You can try the iOS 5 on your iPhone or iPod Touch right now without a dev account

Surely there are lots of people who are not willing to pay $99/year for a developer’s account but still want to try the iOS 5 ahead of its release. Well, it is possible to do so because you could bypass the activation with these simple instructions.

The step-by-step tutorial is quite simple really, but you need to know a few things first:

• If you update an iPad 2 with iOS 5 Beta you won’t be able to downgrade and will be stuck with it until the official iOS 5 is released.
• If you update an iPhone (3GS/4) with the iOS 5, after the activation the cellular service won’t be available and you will be soon going through a downgrade process.
• iPod Touch (3G/4G) seems to encounter no limitations so far.

Now that we are clear about the risks and limitations, here is the guide to install and activate iOS 5 Beta on your iGadget.

• 1. Download (some googling needed) and install the iOS 5 Beta via the latest iTunes (10.5 beta works, 10.3.1 unconfirmed) the usual way – hold Shift (Windows) or Option (Mac) and click on Restore. Find the downloaded IPSW and wait for the installation to finish.
• 2. You should be on the activation screen now. Triple click the Home button to activate the Voice Over.
• 3. Triple click the Home button again for Emergency call.
• 4. Click on the Emergency call and while it’s switching swipe down with three fingers.
• 5. Now you should be on the Notification Center. Click on the Weather widget to load the Weather app.
• 6. Exit the Weather app with the Home button.
• 7. You are now on the Springboard and your iGadget is activated.

Clever, right. This exploit was discovered by Mert Erdir, an app developer without a developer account (because he can’t afford to pay for it). So if you are in a good mood, you could send him some money so he can become a legit Apple iOS developer.

Source