BEIRUT: A California man claims to have jailbroken the Apple iPhone 5 within the first day of its release, the website All Things Digital reported Saturday.

Grant Paul, a self-described software hacker and open source enthusiast from San Francisco, has used his skills to bypass the technical restrictions on this year’s best-selling phone, which he published on his Twitter account.

“I started working on it the day before the iPhone 5 was released, and I had my iPhone 4S jailbroken on iOS 6 in a few hours,” Paul told All Things Digital.

“Then, once I got an iPhone 5, it was even easier; It took just about half an hour from first turning it on to a jailbroken iPhone 5.”

By jailbreaking, a hacker is able to bypass many of the software restrictions on the smartphone, allowing access to the barebones operating system. Among other things, it allows users to download applications that are not available at the Apple Store and add certain customizations to the device.

According to All Things Digital, it appears by the pictures on his Twitter account that Paul has installed the popular Cydia open-source application on his new iPhone 5.

Unlike its smartphone competitors, such as Android, Apple does not allow for downloads outside its store. Paul says he hopes that his jailbreak will inspire other hackers to do the same, thereby pressuring Apple to lift its downloading restrictions.

“I want to stress that the biggest impact of this is to allow other jailbreak creators to start working on their own jailbreaks,” he told the tech website. “In the past, this same set of methods to get into the device has helped others gain enough access to create and test a jailbreak that does end up being released to the public.”