Note: The greenpois0n website is too busy and down at the time of this writing. Wait and be patient.

Today, Chronic dev released Greenpois0n for your A5 devices (iPhone 4s and ipad 2). You can now do an untethered jailbreak on these devices assuming you are running either 5.0 or 5.0.1. If you are not running those FW versions, get onto one ASAP before Apple closes the update window and releases 5.1. As soon as Apple releases 5.1, you can expect that you cannot restore 5.0.1 again and unless you’re already on 5.0.1 you will be unable to jailbreak.

To jailbreak, just download the jailbreak app from greenpois0n web site (called “absinthe”), and run it. At the moment it is released only for OSX (Mac) but will soon have a windows version followed later today.

A short word on how the JB will work. You will attach your device to your mac, run the app, and wait. When it tells you to do something on your device, you can disconnect it and go run the web link “absinthe”. This will attempt to contact the greenpois0n web site and finish the jailbreak. The jailbreak will be completed when the device resprings and you find cydia. If the greenpois0n web site is down when you try to run the icon on the device, instead you can go to settings, vpn, and click “on”. The error “A configuration error occurred” should appear, shortly after the device should respring jailbroken.

Note: for those having problems, these steps worked for me on my “stubborn” device:
1) After the JB fails to do anything, reboot the iphone
2) Close absinthe on your mac
3) Rerun absinthe and it should detect the device and say that it noticed a jailbreak attempt failed and say it has “recovered”.
4) Reboot the device again, and close absinthe again
5) Rerun the jailbreak tool, it will rerun as it did in the first place.
6) After it’s done and says to tap the “jailbreak icon” do not do that! Instead go to your device, load settings, and click the “vpn” setting to “on”. Wait. The device should pop up and error and then respring about 30 seconds after the error.
7) If the device never resprings in step 6, repeat the steps above again until it works.

Apple is due to release 5.1 soon. When that happens, they will stop signing 5.0.1. This means you will only be able to restore to 5.1. 5.1 breaks the upcoming jailbreak. If you are currently a 4s owner or an ipad 2 owner, you will want to get your device to 5.0.1 ASAP. This way [...]

There is now an untethered jailbreak for everyone not on an iPhone 4s or ipad 2 for 5.0.1. If you are on 5.0.1, you can apply it via Cydia by installing “Corona 5.0.1 Untether”. Alternatively, you can install it with the latest redsn0w. If you are on 5.0, you will have to restore to 5.0.1 first, then you can jailbreak untethered via redsn0w.

The traffic for cydia repositories is huge right now. So if you get any errors related to installation of package, I suggest you try later (or a few days later).

iPhone 4s / iPad 2 jailbreak to follow in a bit. No one has an answer as to when so don’t bother asking.

Finally, if you have semitethered installed, you should probably uninstall it via cydia once you are untethered. It is no longer necessary.

Big update to semitethered jailbreak today. v0.9.1 incorporates Saurik’s new mobile substrate. Thanks to Saurik, we are entirely rid of all the daemon patching – this means there’s no more daemon patching or restarting. Most the semi-tether work is now done by mobile substrate. The semitether package from the repository now protects your iOS 5 notification center plugins and gives you the option to patch mobile safari so that it will work on the non-jailbreak reboot mode. I’m still looking into patching mail, if possible.

Summary of changes:
1) Much more stable with new mobile substrate
2) Can patch safari so it works in the non-jailbreak reboot mode
3) App to monitor the status of your semitether and reapply. Check after cydia installs.

This new version will definitely solve all the flakiness problems we had in the past. However, be aware that this is a total rewrite of mobile substrate. Until this appears in a community source, you are beta testing so installing it is entirely at your own risk. As always, please report issues via email.

Also, with an update from MyWi author and Appsync team, we should be compatible with those, too.

Edit: October 30, 2:00am
Updated to v0.9.1. This should be a great update. See my post on it here.
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Edit: October 23, 2:37am.
I updated to 0.7.9. This version will take about 90 seconds after it first boots up and then your device will respring again. This timing was the only way to get some of the launch daemons to properly relaunch.

This version should fix issues for some of you folks where:
1) Device does not sync with itunes and only errors. Hopefully solved.
2) Device reboots after 2-3 minutes.
3) App sync issue – this is unworkable. Appsync hard patches system files and does not even use mobile substrate. I had to conflict with it. For now, semi-tether boot is impossible with appsync. You guys need to bug those guys to fix appsync to use mobile substrate (like everyone else uses).

Note, Saurik is working on an update to mobile substrate that will solve many of the issues with the semi-tether package. Hopefully this will be out in a day or two. At this time, we can finalize beta testing. I plan to hold further updates until after Saurik has released his mobile substrate update. Saurik’s updates will eliminate the need for the long 90 second respring on boot also.

