Yesterday Apple announced the release of iOS 6.1 and, as expected, jailbreakers have announced that their release of an untethered jailbreak tool will follow shortly. At this time, it looks like 22 iOS devices will be supported, and the release could happen as soon as this Sunday. This means iPhone 2 & 3G, iPod Touch 1-3G, iPad 1, and Apple TV 3 will not be supported, but everything else should be.
Some users have expressed concern that Cydia packages for jailbroken iPhone 5 would require an update, but Cydia’s creator has stated that changes required for the longer screen should be minimal.
Naturally, jailbreaking your iDevice does pose security hazards, as it bypasses restrictions Apple places on unsigned code. But if you choose to jailbreak anyway, it’s a good idea to back up your data before applying the iOS 6.1 update, and again afterwards so that you have a restore-point should anything with the jailbreak or subsequently downloaded tweaks cause problems.
Update: January 31, 2013
The team of jailbreakers known as Evad3rs has put up a website to keep users updated on the progress of the promised untethered jailbreak tool.
