As of January 23, 2012, You can untether jailbreak all iOS devices on 5.0.1 firmware. Go here for a guide on the iPad and iPhone 4S.

Jailbreaking – What is it and why you want to do it

What is jailbreaking? Well, Apple designs its iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch’s in a way that only allows you to run applications gotten through their iTunes App store. Jailbreaking removes this restriction allowing you to install your own apps on your iDevice. Now before we show you a why jailbreak video with some of these apps that Apple doesn’t allow lets make one other big point. Jailbreaking is NOT illegal and 100% risk free in that you can always restore your iDevice back to factory settings. This is why there are an estimated to be over 5 million jailbroken iPhones or iTouches. Most people jailbreak for one or all of three reasons – customization, apps that can’t be had unless you jailbreak and piracy. Customization allows you to give your iPhone or iTouch your own style. This is done mainly through themes which can change almost everything on your iDevice. Some examples include the sounds you hear when you swipe or get an email or the icon images and the way they are displayed. Watch the embedded video to get a clearer picture of how to customize your iPhone. The second big reason is that many of the best apps cannot be gotten through iTunes. The main reason I jailbroke almost two years ago is that I wanted a video recorder on my iPhone 3G. Since Apple wouldn’t allow it in the app store at first, I decided to jailbreak and get the app myself. While a video recorder is now standard on the iPhone, other apps are not. One of my favorites that you can’t get at thru the App Store is SBSSettings which allows you to easily toggle on and off certain functions. Lastly, is piracy. While any iPhone or iPod Touch can pirate music, TV shows and movies only jailbroken ones can stream this media and also install cracked apps. Why would you want to do this? Well, the March Madness app is sweet but costs $9.99 for something you’ll only use a few days per year. Turn by turn navigation apps are expensive as well. Be clear, however, while jailbreaking is not illegal, it is most certainly illegal to download copyrighted material.

Jailbreaking – It’s not that hard JUST ASK!

Jailbreaking is not hard. The only part that is hard is figuring out what jailbreak program to use (PwnageTool, QuickPwn, pruplera1n, blackra1n, redsn0w etc.) and what firmware to download (if any). Thus, if you are not 99% sure you have the right tools – ASK FIRST! With 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation iPod Touch’s, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 its easy to be a little confused which ones to use. Plus, all the different firmware versions 2.0, 3.0, 3.0.1, 4.0, 4.3.3 and soon to be 5.0 make it a little intimidating at first. Don’t sweat it – JUST ASK. Jailbreaking is 100% risk free and legal. No matter what you do you can always restore your iDevice to factory settings. You cannot mess up your iPhone or iPod Touch.

How many iPhones are Jailbroken???

I found this article a couple of places yesterday originating from the Pinch Media site. The stats come from a small script that you get when you download an app from Apple’s app store. While the 6.9% seems low to me it is higher than the 2-3% that Jay Freeman (the creator of Cydia) claims to be jailbroken. This makes sense because I suspect anyone who jailbreaks their iphone is more geeky and tends to download and try more apps than the normal user. Will this percentage rise over time??? We shall see