Jailbreak iPad 2 Running iOS 6.1 using evasi0n on Mac OS X

The iPad 2 received a lot of praise when it was released in 2011, both from critics and users. At the time, Apple’s second generation iPad was the market leader when it came to tablets. Since then, Apple released the third generation iPad, the fourth generation iPad and the iPad mini. Of course the generation leap is visible especially in the hardware inside the newer tablets and while the hardware inside the fourth generation iPad is more advanced and no match for the iPad 2′s specifications, the second generation iPad does share many similarities with the mini version of Apple’s best selling tablet. Both the iPad 2 and the iPad mini have the same screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (lower than the iPad 4′s 2048 x 1536 pixels resolution), however the second generation iPad has a lower pixels per inch density than both the mini and fourth generation iPads: 132 PPI for the iPad 2, 163 for the iPad mini and a 264 PPI density for the iPad 4′s Retina display (which is a big missing feature of the iPad 2). Even so, while many people made the jump to the newer models, there are still many owners of a second generation iPad and some of them like to Jailbreak their iPad 2 so they can use Cydia and the many tweaks offered by it. If you fit both these criteria: you own an iPad 2 and you like to Jalbreak your tablet, you probably know that you couldn’t, until now, Jailbreak your iOs 6.1 iPad 2 Untethered. That changed recently though, because a new Jailbreak tool was released that allows you to Jailbreak your iPad 2 running iOS 6.

A team of developers that call themselves the Evad3rs, developed and released a Jailbreak tool called Evasi0n. This Jailbreak tool hit the Internet in the first Sunday of this month to the delight of many people that were waiting for it to release. Since the second generation iPads running iOS 6 could not be Jailbroken before the release of Evasi0n, it is no surprise that the tool was anticipated by a lot of iPad 2 owners (and not only by them). In this article we will offer you a detailed guide on how to use Evasi0n to Jailbreak your iPad 2 running iOS 6.1.

Before the guide, we will give you a bit more information about the Evade3s’ Jailbreak tool: Evasi0n. The tool will work with almost any iOS device on the market and is compatible with all the available iOS 6 versions; that means that it does not matter if your iPad 2 is running either iOS 6.0, iOS 6.0.1, iOS 6.0.2 or iOS 6.1 as you will still be able to Jailbreak it using the Evasi0n tool. None of these iOS 6.x versions allowed you to Jailbreak your second generation iPad before the evad3rs developers found vulnerabilities in iOS 6.x which they exploited and offered you the result of their work in the form of the Evasi0n Jailbreak tool.

We should also inform you that the developers at evad3rs made their Jailbreak tool available on a variety of Operating Systems, with the purpose of making it easy for as many people as possible to Jailbreak their iPad 2. You will be able to download Evasi0n for the following platforms: Mac OS X, Linux (x86 / x86_64) and the Windows Operating System (minimum recommended version is XP) which means just about everybody should be able to use the Evasi0n tool to Jailbreak their iPad 2. To make sure you are ready to begin the Jailbreak process, you must first make sure that you have the following things: an iPad 2, of course, running iOS 6.1 (though any version of iOS 6.x can be Jailbroken as we already mentioned), a computer running Mac OS X (you will need 10.6 minimum) and an USB cable that you will use to establish a connection between your second generation iPad and your Mac OS X computer.

Step 1.

The tool that you are going to use in order to Jailbreak your iPad 2 is the Evasi0n Jailbreak tool so first things first: go to our dedicated Jailbreak tools page and download the Evasi0n Jailbreak tool to your computer. Since this ‘how to‘ guide is for the Mac OS X version of Evasi0n, be sure to choose the correct version to download. After the tool is downloaded on your computer, go to its location and extract the archive.

Step 2.

Now you will have to launch the Jailbreak tool and in order to do so you will have to go to where you extracted the archive and from there double click on the extracted file.

Step 3.

This step may apply or it may not apply to you depending on whether your second generation iPad has a Passcode enabled or not. If it does not have a Passcode enabled, you can skip this step; if it does has a Passcode enabled you will have to disable the Passcode. To disable it, first unlock your iPad 2 and then go to Settings; from Settings go to General and from there go to Passcode Lock. Now you simply have to choose Turn Passcode Off and you will be ready to continue with the Jailbreak process.

Step 4.

During the fourth step you will connect your iPad 2 to your computer. You will be able to establish a connection between the tablet and your the computer thanks to the USB cable that we mentioned you will need.

Step 5.

After connecting your iPad 2 to your computer, you should see a screen that informs you that your iPad 2 was detected by the Evasi0n Jailbreak tool. The exact message should be “iPad 2 with iOS 6.1 detected. Click the button to begin“. To continue with the Jailbreak process, you will of course need to press the Jailbreak button as Evasi0n informs you; however you won’t be able to press the button if your iPad 2 is not correctly detected by Evasi0n. Another thing that Evasi0n suggests you do is to backup your iPad 2 before beginning the Jailbreak process. The odds of something bad happening during the Jailbreak process are small, but even so why take the chance? Just in case something does happen it is better to be able to recover your data from a backup. In the end it’s your call on whether to backup your iPad 2 before the Jailbreak process or not.

Step 6.

