From Engadget yesterday:

Merely three days after hearing of one user's run-in with Apple over his unlocked iPhone, the company has released an official statement warning users that "unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs" could cause "irreparable damage to the iPhone's software." Furthermore, the firm stated that these apps could result in the handset becoming "permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed" -- you know, like the one coming "later this week" that includes the iTunes WiFi Music Store.

The team that developed the unlocking software offered a response today:

Based on download numbers, the iPhone Dev Team believes that, worldwide, several hundred thousand people have unlocked their iPhones. That number continues growing every day. The removal of the lock, a bug, was a major step forward in the iPhone development. It made the iPhone free and useful to anyone, not only to those in certain countries.

Apple now announces that the next firmware update, expected later this week, will possibly break the handset of all of us free users in the World. It speaks of "damage" done to the firmware and "unauthorized access" to our own property, The removal of those firmware problems, which were built in in favor for AT&T, does not cause "damage" as they want to make us believe.

We will provide you with a tool in the next week which will be able to recover your nck counter and seczones and even enables you to restore your phone to a Factory-like state.

Apple has taken a lot of flack for this statement, with people arguing that they are fearmongering with their claim that the unlock will break their phone when the firmware update comes out, and by making such an update in the first place.? My question is, why would Apple go to the trouble of telling people about the problem ahead of time?? Why not just release the update and break all the hacked phones, thereby making people wary of unlocking things at all?

To me, this whole exchange seems like some tricky subtextul communication between Apple and the iPhone hackers to keep customers, who want unlocked iPhones and give apple $, and vendors, who want locked iPhones and give apple $, happy while still allowing everyone to go about their business:

Apple: I'm going to give you until the count of 3 to put your iPhone back the way you found it! I'd hate to have to take away your privileges altogether (wink, wink)!

iPhone Dev Team: Okay, okay, you win.? I'll put the iPhone back the way it was.? You can roll out that upgrade whenever you'd like (wink, wink).

I guess we'll see what happens the next time around...