iPhone hacker George “geohot” Hotz has released an update to his “blackra1n” jailbreak utility that should give new iPhone 3Gs owners reason to celebrate. The blackra1n RC2 update will jailbreak factory-fresh iPhone 3GS’s loaded with iPhone OS 3.1.2 by Apple, but only through a “tethered jailbreak” method.
The latest iPhone OS 3.1.2 update was released by Apple not too long ago with a nasty little trick hidden up its sleeve. It turned out that new iPhone 3GS were loaded with a version of iPhone OS 3.1.2 that closed the “24kpwn” exploit used by iPhone jailbreak community to make the jailbreak easy and convenient. That basically killed hopes of jailbreaking any factory-fresh iPhone 3GS units already flashed with the new iPhone OS. But, all was not lost. The iPhone Dev Team came out shortly after iPhone OS 3.1.2’s release, saying that a “tethered jailbreak” was still possible.
While the initial release of the blackra1n utility was capable of jailbreaking iPhone OS 3.1.2 for iPhone 3GS hardware already in the wild, it was useless in jailbreaking newer iPhone 3GS units already rocking iPhone OS 3.1.2 from the factory. The same applies to the iPhone Dev Team’s PwnageTool 3.1.4 release. The updated blackra1n RC2 utility changes all that.
This is what to expect with the blackra1n RC2 release:
- Fixed 3G issues
- Tethered jailbreak for factory-fresh iPhone 3GS’s and new out-of-the-box iPod Touch 8GB
- Fixed Icy issues
- Both Windows and Mac
Download blackra1n RC here.
So what is this “tethered jailbreak” we keep mentioning? Simply put, it’s a less convenient jailbreak method that requires the user to keep their iPhone 3GS connected to their computer during the jailbreak process. Any subsequent reboots (resulting from power loss or a manual reboot) will require a computer to boot successfully. The jailbreak is possible (using blackra1n RC2), but it’s decidedly more of a hassle. But, then again, how many times do you reboot your iPhone?
Note: if you already jailbroke your iPhone 3GS using blackra1n RC1 (the initial release), there’s no need to run RC2. Also, if you would rather wait for the iPhone Dev Team to build the tethered jailbreak option into PwnageTool, sit tight, they’re working on it.
[Via: iphonejtag]