iPhone 4S and iPad 2 jailbreak incoming with Corona A5 tool

A jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 is almost ready for release, arch-iOS hackers the iPhone Dev Team have announced, with only streamlining the user-experience of the "Corona A5 jailbreak" left to complete. Until now, the Apple A5-based products have been stubbornly resistant to hacking attempts, Apple changing its approach in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S so as to give users wanting to install unofficial software more trouble than before. That time of frustration, though, is nearly through.

According to the Dev Team, all of the "technical hurdles" around the jailbreak have been overcome. What remains is making sure the end package is as bug-free as possible; to that end, and to suit all levels of users and systems in the wild, there will be several ways of actually using the Corona A5 jailbreak tool.

A simple GUI for Mac and PC is promised, along with a command-line interface (CLI) that can be used to guide novices through the process, debug, and set different options along the way. Corona is also expected to be eventually integrated into the existing redsn0w tool, offering a slightly different GUI and broadening compatibility.

As for compatibility, the iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0 (9A334), 5.0.1 (9A405) and the other 5.0.1 variant (9A406) will be supported, along with the iPad 2 on iOS 5.0.1 (9A405). The recommendation for iPhone 4S owners is that they stay on iOS 5.0, if they haven't already succumbed to the lure of the upgrade.