A third-generation iPad with a Retina display lying on a white surface. Photo: pahudson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
When the new iPad, the third generation with a 2048 x 1536 Retina display, went on sale in March 2012, jailbreak fans asked the same question within hours: how long until we can jailbreak it? Our "Jailbreak iPad 3" page tracked every hint and tweet. This is the cleaned-up version of that story.
A new chip, a new wall
The iPad 3 used the A5X, a variant of the A5 with a more powerful graphics unit to drive all those pixels. That meant the old hardware exploits did not apply, and the device shipped with iOS 5.1, which had already patched the holes used by the first Absinthe.
The progress reports
Several researchers worked on the problem in parallel. MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev Team confirmed that an older exploit still worked well enough to get a foothold and pull the kernel information needed for further work. The German researcher i0n1c posted images of an iPad 2 jailbroken on iOS 5.1, and pod2g, who had been central to Absinthe, ordered an iPad 3 to start testing.
For readers, these updates were like following a sports transfer saga. Every screenshot was analysed, and every "soon" was treated as a promise. Some forum regulars even ran friendly wagers on the release week, which probably taught them more about overconfidence than about exploits.
The answer: Absinthe 2.0
The wait lasted roughly two months. In late May 2012 the jailbreak "Dream Team" released Absinthe 2.0, an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1.1 that supported almost every iOS device of the time, including the new iPad. It was one of the broadest releases in jailbreak history.
Why the iPad mattered
- The big screen made tweaks for multitasking, split views and custom docks far more useful than on a phone.
- Many of those ideas later became official: iPad multitasking gestures arrived in iOS 5, and Split View and Slide Over came with iOS 9 in 2015.
- The iPad also became a popular second screen for card games, from solitaire to poker, long before tablets were common in living rooms.
If you still own a third-generation iPad, it cannot run anything newer than iOS 9 and has not received security updates for years. It is fine for reading or as a photo frame at home, but keep it away from anything involving passwords or payments. Our checklist for old devices covers how to wipe it properly before passing it on.