Nearly five months after Apple shipped iOS 6, an untethered jailbreak for the operating system is now available. Unlike its predecessor, the Evasi0n iOS 6 jailbreak tool works on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux at launch.
The release of Evasi0n has been highly anticipated for owners of the iPhone 5 and fourth generation iPad, both of which shipped running iOS 6 by default. For others, the release means they can finally upgrade their devices to iOS 6 without losing the ability to download unauthorized apps and customize the look and feel of their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
High Jailbreak Demand
As is now standard for iOS jailbreaks, the launch of Evasi0n came with its fair share of technical difficulties. Demand is so high for jailbreaks that they tens to crash servers and cause performance issues on the hosting site – at least at first. In this case, the evaders team that developed it decided to use Google Sites, which apparently has a page view limit. After several failed attempts, I finally managed to get the .dmg file to download.
Although it probably felt like an eternity for iPhone 5 users, the release of the iOS 6 jailbreak arrived at roughly the same time as the Absinthe A5 jailbreak tool for iOS 5 last year. In December 2011, Pod2G released a jailbreak for iOS 5, but that didn’t include the devices with A5 chips like the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. That tool arrived on January 20 of last year. So the new jailbreaking team was only slightly behind schedule with this one.
The Evasi0n jailbreak was actually well underway as of last week, but the team didn’t want to push it out prior to Apple’s release of iOS 6.1, lest the company patch the exploits the team used to jailbreak.
Why Jailbreak?
Jailbreaking isn’t for everybody. While the process is relatively user friendly (so long as the directions are followed with caution and the device is backed up first), the experience is best suited for that subset of users who prefer to have the ability to customize their devices and download apps that wouldn’t meet Apple’s requirements for inclusion in the App Store.
This includes things like like tethering your data connection to other devices and running classic video game emulators. For me, it’s the little things. I like using Chrome as my default browser, renaming apps, customizing the design of my home screen and using Sparrow as my default mail client.
To download the iOS 6 jailbreak, head over to evasi0n.com and select your operating system of choice. Depending on how overloaded the server is at the moment, be prepared to hit “refresh” more than a few times.
