Apple iOS jailbreak now legal & easy, but still risky

Now that it’s legal to unlock smartphone devices for the purpose of installing applications, hackers have taken the opportunity to make jailbreaking an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch easier than it has ever been. Rather than having to connect the device to a computer, owners are now able to perform the jailbreaking process simply by visiting a website on their device and beginning a download.

The website, JailbreakMe.com, contains a hack which uses a PDF viewer exploit to load a file containing the code to perform the jailbreak. It is not apparent whether the hack closes the exploit after the code is installed on the device.

Before you go ahead and use JailbreakMe to unlock your iPhone or other Apple device, be aware that there have been several issues reported by those who have tried so far. The staff over at Engadget has reportedly experienced mixed results after a rocky start, apparently due to issues with JailbreakMe.com servers. The team bricked an iPhone on their first try, but was later able to restore the OS, while an intern had a more successful experience with an iPhone 4.

Also, while the process is now legal, Apple has a strict policy against supporting devices that have been unlocked. This means that if you attempt to jailbreak your device and fail, you should expect no help from Apple tech support to resolve the issue and your warranty may be voided.

If you do decide to take the risk with JailbreakMe however, a restore can usually be performed on a failed installation as long as you’ve synced the device with iTunes to create a backup before starting.

There’s no guarantee as to how long Jailbreakme.com will work. Apple will likely seal up the exploit used by the website to install the code on devices in a future version of iOS.

Have you used JailbreakMe.com to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch? If so, let us know about your experience in the comments.