untethered jailbreak for ios5.0.1 with a few issues for added spice

An untethered jailbreak was finally released for ios 5.0.1 on 28 December 2012. Despite the fact that ios 5.x has been jailbroken (albeit tethered) for a number of months now, an untethered jailbreak is a BIG deal. For the uninitiated, a tethered jailbreak means that you need to connect it to a computer to be able to reboot it. This can be an issue if the battery runs out an you’re not near a computer with redsn0w and a copy of ios5.x on it. So a lot of would be jailbreakers held off, waiting for an untethered jailbreak, and now that it is here, the stampede to get it was deafening.

If you haven’t previously jailbroken 5.0.1, then you can use the latest version of redsn0w to jailbreak. This is a pretty simple process. If you haven’t yet moved to 5.0.1, then you’ll have to do so first.

If you are on an untethered jailbreak, then you have two options. Use the latest redsn0w to untether – in effect, rejailbreak; or download an app called Corona Untether – install it from Cydia, reboot and you should be untethered.

This is where things get spicy. Apparently if you’ve done a ‘clean’ jailbreak – ie. used redsn0w to jailbreak an unjailbroken device, there are no issues. However, if you’ve used either of the above methods to untether a tethered device, then there are issues. Initially, both methods broke launchctl, which meant apps like openSSH and intelliscreenX didn’t work. However, the latest release of Corona fixes this – yes that’s right if you untethered using redsn0w, you will have this issue and should install the latest version of Corona to fix it.

However, there are still a few issues out there. iFile on my phone crashes almost immediately on launch. I have read that iBooks is broken as well. That being said, I don’t use iFile that often, never use iBooks, and all my other apps seem to be working, so I’m a happy untethered camper. Hopefully, the remaining bugs will be fixed as quickly as the initial bugs and we’ll all be able to enjoy a rock solid jailbreak. And if the bugs mentioned above are too much for you, you can always do a clean install of 5.0.1 and jailbreak from there.