This update was only tested on iphone 4. After saurik’s mobile substrate changes, more devices will be tested. Next updates coming in next 2-3 days.

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Original Post:
My iOS5 semitethered jailbreak package is ready for beta testing. What is semitethered jailbreak and why do you care? In short, it is protection for if your device reboots while you’re on the road. Read on.

As you may know, iOS5 currently has a tethered jailbreak. This means that after you have jailbroken and installed most stuff you care about, you go to reboot your device, and it will no longer boot. You will be either stuck at apple logo forever, or you will get to itunes restore screen. When this happens, you have to hook up to your computer and use redsn0w “just boot” feature which gets you rebooted successfully again. It’s not all bad, as iOS5 is pretty stable. But if your device crashes and reboots while you’re out on the road, you are screwed and without a phone until you get home.

An untethered jailbreak is one that does not have such problems. Here you can reboot and the device reboots successfully. Because we are using the limera1n exploit discovered from Geohot last year, we are always guaranteed a tethered jailbreak on last generation devices. A new exploit will need to be found to untether us.

To get us through this period, I have worked on a semi-tethered solution. The semi-tethered jailbreak will allow you to reboot on the road, but with limited functionality. It is enough that you are no longer stranded, and you can use your phone, text, and many other features. This is just until you get home and can use redsn0w again to “just boot tethered”. Once you do that, you’re back to fully functional state.

Here is a summary of what you can and cannot do when in semi-tethered reboot state. Remember, this is only when your device crashed and rebooted on the road and before you got back to your computer to “just boot”. It is better than being stuck in apple logo:

1) Can use phone, sms (text messages)
2) Can use every other stock app on iphone.
3) Cannot use mobile safari
4) Can use other appstore web browsers such as atomic web browser
5) Cannot use mail app. You could install a gmail app from appstore or such instead.
6) You cannot use any jailbreak tweak, app, cydia until you boot tethered.
7) While in the semitether booted state, you should not add a jailbreak ios5 notification such as sbsettings to notifications during this state or your device will be stuck in a respring loop until you get home to “boot tethered”.

Those are all the limitations I have found so far. There may be some others. I may provide a more technical write up on why these limitations exist, but for now it doesn’t really matter. They just do.

Now, there are some other caveats to installing this package:

1) The device will take longer to boot up. When you reboot, it has to reload every service. It will respring a couple times also.
2) According to Saurik, there are some “problems” to reloading all daemons on the fly. This is why mobile substrate installation requires “reboot device” in cydia. I have not experienced any of these problems, but I am not promising they do not exist. This is why we will need testing to see which problems may occur.

I believe the good outweigh the bad here. Once the untethered jailbreak is out, you will not need or want to install this semitether package. In future iOS versions when we are back to having only a tethered jailbreak, you should be able to install this again to semitether your jailbreak.

As far as support for this package, please send me email preferably from Cydia so the proper semitether subject is used. If you want to email me from a computer, and want a response, use this subject: “Cydia/APT(A): semitether”. Remember, this is still in beta stages and may not be perfect. Do not install this if you are not prepared for that.

As for current testing, I have only tested this on an iphone 4 GSM running iOS5. As further testing shows success, I will update this page. Further, when this package seems stable enough, I may move it into the main bigboss source.

To install this, add the following repository to cydia: http://thebigboss.org/semitether. Note: after install, you will have to reboot your device, so make sure you are prepared at a computer to reboot tethered with redsn0w or just “home button out” of cydia and manually respring until you get home.

To test the success of this, simply reboot your device. If it boots up, it worked. Make sure you are near your computer so you can tether boot it after to get your jailbreak functionality back.

iOS 5 is out today. For those of you jailbreakers, you should be aware of the status. You may want to hold off on the update for now because the jailbreak is tethered:

1) A tethered jailbreak is available via redsn0w for all devices except iPad 2 and the new iPhone 4s.

2) Tethered jailbreak means you will have to use redsn0w to enter DFU mode and have it “just boot tethered” every time you power cycle your device. (Just tapping power is fine, you have to actually shut it off).

3) After you run redsn0w, even the very first time, you will have a white cydia icon. This is because you have to still power cycle, enter DFU mode, and boot tethered. The next reboot will come after you install something that requires mobile substrate (almost everything). After installing this, the device will only hit apple logo unless you do the boot tethered option.

4) If iOS5 turns out to be stable, tethered jailbreak may be manageable for many of you. But be aware that if something happens while you’re away from your computer and your device restarts, you will have to get to a computer before you can use your device again. This is probably not so bad for an ipod or ipad. Maybe not great for your only phone.

5) Many free and paid tweaks have not yet been updated. Developers are working on updates so be patient.

6) Non-factory unlockers should stay away from ios5 for now or you will lose your unlock! (This should go without saying).

