Modders Jailbreak Third Generation iPad on Day of Release

It didn't take long for modders to jailbreak Apple's brand spanking new iPad device, which was hacked into within hours of being released to the public. The first to do so was well known iPhone hacker MuscleNerd, who tweeted a picture of his jailbroken iPad 3 device. He qualified the pic by saying this is "just a first step, still lots of work to do! No ETA!"

Another well known iOS hacker, Stefan Esser (i0n1C) announced that he too has jailbroken his third generation iPad, which he claims is also untethered. If you follow the modding scene, you'll recall that i0n1c was the one who discovered the untethered iOS 4.2.1 jailbreak exploit, which the iPhone Dev Team and other hackers quickly took advantage of. He posted a video of his jailbroken iPad on YouTube, embedded below.

Finally, hackers Grant Paul (chpwn) and Paul Griffin (phoenixdev) have come up with a third method to the jailbreak the new iPad, which they've shown running Cydia 1.1.5 on iOS 5.1.

None of these hacks are available to the general public yet, but given how quickly progress is being made, we suspect at least one will be released shortly. In the meantime, if you're hoping to jailbreak your new iPad, be sure to avoid software updates from Apple, as they could potentially plug up a necessary exploit that's used to jailbreak it.