Despite being described (and in some cases dismissed) as “an iPhone without the phone”, the iPod Touch is proving to be its own little challenge when it comes to jailbreaking the PMP.  Jailbreak, as any iPhone tweaker is likely to know, is a fan-made piece of software which opens up the iPhone to third-party software and all manner of hacks (such as custom ringtones and the like); it was expected that the iPod Touch jailbreak would come soon after launch, possibly even using the same software, but it hasn’t been so straightforward.

It turns out that hacks for the iPod Touch will have to take a back seat while coders figure out the differences; so far it’s looking like Apple’s engineers have been a little more cunning in trying to prevent their PMP from being hacked, with things like the onboard asr file encryption code being zero’d out (unlike with the first-gen iPhone) and seemingly an altered “language” for Touch-iTunes communication.

Implications so far are twofold; first, that hackers like TUAW’s Erica Sadun are predicting a potentially long wait for the iPod Touch jailbreak to be available “without a clear line of sight to the goal”, and secondly speculation that - if it continues to elude modification - Apple may co-opt this new software design for future versions of the iPhone.

As ever, we’ll bring you news of any development, so keep reading Apple-Touch.com!

UPDATE: 10/11/2007
How to Jailbreak iPod Touch (require member registration)

UPDATE: 10/10/2007
iPod touch hacked and Jailbroken!

UPDATE: 10/8/2007
iPhone / iPod touch firmware 1.1.1 is almost Jailbroken! Click this link for more information and join the discussion.