7) iOS 4.3.4 and 4.3.5 is also tethered, so 4.3.3 is the only firmware that can be jailbroken untethered for now.

8) Improperly written notification center add-ons may cause your device to be in a reboot cycle. A mobilesubstrate update is due out later this week that will protect you against this. To protect yourself in the meantime, make sure you have openSSH installed so you are able to manually delete any notification center tweaks you install should this happen to you. Otherwise, you will have to restore and jailbreak again.

I have a lot of big changes coming to SBSettings for iOS5. For those of you on iOS5 already that want to test it, I should be releasing daily beta updates for it.

Here are some features:

• Notification center integration
• Your choice of using the old style window or the notification center. Or both.
• You choose which toggles to appear in notification and window sections.
• Current sbsettings toggles should be supported. Current themes should work in notification area as well.
• You get to choose what will show up in notification section. More button row, no more button row, the extra text, no extra text, the dock, the toggles, no toggles at all, or any combination of. The notification area is a limited screen resources so it’s up to you to decide how you want it used.

Here are some screen shots of a couple various configurations with the default theme:

Over the next few days, I will be working on finishing this up, hopefully having it completed by iOS5 release on the 12th. Also, the

Note, I do not vouch for any stability at this point. Also, be aware that the feature set is not yet complete. To test it, you can add http://thebigboss.org/ios5beta to your repository list. Finally, those of you that are testing this, please send me feedback at my email address as I will not be monitoring comments on the web site while busy developing. I have an ongoing “known issues” list in my changes section in the more app. If your issue is not listed there you could feel free to contact me via email and report it.

The iPhone Dev Team released redsn0w for iOS5 today. Apple also released the iOS5 GM to developers today. These tools are only for developers. I recommend you do not go update to this right now. Here are the reasons:

1) iOS5 GM will expire. It’s still for developers only. It may still be different than the final released version next week. Further, once jailbroken, you cannot use over the air update feature to update so you will have to restore to the new iOS5 final at some point.

2) Next Wednesday is not that long to wait for a final firmware.

3) As the dev team said, many jailbreak tweaks, the reasons you might want to jailbreak, are not yet ready to go and will not work on iOS5. There are many fixes developers have but have not yet released, because iOS5 is not out. Of these includes activator, which is used by a huge number of tweaks. Installing anything that relies on activator causes all apps to show up 1/4 sized on first reboot. There are other issues. Wait for official release by next week and expect a lot of core tweaks to be updated by then.

4) If you’re on 4.3.3 or any untethered jailbreak, the iOS5 jailbreak will be tethered (you will have to re-run redsn0w and do DFU mode every time you reboot your device). I do not expect an untether until after iPhone 4s is actually out and someone (Chronic dev?) releases a new jailbreak exploit. Note: Only old bootrom 3gs owners will be able to untether now.

5) If you’re on iPad2, you cannot use this to jailbreak iOS5. You must wait for the iphone 4s jailbreak.

6) From my personal experience and work I’m doing converting my own apps, I can tell you that iOS5 changed a lot internally so most tweaks will require an update to work.

7) Oh, and this may be a big one for some of you unlockers. But this version of redsn0w does not hactivate. This means you have to have working service on iOS5 from iTunes (or Gevey sim or such) before you jailbreak.

So again, I suggest you resist the urge, remember this is for developers only, and realize that waiting a week or 10 more days is going to make your iOS5 experience that much better when you do make the move.

Update: Also do not yet update to iOS5, especially the GM which will expire. For info about iOS5, go here.

Update: all this applies to 4.3.5 as well.

As I predicted 10 days ago, Apple released iOS v4.3.4 today. This does nothing except patch the jailbreakme.com jailbreak from comex and, in the process, patch i0nic’s exploit making it so we cannot jailbreak 4.3.4 untethered. Im not sure if Apple has stopped signing 4.3.3 yet so if you havent then load cydia or tiny umbrella and get your shsh saved off. Additional warning to iPad 2 users. If you have a 3G iPad, even saving the shsh won’t be enough to restore 4.3.3 because the baseband is also under shsh protection now. Wifi only iPad 2′s and all other devices are still protected by shsh storage.

Again, do not update to this firmware. When iTunes asks if you want to install the new firmware, say no. If you update then you will gain nothing and lose your jailbreak.

This warning goes for 4.2.9, which is the CDMA version of the patched firmware. Do not install that either.

And no, this update provides you no new features only closes the jailbreak.

The iPad2 jailbreak is released tonight by Comex. This is a new PDF exploit that you can apply directly on your ipad by going to jailbreakme.com. Once the jailbreak runs, you will have a Cydia icon and a complete untethered jailbreak. This site can be used for all 4.3.3 devices not just ipad 2. If you are already jailbroken with Redsn0w, no need to jailbreak again, you are set.

