Apple Warns Against iPhone Unlocking

When I first noticed an e-mail entitled, “Apple today released the following statement:”, I was quite sure I knew what information it was going to include, and lo and behold, my predictions were correct. In what may be the smallest Apple press release we’ve seen, they stress that unlocking your iPhone will be a bad idea and mention that future updates will potentially render the phone useless.

An update later this week will be adding the iTunes WiFi Music Store that was first seen with the iPod touch, and once deployed, your unlocked phone may no longer be unlocked. Whether or not it would be an easy fix to “re-hack” or not, is yet to be seen. You can read the entire press release below.

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone’s warranty.