A hacker who's gained a reputation for jailbreaking the iPhone, claims that his latest trick might be able to free the iPad from Apple's restrictions.
George "geohot" Hotz, whose accolades include the blackra1n jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS and supposedly the first working Playstation 3 hack, announced on his blog an "untethered" jailbreak that works across all current models of iPhone and iPod Touch, adding that it "will probably work on iPad too."
Jailbreaking allows Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch to run unauthorized third-party applications, and "untethered" means no external hardware is required to boot up. Hotz posted a video, supposedly of the jailbreak in action. The video simply shows a pair of hands turning the iPod Touch off and on, without being connected to another device. To prove that the iPod Touch is running the latest operating system, the hands activate voice control, a feature that's new to the 3.0 OS. Obviously the iPad can't be tested until it's released on April 3.
In any case, Hotz didn't announce when the jailbreak will be released for all. "Don't ask about a release date," he wrote. "You won't make it happen any sooner."
Many major criticisms directed at the iPad can't be fixed with jailbreaking. There's no USB port, and no external camera, and the device doesn't support Flash. Also, two of the more popular iPhone jailbreak functions, setting a custom background and locking the screen in either landscape or portrait mode, are addressed on the iPad.
Still, there will be plenty of apps and functions that the iPad simply will not allow, including multitasking and tethering (here are some other examples). If Hotz does release a jailbreak that works on the iPad, I'm sure there will be plenty of takers.
