Tablet tinkering is all the rage.
Enterprising hackers rooted the Kindle Fire mere days after its November 15 launch (then re-rooted it when Amazon plugged the leak with new firmware), allowing users full Android OS support and access to the Android Market. Barnes & Noble's new Nook Tablet suffered a similar fate. And do we even need to mention the iPad?
The latest victim (or lucky fanbase, depending on who you ask) is RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. A tutorial posted on Tuesday walks interested PlayBook owners through the jailbreaking process, letting them install the Android Market and more.
The simple eight-step process (nine, if you count fooling around with your handiwork afterword) was published at Pastie.org by a hacker called neuralic. All it requires is a Dingleberry-rooted PlayBook, the 2.0 beta and a general launcher app.
Of course, there are risks to counter the rewards.
"Messing with the Android Player causes stuff to break quite often," warned the hacker. "If you edit the wrong files, you will probably have to restore your device. You shouldn't be able to do any permanent damage, but make sure to backup before playing with anything. I take no responsibility for damage to your device."
Following the jailbreak's release, PlayBook creator Research in Motion told Kaspersky Labs' security blog Threat Post that it was already investigating the workaround.
"RIM is following its standard security response process to investigate the functionality and impact of this tool and if needed, RIM will develop, test, and release a software update that is designed to minimize the potential adverse impact to our customers," said the company.
In other words: jailbreak while you can. (via Threat Post)
