First untethered iOS 5 jailbreak for iPhone 4S, iPad 2 released

The word "finally" is emerging from the lips of many an iPad 2 and iPhone 4S owner today, as an untethered 5.0.1 jailbreak has finally been released for the newest of Apple's iOS devices. Just to mess with us, we expect Apple to release iOS 5.1 (currently still in beta) this afternoon.

Seriously, however, the jailbreak will make many a life easier. A tethered jailbreak means that every time the device boots, it has to be re-cabled to a desktop system and jailbroken again.

The new "Absinthe A5" jailbreak comes via pod2G and the Chronic Dev Team, which teamed to release an enhancement to the popular Greenpois0n jailbreaking tool. Sadly for Windows and Linux users, the best we can say for them is ... "soon, soon."

The tool has only been released for Mac OS X as of now, but versions for Windows and Linux are scheduled to follow quickly.

There's even bad news for those with Macs. Due to the announcement and the (one might imagine) sudden popularity of the Greenpois0n site, the site is experiencing intermittent connectivity issues (translation: it's down a lot).

Absinthe will jailbreak the iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0 (9A334) and 5.0.1 (9A405 and 9A406) and all models (wi-fi, CDMA, GSM) of the iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 (9A405).

While jailbreaking has been declared legal in the U.S., Apple warns users that jailbreaking can void a device's warranty, if Apple detects it when you bring a device in for warranty service.