It started with a tweet last month from pod2g. And the hopes of an untethered jailbreak solution for iOS 5 and 5.0.1 have been building since. Apple device owners who want to break free with newer A5 devices like the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S are tuning in, closely following the saga online.

The leading characters are intriguing. There's pod2g, the Chronic Dev Team member and French hacker who has his own blog. And there's @MuscleNerd, a member of a different dev team. Together, they have the Apple jailbreak world on its toes, eagerly awaiting results.

John Grisham couldn't write better suspense, though Apple likely hopes this one doesn't have a happy ending.

It began in November with a tweet from pod2g, right after Apple released iOS 5. Hey jailbreaking friends, I've found a bug that can untether iOS 5. Don't expect a release soon, but I'm gonna work hard in it.

At the time, there was no word on when a jailbreak solution might be available, but the story line began to unfold. With further working behind the scenes, and many following blog posts and updates from the leading characters, we arrived in early December, when pod2g released a video showing off his successful first untethered jailbreak solution for iOS 5 and 5.0.1 (see video below).

It appeared to be almost complete and working nicely, further stoking hopes. Though it was an Apple iPod running on iOS 5.0 he cracked, not an iPhone 4S running on iOS 5.0.1. Hard work takes time, however, if not patience. Pod2g reported on his blog -- a blog talking about hacking and jailbreaking iOS -- he had already tested the jailbreak on iPod 3G, iPhone 4, iPod 3 and iPod 1. Then, he planned to turn his attention to what most are waiting for -- a jailbreak solution for the iPad 2 and new iPhone 4S.

After finding an untethered jailbreak solution for devices supported by Apple's A4 processors pod2g and MuscleNerd have been working to crack the code for setting the A5 devices free. MuscleNerd got hopes up today with a tweet, announced by pod2g on his iOS blog.

@MuscleNerd tweeted something really interesting today:

The latest ipsw released by Apple for the 4S contains an unencrypted
ramdisk with the vfdecrypt key in plain text.

Everybody can decrypt the filesystem with it !

Is it a Christmas gift from Apple ?

Weird, isn't it ?

Pod2g also announced in a blog post, iPhone 3Gs 5.0.1 jb worked. Remaining to test: iPod 4G & iPhone 4 CDMA running 5.0.1.

So the Apple device owner-hopefuls wait, and eagerly tune in, seeing if the story will indeed have a happy ending, allowing them to have the highly-sought untethered iPhone jailbreak iOS 5.

Iphone Ios Ipad 2 Iphone