I’ve been following the news this summer about people and their shiny new iPhones - how they were hacked almost overnight of being released, and people are doing all kinds of nifty things on them, especially, exercising their right to use their phones on any network. (You are allowed to do it by law) But Apple, not content to have the sweet exclusive AT&T deal they arranged, is fighting back. Are they going too far, what is too far?
First, Apple announced that hacking an iPhone would void the warranty. Understandable. But that wasn’t stopping any technophiles that didn’t want to receive 50-page phone bills in the mail and get charged huge roaming fees while traveling outside the country. iPhone hacking continued unabated.

Earlier this week, Apple announced that it had ‘discovered’ that hacking an iPhone damages the iPhone software. A further warning that probably didn’t cause much of a stir. First of all, the iPhones are the property of the people who bought them. And Apple has the dubious bias of profiting from stopping people from hacking their phones, so who’s to trust them on that assertion?

Apple executives say they have discovered that many of those unauthorized unlocking programs cause some software damage to iPhones.

Okay, so what if Microsoft warns us that installing Firefox will damage our computers. Sorry, I’m still not going to use internet explorer. But what if Microsoft sent out a windows update that made your computer lock up if you had firefox installed? Guess what Apple did.

In Steve Jobs Girds for the long iPhone War, we find out just how far Apple is willing to go to ensure its exclusive deal with AT&T, by installing a patch, supposedly to “protect” people’s own iPhones, but has the consequence of locking up iPhones that have been hacked. Leaving aside how Apple is gearing up to alienate itself from the technophile crowd that has been its bread-and-butter for years, is it right for Apple to do this? You bought an iPhone, it’s your right to use your cell phones on any network you want to, and Apple tries to prevent you from doing so after you’ve already done it?

Now what about alienating their fan base? Can they even prevent people from doing what they will with their new iPhones?

Since the iPhone is a very sleek, capable handheld computer, people are going to want to run programs on it. They are going to want to hack and see what they can build. It’s a law of nature. And Apple might as well be fighting gravity.

It also seems strange that Apple would make such a big deal over a bunch of hackers - who are probably a small proportion of their sales. I don’t know how to hack an iPhone, even if I looked up how. And I’m more technically-inclined than most.

I don’t know, Apple never seemed particularly appealing to me, except, that apple computers can route audio from program to program, which windows computers cannot do. I’m not too interested in iPods, because they just play music (or video), and don’t let you listen to radio, or record audio, which is why I have an iRiver. The iPhone just sounded like an expensive combination of functions that work fine on their own, in their own devices. And the lack of flexibility…

With this latest salvo, could Apple be following in the footsteps of Microsoft of yesteryear, and be turning into the next evil empire?

UPDATE (6 pm): It seems that the “iPhone Dev Team” plans to release a counter-salvo to release iPhone hackers, who according to them may number in the hundreds of thousands, from Apple’s attempt to shut them down. Go get em!

UPDATE (Oct 1): Phil Plait, a Mac user, chimes in on the issue and thinks that Apple “screwed up MASSIVELY on this.“