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iPhone 5 jailbroken, but not yet available for us

Apple's new iPhone has had its inner workings tinkered with, allowing for customisations galore.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

Well that didn't take long. The iPhone 5 has been jailbroken, very shortly after going on sale, Pocketnow reports.

But bad news if you want to free your new phone from Apple's shackles: the jailbreak hasn't been made available to the public yet. This is the Internet we're talking about though, so we shouldn't have long to wait.

This image was posted on Twitter by Grant Paul, a well-known jailbreaker. It shows the new iPhone running Cydia, an app that lets you install interface customisations.

"I started working on it the day before the iPhone was released, and I had my iPhone 4S jailbroken on iOS 6 in a few hours," Paul told AllThingsD. "Then, once I got an iPhone 5 it was even easier. It took just about half an hour from first tuning it on [sic] to a jailbroken iPhone 5," he added.

iOS 6 was jailbroken earlier in the week, but only for older A4-based devices. Here's a walkthrough, if you're tempted to have a bash at it yourself.

A word of warning though: jailbreaking will invalidate your warranty, so you do so at your own risk. It'll free your device from Apple's restrictions, so if you want to customise the appearance, or download unofficial apps from somewhere that's not the App Store, then it might be for you.

If something goes wrong though, Apple isn't going to want to know about it.

The iPhone 5 has already sold as many units as the iPhone 4S managed in its first month. Though it seems some people weren't so keen on paying for one. Apple released some adverts for the device, although they didn't focus on the new Apple Maps capability, surprisingly enough.

Would you jailbreak your iPhone 5? Have you done so with any other device? How did it go? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.