Absinthe 2 lifts iOS 5.1.1 gadgets over garden wall
Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak
iDevice jailbreakers: you can now take almost all of Apple's iOS 5.1.1 gadgets out of the walled garden, thanks to hacking tool Absinthe 2.0, released today.
The jailbreak software, which only works with iOS 5.1.1 - past versions of the mobile operating system have working jailbreaks already - and will open any iPhone, the latest and last generation of the iPod Touch, and all iPads but the sneaked-out 32nm CPU-equipped iPad 2. The Apple TV can't use it, either.
Support for this 'iPad2,4' will come "at a later date", the app's coders promised. But the Apple TV will not be supported, it seems.
The utility is an untethered jailbreak: re-booting the iDevice at a later date doesn't require the gadget to be first wired up to iTunes.
Absinthe 2.0 is available for Mac, Windows and Linux, and you can download it here. ®
COMMENTS
Well ...
>> I've never found anything on the other side of the garden wall that was sufficiently amazing, or consistently stable enough to warrant all the effort.
It all depends on your needs.
For work, I wanted a WiFi scanner - verboten by Apple, available once jailbroken.
I wanted to use the Bluetooth GPS I already have - not on the approved list from Apple, works just fine with RoqyBT4 installed.
These were the two key things I wanted.
Then other things are a bit more subtle. SBSettings from Big Boss allows you to show more in the status bar - like the WiFi you're connected to and your IP address. That's useful for some of us, of no interest to others. It also gives a very useful option to swipe the status bar and turn stuff on/off (eg Bluetooth, Location, etc) in a tap or two.
So far I've not installed anything else - partly because Cydia seems to require the use of Google or Facebook identities, neither of which I have or have any intention of having.
Absinthe makes the farts blow longer
Not the easiest JB ever. Took four goes before I got it to complete and that involved restoring my iPad to factory settings and running Absinthe from the command line. Still seems a bit flaky though. Couldn't get the BigBoss repo to load in Cydia and, although I've installed SBSsettings, it's not showing up.
My 'reasons to JB' apps:
SBSsettings –Use it all the time on my iPhone to toggle wifi and 3G without digging into System Preferences. Might actually sack it off on my iPad, as that's wifi only and I don't toggle that too often. The other reason for originally installing SBSettings was for RotationInhibitor, back when Apple's rotation lock was retarded beyond belief.
Firewall IP –Bye bye apps phoning home and making connections to shitty advertising sites
ContactPrivacy –Warns when apps try to sneakily access your contact data and allows you to block this
PrivaCy –Likwise block any apps from sending tracking data to twats like Flurry, Pinch Media, Moboclik...etc.
Netatalk –FOSS implementation of AppleTalk. Allows you to mount your iOS gadget in the Finder like a normal OSX volume
Truprint –The only printer software I've found [tried most of the ones on the App Store] which works with my Canon MX870
Apart from the apps, there's the geek stuff you can do after a JB:
–Connect to 'localhost' with iSSH and explore the fiesystem
– Install Ruby [or your preferred 'idle tinkering language']
–Setup SSH key pairing, so I can SSH into my iGadget without a password.
–Install Vim
–Vim /User/Library/Safari/SearchEngies.plist and change default search engine to DuckDuckGo
Of course, if I wasn't a such a mindless, posing, Starbucks frequenting, Fashion-following, Kool-aid drinking Crapple fanboi, I could probably do something even more useful. But that lot keeps me happy enough, while I wait for my latte to cool.
Where's the El Reg Top Ten... Jailbreak apps ?
I've JB'd my iOS devices at various times over the years, to see what all the fuss was about.
But each time, I've never found anything on the other side of the garden wall that was sufficiently amazing, or consistently stable enough to warrant all the effort.
I assume I'm just not finding the amazing software that's out there which drives everyone's burning desire to jailbreak
Re: Absinthe makes the farts blow longer
Apparently the BigBoss repro is being hammered and keep timing out. if you keep refreshing it'll download the packages eventually. My iPad required a factory reset the first time as well, but was fine second time round.
favourite JB tweaks:
- Springtomize: allows you to make a lot of little changes to the UI, hide undeletable app icons etc.
- browserchanger: change the default browser from Safari to whatever you want (Grazing, in my case)
- manual correct: no more DYAC!
- cardswitcher: new UI for app switching
- swipeselection: can move the cursor by swiping the keyboard. SO much easier than trying to tap between the right letters
- Retinapad: makes iphone apps look nice when zoomed.
- sparrow+: makes sparrow the default email client and enables push.
Tethering
Personally, I jailbreak so I can use tethering - being on Giffgaff with a 'Gigabag', some bizarre three-way blamestorm between Apple, O2 and Giffgaff means the official tethering route doesn't work. (iOS can't tell the difference between Giffgaff and O2's own PAYG service, which is set not to allow tethering.) I'll probably switch networks in another 2-3 months once my current credit's used up; Orange should only be about £1-2/month more expensive for me, and a bit more flexible. (Can't combine goodybags and gigabags on Giffgaff, for some stupid reason.)
