Less than 24 hours after iOS 6 was announced at WWDC 2012, a developer beta of the forthcoming software appears to have been jailbroken.

The iPhone Dev Team's MuscleNerd revealed in a tweet that he had found a way to jailbreak an iO6 developer beta running on a 4th generation iPod Touch. MuscleNerd notes that a beta jailbreak available to the public is still in the works.

So far, it's a tethered jailbreak without access to Cydia's third-party app market, making it largely irrelevant to the general public. But the speed at which iOS 6 was cracked suggests that it's likely an untethered, full-fledged jailbreak is on the way.

The iOS 6 announcement revealed that iOS users can expect up to 200 new features when the firmware is released in the autumn, including the introduction of a new Apple mapping service, upgraded Siri functionality and comprehensive Facebook integration.

Last month, the Chronic Dev Team revealed that more than one million iOS devices had been jailbroken using their Absinthe 2.0 untethered jailbreak tool.

Of course, it has to be pointed out that jailbreaking your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch voids the device's warranty and can lead to serious functionality issues.