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OK, I am not going to beat around the bush here. I am new to the iPhone world. While I have owned the original iPhone since the day it was released, I have only recently called an iPhone my daily driver. I now use my jailbroken iPhone 3GS every day unless I am reviewing another phone like I am now. I still carry that iPhone with me though. All that said, I have been in the smartphone game from the beginning.

In this article, I am going to discuss my views on what’s right and wrong in regards to altering your phone. I am going to use examples and my opinions are based on my own moral code and not necessarily what is truly right or wrong. To be honest, all modifications to a phone are wrong on some level. Every license agreement has some provisions within it that prohibits modification of the code. Despite those restrictions, we do it anyway and there are levels of wrong in all this.

For about 10 years, I have been pretty clean with “borrowing music or software”, but back in the late 90s, I might have partaken in some unsavory acts. I am not perfect by any means, but I do not feel downloading applications, games, music, movies, etc from a website or repository of illegal software is right. I know it’s out there, I know where to go, but I choose to buy the items I want or need now. Sure, stealing a song here and there might not cause someone to starve to death or incite riots in the streets, but if enough people steal their music, it will affect the industry negatively. Why do you think the RIAA is out there suing moms. Our younger generation is too desensitized to taking whatever they want off the internet. “But it’s there for the taking.” Right… so are those 50 pairs of shoes at the Shoe Carnival sidewalk sale while the worker goes inside to use the restroom. Anyway, I don’t do it and I don’t let my kids do it.

Now, the most recent questionable practice that I encountered often before I picked up the 3GS was ROMS for Windows Mobile Phones and PDAs. I took on a no thank you stance on this. I am not in the know so much on what happens in those circles, but what I think is that there are around 3 levels of ROM activity on some of these sites online.

Keep in mind this is my own assessment and these levels are by no means anything “official”.

The 1st level is casual. The casual level is really close to acceptable for me. In fact, If I used a single Windows Mobile device for any extended period of time, I would possibly take part in this level. The level I call level 1 basically are official ROMs ripped of the device it’s intended to work on, stripping the useless apps and processes, optimizing drivers, and then placing the same ROM back on the phone the ROM version was intended for. It’s all in the spirit of making their device run more efficiently. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. No 3rd party software was introduced to the device that is not licensed for it. Only code modifications. This is, in my opinion, the same as buying a registry editor and hacking the registry to make things run better and that’s never been deemed wrong. But, licenses for most device operating systems have verbiage in the license agreement saying that modification of the code “is” wrong.

On to the second level. This is where I would draw the line personally. This level are ROMs that are taken off another device, modified to run on your device, and adding it to your device. In addition, this level could be a device licensed to run Windows Mobile 6.1,  but a ROM from an unreleased version of that device that is Windows Mobile 6.5 is extracted and made to run on the device currently running Windows Mobile 6.1. The issue I have with this is that 6.5 was not licensed to run on this device. While this is relatively harmless, it still not right in my opinion.

The third level is straight up piracy in my opinion. This level is for those ROMs that are being cooked and including software from other OS version, cracked commercial apps, etc cooked right in. This happens in the Windows Mobile ROM community often. I think that some sites have cleaned out ROMs of this level from their repositories, but they are still easy to find.

I think the most valid example of this happened a few years ago in my own Dell Axim forums. Dell abandoned further development of the Axim. Users are locked at Windows Mobile 5, but someone put out a Windows Mobile 6 ROM for the Axim. Initially I shut discussion of this down on Aximsite. This caused some grief from many members and I lost quite a few members because of this choice. I felt the choice was right, but I was also scared of having any sort of legal action brought on my company by facilitating the development and growth of this ROM by allowing it to be openly discussed on the site. A couple years later, I decided to allow discussion, but never hosting or linking to where you could get the ROM. Whether I agreed with it morally or not, we support users that have Dell Axims and legit members needed help fixing devices after they had issues trying to use this ROM.

Taking this a step further, I upset some folks on another site when I was approached to host a custom ROM in that site’s name. I was not willing to put my site’s name on something I deemed wrong. Not only for the legal action that I feared, but the fact that I felt it was wrong.

Enter the iPhone!

