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First off, the process of jailbreaking an iPhone is so trivial that "hack" hardly does the process justice. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to describe it as a non-Apple approved upgrade.

Well, it's not exactly trivial according to the guide I read, but perhaps the state of the art has moved on since then.

However, it's worse than "non-Apple approved": Apple has been claiming that jailbreaking is illegal. Now, personally, I'm not at all opposed to copyright infringement, but given the choice between two devices that do all the same things, I'd still choose the one that does them legally (and I'd certainly recommend that one to friends who might be concerned about the law than I am).

Second, are you hainging out on the right website? It used to be the Slashdot mantra that the easy way was less desirable.

Er, I think that was a caricature of the "Slashdot mantra". Only a masochist would prefer the difficult way just for the sake of adding difficulty to his life.

But again, it's about more than whether it's easy or difficult to hack the device. It's about being treated with respect by the vendor. A vendor that gives you specs and drivers is better than one that gives you no support and makes you fend for yourself, even if it's a fun challenge to reverse engineer their hardware. A vendor that lets you install your own software right out of the box is better than one that makes you violate their recommendations and terms (and, potentially, the law) in order to do the same thing.

If Jailbreaking required breaking out the terminal and doing arcane things, I would not raise it as a point. But it's as easy as installing an application, literally anyone can do so, and there's no danger in doing so

If this guide is accurate, it's a little more involved than that. Certainly more complicated, and scarier for the average user, than what you need to do to enable an Android phone to run non-Market apps (4 clicks - no need to even hook it up to a computer).

It's simply disingenuous to pretend that iPhone is on the same level as Android when it comes to running arbitrary software. Yes, technically you can do it if you put in the effort, but it's not a trivial process, and you have to violate the intentions and recommendations of the manufacturer/carrier (and, allegedly, copyright law) to do it.

Hmm .. I'm no expert but doesn't Cydia require the user to jailbreak their iPhone?

You say that like it's hard. It's just downloading an app and running it. You have to separate the issue of unlocking a phone from Jailbreaking it, which are very different things.

Apparently you can still distribute Android apps that don't adhere to the App Store rules.

Yes, just like on the iPhone. My point is that just as many people would do so, and in fact because of the larger iPhone market there are probably more Jailbroken phones than Android phones around (estimates range well over a million). If you are motivated enough to look outside the official app store for something, downloading one app to jailbreak a phone is not an impediment.

When theres no Apple Store in your country? (that's like 90% of the globe). Not trolling I really would like to know. Proxy? gift cards? some hack?

JailBreak your phone, then either install apps manually or use one of the number of AppStore alternative Installers (Cydia comes to mind)

-Em

Nope. Apple won't poof. Microsoft's day in the sun was due to the cheapness of their products. Now that everyone has a computer they would like to get a GOOD one. Thats where Apple's Mac OS X comes in. Its been gaining in marketshare over both Windows AND Linux. Thats not an anomaly.

All that other stuff you listed is SO irrelevant to the non-engineer/geek customer. No one but such folks cares that Apple requires people to go through the "commisar" to develop for the iPhone. And no developing for the iPhone and OS X is not expensive in the least unless you're a seriously broke person who can't afford a used Intel Mac. Paternalistic and pushy? What are you a Montana mountain militia man? This is software we're talking about. Don't let the philosophies of free software and open source trick you into thinking that such things are actually important to non-geeks.

Your long screed about computing history's past also fails to note the current times. We all know there's more programs available for Windows. Whats really news is ever since Apple switched to Intel processors allowing virtualization of Windows and more importantly the video games that run on it Apple's Mac market share has been taking off like gangbusters.

As for developers being at the end of Apple's barrel... thats ridiculous. Drama queen/free software fanatic developers don't like Apple's iPhone SDK policies but other, more mature, developers are getting along just fine. So fine that they're already making money from the iPhone AppStore. There's a friggin stampede towards iPhone app development. When someone can make $2,000 a day people sit up and take notice. http://www.appleiphoneapps.com/2008/08/part-time-iphone-developer-makes-2000-a-day/

LOTS of developers are making good money on the iPhone right now even though only a few million have the device. Can the same be said for Windows Mobile developers? Palm OS developers? Symbian, Blackberry or Linux mobile developers? Apple's gearing up to manufacture 45 million more iPhones in 2009. If developers are earning $2,000 a day now thats going to explode in the years to come. So the iPhone is doing just fine on the developer front, and seeing as how Apple gives out free programming tools for Mac OS X and you need an Intel Mac to develop for the iPhone and how the two programming environments are so similar its also raising Mac OS X development too.

You are suffering from what I like to call P.D.D. Perspective Deficit Disorder. You are looking at the technology industry from the viewpoint of a geek and are assuming everyone else on the planet does as well. Thats simply not true. If it were then GUIs would never had been developed. Regular people value good products that work well. They don't care about the GPL, they don't care about open standards, they don't care about copyleft or 'sharing with your neighbor'. As for Windows Mobile Apple couldn't be LESS worried about that platform. RIM's Blackberry in the US and Nokia's Symbian worldwide are the big titans. Windows Mobile has been on the market for over 7 years already and in ALL that time has failed to take the #1 or #2 spot. Its a non-event.

Rest easy though. For the small percentage of people on the planet who value 'independence' over practicality there will always be companies that cater to you. Looks like Google's Android will be picking up that mantle.

Have fun with it.

Further proof that this is possible: it's already ported. Jailbroken iPhone/iPod required though.

It's impressive to see it run that fast (30+ fps) on a phone, but quite honestly I find it unplayable due to the controls. Still, it's very cool :)