Absinthe 2.0 Brings Untethered Jailbreak to iOS 5.1.1 Devices Including New iPad
Chronic Dev Team today announced the release of Absinthe 2.0, which offers users the ability to jailbreak numerous iOS devices running iOS 5.1.1, including the third-generation iPad, without having to tether the device to a computer for booting.
Context & Ripple Effects
The release extends a streak rather than starting one: the same Chronic Dev Team shipped Absinthe A5 in January, the first untethered jailbreak for the A5-based iPhone 4S and iPad 2, and Absinthe 2.0 now covers iOS 5.1.1 across the lineup — notably reaching the third-generation iPad within months of its launch. The corpus shows this is a long-running cycle, from early iPhone OS jailbreak tools in 2007 through Redsn0w's iOS 4.3.3 untether in 2011.
Apple's countermove is also on record: in July 2011 the company said it would patch the latest jailbreak hole in an upcoming software update, so each tool's shelf life is bounded by the next firmware release. The story traveled unusually wide on day one, with pickups from PC World, PC Magazine, TechSpot, WebProNews and the HITB conference site alongside the team's own channels.
First-order effects
- Owners of iOS 5.1.1 devices — including the new third-generation iPad — can jailbreak without tethering to a computer on every boot, removing the main usability penalty that had kept many would-be jailbreakers out since Absinthe A5's narrower January release.
Second-order effects
- Apple faces pressure to close the exploited hole in its next iOS update, repeating the pattern it set with the July 2011 patch commitment; users who jailbreak now effectively freeze themselves off future firmware until the next exploit chain appears.
Third-order effects
- If the six-month cadence holds — A5 untether in January, full 5.1.1 untether by May — jailbreaking settles into a stable arms race where each Apple lockdown is answered by a volunteer exploit drop, keeping an unofficial app layer alive on hardware whose traffic share (97% of tablet web traffic as of late 2011) makes any alternative platform marginal.
The trend: iOS jailbreaking is maturing into a predictable cat-and-mouse cycle between Apple's per-release patches and hacker teams' untethered exploits, sustaining user control of the device layer against Apple's locked default.