That Was Fast: iOS 6 Developer Beta Has Already Been Jailbroken

Apple’s Scott Forstall officially introduced the world to iOS 6 less than 24 hours ago, and already it seems like an intrepid hacker has managed to jailbreak it.

MuscleNerd (of iPhone Dev Team fame) announced from his Twitter account earlier this morning that he managed to jailbreak a 4th generation iPod Touch running the recently-released iOS 6 developer beta, though he’s quick to note that it’s not exactly ready for prime time yet.

Before you get your hopes up too much, know this — the jailbreak is still in its very early stages, and as such it isn’t yet available to the public. Hell, even if it was made available, it wouldn’t actually do people much good, as crucial features like the Cydia third-party software storefront don’t work yet.

On top of all that, it’s also a tethered jailbreak, which means that should the jailbroken iDevice ever run out of juice, it must be connected to and rebooted from a computer. Not exactly the kind of process one likes to deal with on a regular basis, but an untethered jailbreak method is sure to come down the line.

All that said, it’s still pretty astonishing to see such progress made already, and it bodes well for a full-fledged jailbreak method to come after all those little hiccups have been addressed. Apple plans to release iOS 6 to the masses some time this fall, and with any luck the jailbreaking community will be as diligent about this release as they have been about others — let’s not forget that particularly brave users were able to jailbreak iOS 5.0 just a day after it was officially released.