For as long as Apple has maintained a black-box grip over the iPhone as a “closed platform” industrious hackers have been trying to find exploits to Jailbreak (break open the root jail) and Unlock (remove the locks that keep the iPhone tied to specific carriers such as AT&T, Rogers, O2, Orange, etc.)

With Geohot (website), the original iPhone hacker, and the Dev Team (web link), the most prolific hackers, continuing to play their “cat and mouse game” with Apple, those who believe they bought the hardware and should be able to do what they like with it, turn to Jailbreaking tools like redsn0wand purplera1n, and Unlocking daemons like ultrasn0wto set them free (as in speech, not as in beer).

Even post-iPhone 3.0, running background multitasking for 3rd party apps, better notification systems, custom themes and category launches, and other still-forbidden-by-Apple functions remain the exclusive domain of Jailbroken apps.