A 13-year-old programmer, AriX, has developed a software tool for jailbreaking (unlocking for third-party applications) your iPod Touch with 1.1.1 firmware. The application, which currently works only on Macs with Intel processors, is called iJailBreak and the only user interaction required is for you to restart the iPod Touch.

The code is readily available for free on Google Code (http://code.google.com/p/ijailbreak/) and is released under the GNU General Public License v2. Once "jailbroken", it allows the iPod Touch to run many of the 3rd party iPhone applications.

Users simply need to run iJailbreak on their Macs, connect their iPod Touch and restart it using the lock/power button on the device. iJailbreak handles the rest, eventually placing the Installer.app icon on the iPod touch's home screen, ready to install third-party apps. The actual "jailbreaking" of the iPod Touch reportedly takes around 7 minutes.

IPod Touch users who have Windows PCs should know that there is a free application for their OS too. It's called touchFree (http://www.slovix.com/touchfree/) and it requires a Wi-Fi connection on your iPod to do the initial TIFF hack (visiting one link with Safari). An internet connection is not required for the rest of the jailbreak.

In case you mess up, just do a full system restore (also recommended prior to jailbreaking). To do this, connect your iPod and hold down the SLEEP/WAKE and HOME buttons simultaneously until Apple's logo appears on the screen. Then release the SLEEP/WAKE button but continue to hold the HOME button pressed. After a short while, iTunes will notify you that the iPod has entered recovery mode and can now be restored. Accept, and click Restore.

Furthermore, if you want to SSH and SFTP into your iPod Touch for more advanced work, as required by the install process of certain applications like iPhone's maps.app, type "ssh -l root [IP address]" into terminal. The password is "alpine". Then open your SFTP program and SFTP into the iPod Touch using the iPod's IP address. The username is "root" and the password is, once more, "alpine".