After the Evasi0n tool correctly detected your second generation iPad, the Jailbreak process can begin; all you need to do is press the Jailbreak button and at that point Evasi0n will start preparing Jailbreak data.

Step 7.

After pressing the Jailbreak button and starting the process, you will be required to be patient as the Evasi0n toll will execute a number of steps. The first of these steps is the one that we mentioned above, namely ‘preparing jailbreak data‘ during which Evasi0n is getting all the files that it needs to Jailbreak your iPad 2. After the ‘preparing jailbreak data‘ step, Evasi0n will also go through the following steps: ‘injecting jailbreak data‘ which will be followed by  a reboot of your iPad mini and after the reboot, Evasi0n will start ‘uploading the Cydia packages list‘. As we already recommended, during the execution of these steps it is best to be patient and not use your computer for other activities.

Step 8.

When all of the above mentioned automated steps are completed, Evasi0n will give you some instructions on what to do next. The instructions are as follows: first, you will have to unlock your iPad 2 and then search your Home screen for a new icon. This icon was created by the Evasi0n tool and should be named “Jailbreak”. Tap this icon once (it is important that you only tap on it once) and when you do so the screen will go black and return you to the Home screen.

Step 9.

After following the above instructions and after you have been returned to the Home screen, the Evasi0n tool will start executing another series of automated steps. Among them, you will be informed that Evasi0n is ‘injecting jailbreak data‘ and finally that the ‘Root Filesystem was successfully remounted!‘. As with the previous instance when the Evasi0n tool performed automated steps, we again recommend that you do not use your computer for any other activities during this time and you wait patiently for the Evasi0n tool to finish.

Step 10.

When all of these steps are also completed you will be notified on screen that the process is “Done“. The entire message that you will see displayed on your computer’s screen should be “Done! Device will now reboot. Please be patient, the boot will take a bit longer than usual to do a first time setup. The device may restart several times“. That means that your iPad 2 will reboot and after it reboots Evasi0n will perform a a first time setup. Again, it is recommended that you find something to do, away from the computer, until the Evasi0n tool finishes with the first time setup. Also please don’t worry about the long boot time as it is perfectly normal as are the several restarts that will happen during the setup process.

Step 11.

When the first time setup is finished, on your second generation iPad’s screen you will see The Evasi0n logo over a white background. During the next few minutes you will also see lots of messages displayed on the screen, some for a very short period of time – these messages will describe what Evasi0n is doing at the time. You don’t need to worry about them too much, but if you are curious, the messages are: ‘Setting up fstab and AFC2‘, ‘Setting up Cydia‘, ‘Setting up Cydia packages‘, ‘Clearing SpringBoard Cache‘ and the last message should be ‘Rebooting‘ and it will of course end with your iPad 2 rebooting. This reboot is the last of the Jailbreak process so after all these messages stop and your iPad 2 is rebooted you are ready for the next part.

During this part you will again see the Evasi0n logo over a white background and you will again see a few new messages appear for (in some cases, very) short periods of time. These will be the last group of messages as we are nearing the Jailbreak process’ end. As before, the messages will describe whatever Evasi0n is doing at the time and you will be informed that it is ‘Initializing offsets‘, ‘Finding offsets‘, ‘Patching kernel‘, ‘Cleaning up!’ and the last message you will see on the screen will be ‘Done! Continuing boot‘. After this last message, the Jailbreak process should be complete and you should be at the Lock screen.

Step 12.

We are almost done; just a few more things to do. This last step is very easy and should only take a few minutes. From the Lock screen, unlock your iPad 2 and go to the second (in some cases, the third – depends on how many Apps you have) Home screen page and you should see Cydia there. Tap on Cydia to launch it. This will be the first time you run Cydia on your newly Jailbroken iPad 2 so there will be a setup process that might take a few minutes. After Cydia initializes you will be returned once again (and for the last time during this Jailbreak process) to the Lock screen . From there you will have to unlock your iPad 2 and open Cydia again. All you have to do now is select the user type that you want and you are ready to use Cydia. Congratulations – you now have a Jailbroken iPad 2. We also advise that you read the notes below; other than that, the Jailbreak process is finished so enjoy your Jailbroken iPad 2.

Notes:

Before diving into the Jailbreak experience on your iPad 2, there is one small thing you might need to do. If you did not skip the third step and your second generation iPad had a Passcode (before starting the Jailbreak process) that you had to disable during step three of our guide, please enable the Passcode after you have completed the Jailbreak process on your iPad 2. So unlock your iPad 2, navigate to Settings, from there to General and finally to Passcode Lock. There you should simply Turn Passcode On and the Passcode will be enabled once again. One last thing to note: as we informed you already, we wrote this ‘how to‘ guide for the Mac OS X version of Evasi0n. If you are a Windows Operating System user or a Linux Operating System user, your OS of choice is not covered by this ‘how to‘ guide, but it should be a similar process.

Now you can enjoy your Jailbroken second generation iPad thanks to the efforts of the Evad3rs team’s  members. You will now have access to a huge number of tweaks and if you want to find the best of them we advise you to read some of our articles here at iosdoc.com as we cover everything iOS.  If you have any comments or suggestions, you can use the comments section below.