If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last few years, it’s to never underestimate the hacker community -- they love a challenge, and they’re awfully resilient. Case in point: Apple’s latest iOS 5, which has already been jailbroken using an iPod touch.

Engadget is reporting that Apple’s latest and greatest for mobile devices has already gone under the jailbreak knife. We speak, of course, of iOS 5 -- only released to developers mere hours ago and already freed from its fruit-lined prison. How do they do it?

“See those Cydia and iSSH icons? How about the Reminders and Newstand apps, see those?” Engadget queries. “What you're looking at is the harmonious coexistence of hacks and Apple's virgin iOS 5 beta release running on a fourth-generation iPod touch. In other words, MuscleNerd and Co are letting us know that iOS 5 presents few surprises so far when its comes to closing the existing holes exploited by the tethered limera1n jailbreak.”

The word came down as it usually does, through the Twitter account of @MuscleNerd, spokesman for the Dev Team we all know and love. Of course, just because a jailbreak with iOS 5 has been successful doesn’t mean it will be released imminently -- these folks like to let Apple play their hand first, and there are surely a few iOS 5 beta versions yet to come before the final release this fall.

And let’s not forget, the iPad 2 is still akin to the “White Whale” for the Dev Team -- it still hasn’t been jailbroken even on the current iOS 4.3 due to its updated bootrom, which has thus far been like Kryptonite for the limera1n exploit. So the cat and mouse game continues…

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(Image courtesy of Engadget and The Dev Team)