Congress actually passed a law a couple years ago stating that it is legal to unlock your cell phone.

David: Can you explain "bricking"?

Shawn: Bricking is when your fancy, expensive electronic toy turns into a paperweight.

Many people were experiencing that from not knowing how to correctly jailbreak their iPhones and again to those that unlocked their iPhones and went to update the software via iTunes when new software became available.

This initially caused the iPhones to stop functioning and there was no solution in sight at the time. Now, many months later, we are seeing that if you had a bricked iPhone, all you need to do is update the software to the latest release and somehow the update corrects everything that went wrong to the phone and fixes itself to turn it back into a virginal out-of-box state.

Out of all the iPhone's we have seen, played with, and unlocked, there has never been one unit that has not repaired itself by restoring to the latest software available.

With that said, I do not recommend anyone updating their software if they do not know what they are doing. If you have certain questions or again need tech support you can email us and we will be glad to assist info@wirelessimports.com.

So if it isn't illegal to unlock an iPhone, why would it be legal for Apple to "brick" them?

I don't believe Apple would maliciously brick iPhones with their software updates. They believed they had a unlockable product on their hands since, after many months, no one was successful in really unlocking the iPhone.

I believe that, when Apple was working on the software updates, they did not factor in the possibility of a jailbreak and therefore take precautions against it. However when the 1.1.1 software was released Apple made it a point to change the way their new software works.

I don't know exactly how it works, but I believe it does a clean erase of the OS then reinstalls the OS so there is no trace of the jailbreak. I could be wrong, but if that is the case, then it would explain why the jailbreak or unlocking can no longer brick the iPhone.

David: iPhones are already quite expensive. Do you really think people would want to go through the risk of unlocking them, take the chance for bricking, and then use another carrier, potentially spending a lot more?

Shawn: iPhones can no longer be bricked but they can be relocked again by future updates, which as of at least the time of this interview in early February, can be downgraded back to older software which can be re-unlocked.

So now to justify the price tag of a $400 iPhone + unlocking fees.

Well, you could spend the same amount of money and get yourself a different phone, but I can almost promise you that it won't have half the features of the iPhone. I only know of two other phones that have 8GB built-in both by Nokia -- N91 8GB and N95 8GB, both of which will run you in excess of $600. The iPhone really speaks for itself; if you want, one there really is no alternative. The type of person who buys an iPhone already knows this.