An untethered jailbreak is now available for both A5 iDevices: the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S! Thanks to the efforts of iOS hacker pod2g of the Chronic Dev Team, this untethered jailbreak comes through a new tool that goes by the name of Absinthe A5, based off the team’s popular Greenpois0n software.

MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev Team has recently confirmed via Twitter that the iPhone 4S (and iPad 2) have been jailbroken on iOS 5. Of course, this claim did not come without proof as you can see in the screenshot and the video demonstration past the jump. Unfortunately, this is a very early version of the jailbreak, and an ETA on a release date is not to be expected for a while.

Ever since the release of iOS 5, the iPhone Dev Team has been releasing constant updates to its redsn0w tool, and another update has made its way out. redsn0w 0.9.9b7 isn’t a major update by any means, as its main purpose is to speed up the jailbreak process by disabling the “stashing” of applications, although this can be re-enabled in redsn0w’s Preferences pane. If left disabled, the stashing process will take place when a user launches Cydia for the first time, instead.

Shortly after the iPhone Dev Team’s release of redsn0w 0.9.9b5, 0.9.9b6 is now available for both Windows and OS X, and includes some improvements and new features. 0.9.9b5 was released for OS X only, as it brought the ability to create a custom IPSW, a feature which was not ready for Windows at the time. Windows users will be happy to know 0.9.9b6 brings this new feature to the platform, along with all of the other new features and improvements of this release.

As iOS 5 has been released, some of its new users have been scrambling to jailbreak the software update on their iDevice(s). Although an untethered jailbreak isn’t yet available for iOS 5, it is currently being worked on by multiple iOS hackers and is expected to be released in the near future; a tethered jailbreak is just as possible now as it was during the iOS 5 beta stage.

redsn0w 0.9.9b3 for OS X (and 0.9.9b3a for Windows) is just like the rest of the redsn0w betas that the iPhone Dev Team has been putting out during the iOS 5 beta period as it supports the same iDevices and the same tethered jailbreak on most of them. An untethered jailbreak can be expected after iOS 5 finally rolls out publicly on October 12th, although of course there are no promises of there even being a publicly released untethered jailbreak for iOS 5 at all.

MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev Team has announced via Twitter that the JailbreakMe web site is no longer safe for jailbreaking your iDevice(s). Drudge of Conceited Software, the former owner of the JailbreakMe domain, has sold it to an unknown buyer for an unknown price (I can imagine it was pretty high for him to go through with it). Therefore, the JailbreakMe web site is no longer under the control of the iPhone Dev Team.

The iPhone Dev Team has been keeping up with the iOS 5 betas and the ability to perform a tethered jailbreak on them by updating their redsn0w app regularly. This latest update, however, does not come alongside an iOS 5 beta release, but instead improves the redsn0w app by adding plenty of new features and improvements.

Well-known 19-year-old iOS hacker Nicholas Allegra—known by his alias “comex” and most notable for his creation of the JailbreakMe website/iOS jailbreaking tool—has been hired as an intern for Apple, an undoubtedly smart move by the company and quite bad news for the jailbreak community. comex announced the internship via his Twitter account, which he says will begin in approximately two weeks from now.

While OS X users will have to wait a bit longer until the iPhone Dev Team releases another redsn0w beta to be compatible with iOS 5 beta 6, iOS developers on Windows will be happy to know that iH8sn0w has released Sn0wbreeze 2.8b6 to add compatibility with the new iOS 5 beta. As always, the jailbreak is tethered and supports the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch, and 1st generation iPad.