Stay Away From Today's iOS 5.1 Update If You Want To Keep Your Jailbreak And Unlock
Earlier today in Apple’s “The new iPad” launch event Apple announced the availability of iOS 5.1 which will bring tons of bug fixes and some new features. iOS 5.1 update will also bring new Siri language support for Japanese but if you rely on jailbreaking and unlocking then DO NOT UPDATE TO iOS 5.1. We already know that Apple has patched Pod2G’s corona untether exploit which was used to jailbreak iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 1 on iOS 5.0.1, the same exploit was later used to jailbreak iPhone 4S (iOS 5.0 iOS 5.0.1) and iPad 2 (iOS 5.0.1). MuscleNerd of iPhone-Dev team also pointed out some basic issues in a blog post earlier today.
As the whole tech world waits for today’s Apple Event, it seems like a good time to remind both veteran and amateur jailbreakers about the fundamental rule of jailbreaking: Avoid firmware updates!
In all likelihood we’ll see the GM “gold master” version of 5.1 this week. DO NOT UPDATE TO 5.1, because you may lose your jailbreak! The rest of this post details the subtleties with this rule, but if there’s only one message to take home, it’s the overall “do not update” message! Now for the nitty gritty exceptions:
- Soon after 5.1 appears on Apple’s public servers (i.e. iTunes starts to offer it), Apple will stop signing 5.0.1 SHSH blobs.
- If you have an iPhone4S, the basic rule above is really the only rule: you cannot restore back to 5.0.1 once the 5.0.1 signing window is closed, no matter what (even if you saved your SHSH blobs).
- If you have an iPad2 with saved 4.x hashes, you can in fact downgrade to that 4.x but you won’t be able to get to 5.0.1 once the 5.0.1 signing window is closed (even if you saved your 5.0.1 SHSH blobs).
- If you have a device earlier than the iPad2, you can downgrade to whatever version you want, as long as you have saved SHSH blobs for that version. You’ll need the assistance of geohot’s limera1n exploit with tools like redsn0w to get into “pwned DFU mode” and bypass the downgrade restriction.
There’s no jailbreak solution available for iOS 5.1 so please stick to iOS 5.0.1 for now (until further notice)
iPhone Unlockers:
We strongly recommend you guys to stay away from today’s iOS 5.1 update because you will loose your iPhone’s unlock. iOS 5.1 comes with a new 4.12.00 baseband for iPhone 4 which is still not unlockable. We’re certain that it will bring new baseband for other iOS devices like iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S as well for people who rely on unlock should stay wherever they are right now.
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