Earlier this month Apple released iOS 5.1 that was their latest version of the iOS device operating system, and at the time users were warned not to upgrade if they wanted to jailbreak their device. Now we have news that iH8sn0w is reportedly managed to downgrade iOS 5.1 to iOS 5.0.1 on an A5 iDevice.
The well known iOS developer who is behind the likes of Sn0wbreeze, iFaith and more has been busy working a problem affecting users of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, and as Redmond Pie is reporting the devices that use the A5 processor have so far blocked attempts to downgrade the firmware.
Once the company releases its latest version of the operating system they block signing the older firmware, which means any official restores means the user installs the latest official version of iOS on to their device. Normally this isn’t a problem but when owners want to perform a jailbreak after updating their software, they have to sit tight and wait for the jailbreaking community to release a new solution to the problem.
With older iOS devices users can easily downgrade firmware versions as long as they have the relevant SHSH blobs saved. Cydia automatically saves any available blobs, and even updates the users Cydia app with these saves. While the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S have been available for a while now there hasn’t been a way for users to downgrade the A5 powered devices, which means when users need to restore for any reason the latest firmware is installed.
iH8sn0w has now revealed via Twitter that he has found a way round this and managed to downgrade his iPad 2 from iOS 5.1 to iOS 5.0.1, and claims it works on all A5 devices. This loophole should also allow the solution to work on the new iPad with the A5X processor, but this will only be possible once newer firmwares are available as the new iPad comes with the current version that is iOS 5.1.
Now though owners of the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and new iPad will finally be able to get in on the act of downgrading, restoring their device to the firmware of their choice. This is as long they have the relevant SHSH blobs saved, but currently besides the tweet iH8sn0w hasn’t released any other information about the APTicket system loophole. Hopefully this will become available soon so those A5 devices can be downgraded.
Would you like to downgrade the firmware on your A5 powered iDevice?