A modified phone on the other hand does not have those restrictions. It is possible to select another mobile phone carrier, and install apps from other stores and locations.

New US government rules announced on Monday allow mobile phone owners to legally jailbreak their phones.

The exemptions were granted as part of a statutorily prescribed rulemaking process, conducted every three years to mitigate the danger the DMCA poses to legitimate, non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials. The DMCA prohibits “circumventing” digital rights management (DRM) and “other technical protection measures” used to control access to copyrighted works. While the DMCA still chills competition, free speech, and fair use, today’s exemptions take unprecedented new strides towards protecting more consumers and artists from its extensive reach.

Putting legalities aside, which were never the problem in the past, Apple and other mobile phone companies usually deal with jailbroken phones by voiding the warranties, and by issuing new updates that disable jailbroken phones. That means that owners of such phones still need to be careful about updating their phones after jailbreaking them. It could also mean that they won’t have access to feature upgrades if they cannot upgrade their phone.

Additional exceptions have been announced on Monday as well:

• Computer users may now bypass external security devices if they do not longer work and cannot be replaced..
• Phone owners may break access controls on their phones to switch to another wireless carrier.
• It is now allowed to break video game protections to investigate or correct security flaws.
• allow college professors, film students, filmmakers and producers of non-commercial videos to break copy-protections on DVDs for educational purposes, criticism or commentar.
• allow blind people to break protections on electronic books so that they can be used with blind-suitable software.

Especially the exception to break access controls on phones to select another carrier should be more than welcome by phone users in the United States, who often had no choice but to select the one carrier that was offering the phone exclusively.

As for the iPhone of the present, we now have the first truly malicious iPhone malware going around while Apple continues to grow in the smartphone business, posting more profits that the Finnish giant Nokia.

iPhone Malicious Code Now A Reality

For those who paid no heed to the first ever iPhone worm, here’s a much scarier piece of a news. While the first worm never really did much other than change your wallpaper to rickroll you, there’s a new piece of code that has truly malicious intents for your iPhone.

It attacks the same way as the last one does but instead of making its presence known, it will silently steal all the personal data that it can find on the iPhone and inside the apps. Thankfully, just like the last worm, this malicious program can only infiltrate jailbroken iPhones that have open SSH sessions and have not changed their default root password. So to all those who are jailbreaking their iPhones, do take your time to understand exactly what you are doing and close this gaping security holes. [read]

New iPhone May Be Verizon Only

After the rumors of the next generation iPhone going worldmode surfaced, we now have rumors about the iPhone being made solely for Verizon. This is the result of a confusion regarding reports from chip-maker Qualcomm who have been making new CDMA chips for their parters, including Verizon. [read]

Famous iPhone Dev Quits, First Of The Many To Follow?

After enduring Apple’s shenanigans with the app store approval process, the famed developer Joe Hewitt (creator of the Facebook app)  has officially declared that he is quitting iPhone development. And he makes no bones about being vocal about why he quit, clearly stating that his decision “has had everything to do with Apple’s Policies”.

With so many other developers also complaining about Apple’s policies, Joe’s move may be taken as an example and followed. And if that does happen, Apple will be losing the most important part of what makes the iPhone tick — great apps from great developers. [read]

iPhone Now Has 17% World Smartphone Market Share

Apple is fast closing in on the others in the global mobile Handset Market. After being in the market for barely two and a half years, Apple now constitutes 17.1% of the total global smartphone market.

This is a 50% growth for Apple in recent times, showing exactly how fast a company can grow with the right steps and a brilliant product. The other reason why Nokia is so very important is because it is also one of the largest sellers of smartphones. Its smartphones are the reason why Symbian still holds such a large share of the market. Blackberries may have been very popular in different pockets (RIM is on the wane) but nothing beats Nokia’s worldwide reach. Nothing until now it seems. [read]

Want More Bang For Your Buck? Try The App Store

Analysts have shown that iPhone users have more than just the highest number of Apps to choose from. They also have more value for money when calculated on dollar for dollar. [read]

Apple Creates More Profit Than Nokia

In the last quarter (Q3), Apple made much more money than the world’s number one mobile handset maker – Nokia. And the difference is significant too. While Nokia made $1 billion, Apple made $1.6 billion. [read]

The WinPwn software is compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista 32/64 bit and users have to make sure to uninstall any previous version of the software and that a compatible version of iTunes, that is iTunes 7.7, is installed on the system.

The Apple iPhone Apps website published a detailed walkthrough of the process that it takes to jailbreak the iPhone under Windows and it is probably a good idea to use it for guidance.