Unlock Your iPhone.. Go to...

Apple fought against people unlocking their iPhone, and lost. Get this: their claim was that downloading an application from an independent software vendor could "produce technological glitches" in their phone. Like what, the iPhone v.4?

Every good software product depends entirely upon a strong field of support and development. In the case of, say, Microsoft Office - it's a large and highly trained team of testers and developers on Microsoft's payroll. In the case of Linux - it's a large and highly trained team on the net - that is somehow able to keep versions stable enough to make it from one to the next.

As a result, there is a huge software industry employing millions of people and running to the trillions of dollars a year - feeding lots of little families and helping to better the existing software. You benefit by getting things like wizards, and better quality operating systems. Such software helps writers, artists, scientists and construction workers.

Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office today officially ruled that users have a right to download and install applications that allow the iPhone to join other carriers, download other applications and even to transform e-book text into other formats.

"We are thrilled to have helped free jailbreakers, unlockers and vidders from this law's overbroad reach," Jennifer Granick, Electronic Freedom Foundation's civil liberties director, "The Copyright Office recognizes that the primary purpose of the locks on cell phones is to bind customers to their existing networks, rather than to protect copyright."

This ruling applies to droid as well as iphone platforms. Very soon there really will be an app for that.