If you buy the iPhone, the expectation is that you follow Apple’s restrictions. This class action lawsuit regarding iPhone modifications is a waste of time. If you modify a device, whether with software or with solder, you run the risk of damaging the product, and voiding the warranty.

Apple can create as many ways as required to keep the device working as intended. Users can create ways to circumnavigate such methods. However, when doing so you waive rights of authorized and intended use.

Apple releases updates for authorized, compliant and legal users of Apple products and software. When you operate Apple products outside of their intended use, you remove yourself from the list of intended recipients.

Everyone on Earth, in particular the US, knows the Apple iPhone is an AT&T exclusive. When you buy the phone, the expectation is for you to use it as a phone on the AT&T network or as an iPod for music. You may at your discretion, use it as you want so long as you do not compromise the integrity of the device.

This is not about restrictions, legal use or fairness. The problem here is warez and people who do not know anything about them. Here is the warez guideline for people who have no clue.

1. Unless the release is tested and proven in the community, leave it alone.
2. When you use warez, do not use official updates.
3. Only update if you absolutely need to, not because it’s cute.
4. Update only with patches released by the same group who provided your initial warez or with a patch proven to work with it.
5. Before you update make a backup.

This relates to the Apple iPhone because when you engineer its software operate outside of intended use, you have turned it into a warez device. With all warez, both software and hardware, you use at your own risk.