As for “not respectful of the legal concerns of the manufacturer” — what about the right of the purchaser to do as he or she wishes with property legitimately purchased and owned? And the right of the person to share what he has done with others or perhaps a whole world via the Internet? Are these less important than Apple's legal concerns? Note *especially* that the hacking of the phones is not out of malice or a desire to harm Apple; it is merely to be able to use the product to it's full potential, to “free” it. Apple probably bears more malice towards the hackers than they do to it!

In short, it requires real, left-brained, objective skills that can be easily measured in terms of “does it work” and “does it not.” The results are always right in front of your face, and they're not in any shades of gray, and the only subjective part is “how well” it works — and there are lots of ways to define and measure *that*, too.

So please. Since the *extremely complex and sophisticated* process of finding a jailbreak exploit is “not a real, useful skill,” define for me and every other reader here what is.

(Terminology clarification note: I am using the “experimental” definition of hacker within the context of this posting. By that I mean that “hacker” is (at least in *this* context) defined as “an expert or enthusiast” and/or “A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.” Both definitions can be found in the Jargon File; this one specifically at http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html . I AM *NOT* REFERRING TO THE CRIMINAL DEFINITION OF HACKER.)

Jailbreaking your phone does more then merely allow unapproved apps. It unlocks many features on the iphone that are their but Apple doesn't want you to have access to. Its Apples way of holding off on features until the next release. That way they can fool you into buying the newest version even though the ability has been there all along.