Absinthe 2.0, a new jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1 is now ready and available for download, announced the Jailbreak Dream Team on Friday, May 25, at the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam.
Absinthe 2.0 can be used to jailbreak iOS 5.1.1, and works on most iPad models, as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. The jailbreak allows users to gain root access to the operating system and download and install unofficial third-party apps that are not authorized by Apple.
The Absinthe 2.0 jailbreak is untethered, meaning it allows users to reboot their devices without having to plug them into an external computer. Moreover, untethered jailbreaks are more desirable than tethered ones because they allow devices to remain jailbroken even after a reboot.
"We actually managed to finish the untethered jailbreak for the 5.1.1 OS version," said jailbreaker Nikias Bassen (@pimskeks on Twitter), at the end of the Jailbreak Dream Teams' two presentations during the conference, ITWorld reports. The jailbreak team announced the new achievement using the phrase "one more thing," for which Apple late CEO Steve Jobs was famous. Jobs often used the phrase to announce major news at Apple press conferences.
Absinthe 2.0 can be used for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, the iPad 2, iPad 1, and the iPod Touch, and comes as the first untethered jailbreak available for the recently released third-generation iPad. It doesn't work yet on the iPad 2 model released earlier this year, which uses 32nm chips, but support for it is coming later on. The new jailbreak is available for download on the team's Web site, but it only works with devices that run iOS 5.1.1.
Absinthe 2.0 is reportedly one of the quickest jailbreaks to-date, and it only requires plugging in a USB cable and clicking a button. The coders, however, recommend users to perform a full backup before trying the jailbreak. According to them, erasing everything from the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch before jailbreaking makes the entire operation faster, while the full backup will come in handy just in case something doesn't go as planned.
Inconveniently, the team's Web site was down when they announced the new jailbreak. "It is available for download as soon as we manage to get the server back online," promised Bassen, joking that the hackers might have been hacked. Bassen worked on the jailbreak with Joshua Hill (@p0sixninja), David Wang (@planetbeing), and Cyril (@pod2g), who did not reveal his last name.
