Sneaky software jailbreaks the iPad for advanced OS customisation, installation of ‘unapproved’ third-party apps and even sending SMS texts from an iPad 3G!
Well
that didn’t take long. Some clued-in codejockeys have created a ‘jailbreak’ program for Apple’s shiny new iPad, so even before it’s launched in Australia later this month you know that it can be bent to your will.
The
Spirit software ‘liberates’ the iPad, which runs iPhone OS X 3.2, along with as any iPhone and iPod Touch running the most recent 3.12 or 3.13 updates.
Spirit also installs a link to the
Cydia app store so users can download their own selection of non-approved apps.
A full tutorial on how to jailbreak the iPad with Spirit is already up at
ReadWriteWeb.
The group has also demonstrated the black art of sending text messages from an iPad 3G, using a copy of the iPhone’s inbuilt SMS app ported onto a
jailbroken iPad.
While it doesn’t function as a
finger-friendly app, they’ve been able to use command line mode to run
the app and send SMS texts. We presume that once the SMS app is properly
implemented, or a replacement third-party app created, it’ll also be
possible to receive texts on your 3G iPad.
Sadly, US carrier AT&T has chosen to disable SMS functionality from the 3G accounts bundled with the iPad. In order to send these SMS messages the
iPhone Dev Team had to insert a trimmed-down SIM card trimmed down from T-Mobile.