iOS 4.3 GM released last week, already jailbroken, plus speed test against 4.2.1

Whenever previews, betas or pre-release software updates are made available, the geek community just loves digging in and seeing what’s in there. So when the iOS 4.3 Golden Master was seeded to developers last week, it’s not surprising that people were immediately poking around, to see how much of the beta came through and what bugs got tweaked. (If you want to join them in this search and discovery mission, you can download iOS 4.3 GM for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and the SDK here. Bear in mind, though — you’ll need a developer account.)

One of the major points Steve Jobs mentioned at the press conference last week was faster Safari browsing with 4.3 (thanks to that shiny new JavaScript goodness). But did that claim hold up in the real world? That’s what sites like Gizmodo and iSpazio wanted to find out.

According to a video that Gizmo shot, it wasn’t quite the speed demon fans may have expected. The vid (which has since been pulled for some reason) only showed a minor bump in speed. The New York Times website, on an iPhone 4 with new Safari in 4.3, only loaded a couple of seconds faster than an iPhone 4 with old Safari on 4.2.1.

If you want visual proof, Italian Cydia repo extraordinaire iSpazio has the goods. It posted a clip showing the speed difference across various sites loading on the iPad gen 1. So if you’re interested in the speed test (or even if you’re not, but love Florence + The Machine’s Dog Days Are Over), then check it out at the bottom of this post.

Speaking of jailbreaking, right on the heels of iOS 4.3 Golden Master getting released did a jailbreak for it come out. That’s right, it’s already jailbroken, thanks to PwnagetTool. We haven’t had a chance to test this ourselves yet, but if you’re adventurous or curious, the full instructions for tethered jailbreaks can be found here (for iPhone 4), here (for iPod touch 4G / 3G) and here (for iPad), courtesy of Redmond Pie. [UPDATE: See warning for people with already jailbroken devices below.]

If you attempt this, be sure to report back on how the process went for you.

Via: Gizmodo, Melamorsicata.it, RedmondPie

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fWEloHpZ4M[/youtube]

 

UPDATE: Jailbreak sites like iSmashPhone and BigBoss both warn about iOS 4.3: “With 4.3 comes apple’s implementation of address space layout randomization (ASLR). In short, this will mess up the way mobile substrate works. You will need a new mobile substrate in order to use your favorite tweaks such as winterboard, sbsettings, bitesms, folder enhancer, etc. So you should definitely avoid 4.3 until an ‘official’ jailbreak is released for it… Unlockers should also avoid the update until something official is released.” [via BigBoss]

Proceed with extreme caution and at your own risk.