On Sunday, a well known hacker posted the first "jailbreak" for the iPhone 4. The hack is available on www.jailbreakme.com and it allows iPhone 4 users purchase applications from stores other than the Apple App Store. To start the process, one must visit the website with the Safari browser on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. This can be installed from the web, without the aid of another computer. There have been previous jailbreaks, but this is the first jailbreak reported to work with the iPhone 4.
It was reported just days ago that the U.S. Library of Congress ruled this jailbreak to be legal.
The day it was released, it was so popular the website was having trouble meeting the demands. However, some users have complained that the hack unintentionally disables the iPhone 4's video chat capability and creates problems with multimedia text messages. Comex, the hacker that says he's behind this jailbreak, said that he is currently working on fixing those issues.
On the other hand, Apple's stance is that the jailbreak could diminish the product's performance. Apple says jailbreaking "can severely degrade the experience."
