iOS 5 Jailbreak is available but you should wait

The iPhone Dev Team has released Redsn0w 0.9.9b5 that will jailbreak iOS 5 on the first generation iPad, iPod touch 3 & 4G, iPhone3GS and the iPhone 4. Sorry iPad 2 users but there’s no iOS 5 jailbreak available for you yet.

However, I do not recommend the jailbreak for the average user. Not because jailbreaking will void your warranty, that wouldn’t apply to first generation iPads and jailbreaking itself is not illegal.

The reason I don’t recommend jailbreaking right now is because this is a tethered jailbreak, which means you will need to plug your iPad into your computer and use the assistance of the jailbreak tool to reboot your device.

The iPhone Dev Team routinely releases a tethered jailbreak prior to the untethered version. The tethered jailbreak is basically a beta version of the jailbreak. This means the jailbreak process is a little buggy and even though you have jailbroken your device there may not be a lot of apps fully compatible with the new version of Apple’s software.

As you can see from the photo on the right, one of my favorite apps in Cydia is not yet compatible with iOS 5.

So, when will the untethered jailbreak be released for iOS 5? The iPhone Dev Team doesn’t believe in giving ETA’s but in the past it’s taken as long as a few months.

The most compelling reason that I see for jailbreaking your iPad right now would be to enable multitasking gestures that for some reason Apple didn’t include with iOS 5 for the first generation iPad. Unless you are really bummed about the multitasking gestures or some other tweak, I would recommend you enjoy all the new features with iOS 5 and wait for the untethered jailbreak.

If you still want to jailbreak your iPad we have a tutorial that will guide you through the process.