the 4S consumes power, which means if your new iPhone is having battery problems, you are going to have to choose between charging more often or jailbreaking your device.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
38 responses to “A Jailbreak For The iPhone 4S Could Be On The Horizon, But Don’t Upgrade To iOS 5.0.1”
The language used here is so over the top, it borders on the ridiculous.
“you are going to have to choose between charging more often or jailbreaking your device.”
definitely jailbreak!
thank god i have android phone and my ipad 2 gets good bat life
Definitely not to jailbreak. Looking to the forums I could see the problems I never had. 99% of iOS devices problems are on jailbroken devices, 0.9% problems comes because of user illiteracy how to use/set the device and only 0.1% are real bugs.
Therefore, saving few $ on apps for a $200-400 device is nonsense, especially if it leads to continuous problems later.
Stay officially up to date, buy apps you really need and live problems free.
Your a tool bud
English? What are you talking about Professor?
There are a lot of reasons to JB and not always just to steal apps. Don’t judge. I personally JB to have more access to the system, get command line, have more customization options, etc.
Yeah it can, and does sometimes cause troubles, but it’s kind of fun to tinker with it.
The 99% of problems are because of people who screwed it up being careless. Jailbreaking itself doesn’t just magically cause problems. It just makes it easier to cause them yourself if you’re an idiot. So for anyone who’d like to jailbreak, just don’t be an idiot and you’ll live problem free as well! I sure have.
best combo
“Choose between charging more or jailbreaking”
EDITOR! Fix this. Should be choose between having a better battery life or jailbreaking. Or charging LESS or jailbreaking.
“Charging more OFTEN” works.” as it is in the article.
Yes… English does border on ridiculous.
Yes I believe the border is Wales and Scotland
Not to diminish the truth of this statement, but… *You’re*
thats not an iphone 4s in the picture, the metal banding around the outer edge of the iPhone 4s has a black breaker line just above the vibration switcher !!!
Battery fix go to the settings on the iPhone go to location service then kill the time zone turn it off then follow me on twitter @kino444 is working for me
No, actually, jailbreakers have to charge MORE often (no battery fix). So choose between either jailbreaking your device, or charging LESS often, because you can’t have both.
Even more of a give away is that fact that it shows rock app which hasn’t been around for a while haha
That was hilarious. Borders on wales and Scotland. Omg. So funny.