Many users of the iPhone have gone the route of hacking the phone, to enable them to download any iPhone application they really want, whether it's authorized by Apple and available at their store or not. Apple is insisting that the Copyright Office must declare this sort of iPhone hacking illegal, and that sounds like a logical, pretty straightforward conclusion. But certainly the users who do the hacking don't see it that way at all. They tend to blame Apple's own monopolistic tendencies for this phenomenon, and they view the company's resolve to make it illegal simply as evidence that they're right.
Yet there are different reasoning for iPhone hacks too, or for the activity known as "jailbreaking." The author of the www.hackthatphone.com blog feels that Apple is not that interested by what its phone customers want, and that the company doesn't even care if the programs they would like to use are safe on their devices or not. According to this writer, Apple wants to keep each and every iPhone application under its thumb to preserve its own business model, and for no other reason. However, the author professes to have seen even Apple staff using hacked iPhones because they don't want to be so restricted.
Jay Freeman runs www.cydia.com, a store where people can download many an iPhone application either rejected by Apple or developed independently. He and other developers who place programs there believe that Apple is being arbitrary in its decisions of what applications to accept or reject for the App Store. Many of them view the current situation as analogous, for example, to Microsoft dictating which programs people are allowed to use with its operating system. This is simply regarded as a monopolistic no-no.
The way Apple and its American carrier, AT&T work together is another reason cited by people who do not confine their iPhone application downloading to the official store. Many rejected apps appear to have been rejected by Apple simply because they might curtail AT&T's controls or, more significantly, profits. As a result, many people are quite prepared to unlock iPhone technology to prevent themselves from being so restricted for what appears to be reasons that have little to do with the safety of the phones or the convenience of Apple's customers. With complaints about the company's choices and practices growing for these and other reasons, it's probable that hacking of the iPhone is unlikely to stop, whatever the ultimate legal decision might be.
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