Now we have other dilemmas in the mobile tech world to contend with. You have iPhone users, myself included, jailbreaking phones and unlocking phones. What is legal and what is not? Well, earlier this year, Apple filed a complaint with the Copyright Office stating that jailbreaking and unlocking are DCMA violations. They are right in some ways, but really, what level of “hacking” is jailbreaking. I put it in level 1 (casual) if we are going by the model I set for Windows Mobile ROMs. Jailbreaking an iPhone is really only modifying the code. This alone fine is6 in my book. Running unofficial, 3rd party applications is also fine in my book. These 3rd party apps are written by some really talented developers and are not “pirated” apps. For me, I only jailbreak to allow for customization of the iPhone UI as well as adding things to the phone that enhance it’s performance or functionality.

I am undecided about unlocking really. I have always been a against carriers locking a device into or out of their network. I don’t believe a carrier has the right to tell me what device I can or cannot run as long as the device is a proper device that can operate safely on that network. If I get a hot phone from AT&T at a discount and fulfill the 2 year contract, that phone is mine and when I take it to T-mobile, I feel I have the right to use that phone on T-Mobile’s network as long as it can operate correctly and causes no risk to the network. That said, I think I have to put unlocking into level 1 too. All you are doing is modifying the code within the software the phone is licensed to run. You are not stealing, just changing the code. Apple has argued that unlocking can be detrimental to a network though. They claim that hackers can potentially take out towers with DOS like attacks among other issues.

You can also argue that modifying the code on the iPhone is legal using these guidelines from copyright laws.

• Courts have long upheld the notion that software modification as a means of reverse engineering to foster interoperability with related systems is not a valid offense or violati
  on of the DMCA.
• Neither PwnageTool, nor any preceding tool, nor any related tool distributes any copyrighted material.
• Under fair use laws, you are allowed to modify and/or copy most copyrighted material SO LONG AS you do not distribute it.
• Piracy, less commonly but more accurately known as theft of software, is illegal. Under no warped interpretation of copyright law, morality, or common sense are you allowed to take that which is not rightfully yours, so don’t do it.  (Source: Hackint0sh)

I think I can agree with the unlocking and jailbraking views.

Let’s skip level 2 in the iPhone hack world and go straight to level 3. These are those that go out and download commercial apps for free when they are definitely not supposed to be free. This happens way more than you think. This is definitely not right. It’s straight up piracy. The blogs and forums that facilitate this are quite popular, telling me that many of the younger generation don’t have moral issues with piracy. It’s quite alarming. I recently read an article where someone interviewed a successful iPhone application developer and he claimed that 90% of people running one of their apps did not pay for it. Let’s say the app costs $1 and 5,000 people are running it. That would mean that he generated $500 in revenue for all his hard work instead of the $5000 he could have made for legit sales. Piracy took $4500 from this man’s income. If you think about it in that light, does it change your thoughts on the subject?

In summary, I think that iPhone level 3 and Windows Mobile level 2 and 3 are wrong enough where I wouldn’t participate in those type hacks ever. Where do you draw the line?

Like I said, I jailbreak, but I have no reason to unlock since I used AT&T anyway. I don’t see anything wrong with jailbreaking or unlocking and I doubt that any carrier or Apple will ever be able to prosecute anyone civilly or criminally for doing either. I can see their points on trying to squelch these since unlocking can lead users into the dark world of piracy, but it will never stick. I do think that Apple will one day find a way to stop jailbreaking and unlocking though. I also feel that Apple will figure out a way to allow us to skin, customize our iPhones. This would appease my desire to jailbreak. I initially jailbroke my iPhone to be able to customize, but I have since found some other great things that I can do with a  jailbroken phone. Don’t worry, they are legal things.

If you choose to use custom ROMs on your WinMo phone or jailbreak/unlock your iPhone, PLEASE EXCERCISE CAUTION. Make sure to back up. Make sure to only download files from reputable sources. Understand the risk of bricking a device. Just be careful if you choose to do anything like this. Here are some resources here on iPhoneMVP to help should you choose to go ahead with jailbreaking and unlocking.

• Tutorial – Unlock iPhone 3.1.2
• iPhone MVP How To: Unlock and tether your iPhone 3G and 3GS
• iPhone MVP How To: Jailbreak, Unlock, and Tether your stock iPhone 3G/3GS

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to discuss your views on this subject in the comments. Keep the debate civil and don’t cast stones at others for their own views. Remember that these opinions in this article are my own, not everyone will agree with them.