Bigboss personal note: (no disrespect to Comex intended) While this seems like a great thing for everyone, in my opinion it is not. I would have liked to have seen this exploit held. Here’s why. The community probably had a free run until iOS5. Meaning, i0nic’s exploit was good for all devices except iPad 2. But Apple is focused on ios5 so they probably would not have released a 4.3.4 or 4.4. iOS 5 being due in September, that would have given every one another 2 months of freely jailbreaking any firmware. However, due to the nature of this being a PDF exploit that can be applied directly in Safari, Apple will have to immediately release an updated firmware to patch this exploit. That update will also have patched i0nic’s exploit. So I predict that within a week or so, we will have no more untethered jailbreak for the newest firmwares. Therefore, make sure you all load cydia and save your SHSH off so you can restore 4.3.3 if you ever need to again. And to the a$#@#$ that leaked the PDF exploit early, you basically gave Apple a 5 day head start on patching. Thanks.

At WWDC, IOS5 was announced. I really thought this would go without saying, and it probably does for most of you. But do not install IOS5 beta unless you are a developer actually developing on it. It might seem fun, but really there’s nothing there you can’t get today from IOS4 jailbroken. Since IOS5 is not out until September (months away), no developers are releasing updates to support it right now. Almost everything is broken on it. Yes, you can jailbreak it tethered, but is also only for developers to start fixing things. All these beta firmwares expire which means you will have to update every couple weeks. In short, this is not meant for the public and no one should be running it.

I know SBSettings is broken on IOS5. Yes, I already have had ideas about using the notification area for IOS5 SBSettings. Therefore, all emails regarding SBSettings on IOS5 will just be ignored and deleted.

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Update: Redsn0w 0.9.6rc15 now supports untethered 4.3.3 jailbreak. I still recommend not updating due to no need to do so, but if you are on 4.3.3, you can now jailbreak it.
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As the topic says. iOS v4.3.3 is now out. Do not update. It only contains a fix for the consolidated.db issue that the press made such a silly fuss over. If you require this fix, instead stay on your current firmware jailbroken and install untrackerd from cydia.

No official jailbreak is currently available and no ETA.Comex has verified, however, that the existing exploit used to jailbreak 4.3.1 and 4.3.2 still exists unpatched. It seems Apple didnt want to make any additional changes except the location tracking system. It seems redsn0w v0.9.6rc14 will jailbreak 4.3.3 tethered only as long as you point it to the 4.3.2 firmware. My advice is to wait for an official jailbreak for 4.3.3 before updating. And since the location untrackerd package successfully neuters the problem 4.3.3 aims to solve anyway, there’s really no reason to update for any jailbroken users.

As some of you may find purchases fail or simply time out the last day or two in Cydia. This is caused by the amazon ec2 outage. When the amazon issues are sorted out, so should be cydia issues. Further, this may make repository updates slow because server side queries to cydiastore may be taking up excess connections. In short, everything may be flaky for a bit. My suggestion is simply to try again later.

There is nothing down on the side of BigBoss or Saurik so there’s nothing we can do at this time but wait.

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Thanks to developer Ryan Petrich, you can now neuter your iPhone location tracking.

Not sure what this is about? CNN and other news sites have been going on the last day about the fact that location services stores your location history in a database on your device called consolidated.db. The news sites makes a big fuss about this and has gotten everyone all up in arms over privacy issues. (My opinion is that this is all silly since the info is stored only on your personal device and computer and not sent to apple or anyone else, therefore, it’s no more a violation of your privacy as storing your contacts info on your device and computer. No information is being sent to Apple or anyone else. This is no violation of your privacy. Silly.) Nonetheless, people are upset over it since the news made a fuss, so the jailbreak community provides you a fix for it.

Now, understand what this is. In its current state, this is a process daemon that runs every 30 seconds every 5 minutes if the device is not asleep and clears the location data off your device. Search for untracker in cydia and install it.

It turns out Apple did not patch the exploit used to jailbreak 4.3.1 in 4.3.2. So i0nic updated his kernel patches and we now have an untethered 4.3.2 jailbreak via redsn0w v0.9.6rc14 or newer.

If you have 4.3.1 you don’t need to update to 4.3.2 (what a waste no features warranting an update). If you’re stuck on 4.3.2 for whatever reason (yea I know, your brother accidentally updated), however, you can now jailbreak.

iphone 4 users: there’s an issue with this jailbreak and you should wait for an upcoming fix before updating. The problem is that the untethering exploit isn’t working and has to be debugged so iPhone 4 users may be tethered in the meantime. Please wait a few hours and for a redsn0w update for this to be solved.
iPhone 4 supported as of 0.9.6rc14.