While we continue working on the two current remaining challenges from Apple (the iPhone 3G soft unlock and iPod Touch 2G jailbreak…see the end of this post), we’re also watching the latest beta releases from Apple.

The first beta 2.2 from Apple reveals a few things:

1. They’re continuing with their ski-resort theme;  Version 2.2 is nicknamed TImberline.
2. They’ve gone back to using expiry dates.  The first 2.2 beta is due to expire on November 30, 2008.  They stopped using expiry dates about halfway through the 2.1 betas, but for some reason they’ve started using them again.
3. Version 2.2 is still vulnerable to pwnage and quickpwn on everything but iPod Touch 2G.

To demonstrate point #3, here’s the non-AppStore application Terminal.app running on 2.2, showing the kernel build information.

Hardware already vulnerable to pwnage remains vulnerable in version 2.2.

Regarding the two current challenges:  the 3G iPhone soft unlock and iPod Touch 2G jailbreak are still relatively new challenges (compare them with the timeframe of the iPhone challenges last year).  We’re making slow advances on both fronts, but it’s not the sort of thing that can be easily described in a blog like this.

But, to maybe show how interlinked these challenges are, this weekend we’ll be trying some hardware based ideas on the iPod Touch 2G jailbreak :)