The First iPad Jailbreak

George Hot (a.k.a. Geohot) has done it again: From the guy who was first to hack the PS3 and the iPhone comes a fast and easy new jailbreak for lots of iDevices. One of these, of course, is the iPad, which hasn't even gone on sale yet.

Earlier on Geohot Twittered a link to a video where he demonstrated his funky new hacking technique on an iPod Touch. It's cleverest aspect is that it's "completely untethered." In other words, to hack your iPhone to free it of Apple's restrictive shackles, you simply have to run Geohot's code, without needing to have a PC handy to connect your iDevice to.

Geohot has obviously achieved something a bit special. He notes it's even simple to use, which may tempt some potential jailbreakers who may have been wary of messing with their expensive product's software before.

But the most staggering implication, as George notes, is that the hack should "probably work" on the iPad too, since it runs on the same core software as the iPhone. And this opens up a whole world...no, a whole universe of opportunity. Because the iPhone was powerful enough to allow jailbreakers to craft some very clever apps for it (even if they're apps that Apple would prefer you not to run, due to "non-optimal" behaviors or contractual problems like overloading a cellphone network with traffic from Skype. But the iPad is bigger, and way more powerful.

And there's one final spot of hope in this news. Now Geohot's done this, we've started a countdown that will get many potential tech-savvy Wi-fi iPad buyer's interest: iPad-to-iPhone-3G-tethering apps in 5...4...3...