I was just contimplating one more way apple could screw unlocked phone owners - only let locked phones with contracts download Itunes apps.

How will the unlocked phone users counter this?

I would be interested to hear a discussion on this since it relates to native software development.

Technically, Apple could blacklist all non-activated iPhone users from iTunes. Hell, they have the technical capability to brick your phone through iTunes as well. My point? Just because they can do something doesn't mean they will. Granted, they are going to make it difficult, but even if they were to try their hardest, no system is unhackable.

The SDK DRM scheme that is implemented partially in 1.1.3 is called Nikita. Current jailbreak methods leave Nikita intact, so if SDK apps work with 1.1.3 stock, they will work with 1.1.3 JB. That being said, there is a large amount of evidence that there is going to be a 1.1.4 upgrade with the SDK, which I was expecting anyway, so 1.1.3 is most likely out of the running. I'm sure that Apple is going to make 1.1.4 a really hard FW to JB, too, simply because they have been working on the SDK protection scheme for several months now.

There are several different ways that Apple could lock us out for good, but none would be as effective as somehow preventing downgrading. An iTunes update would not be a viable solution, as that can easily be overridden by a simple reinstall, but I would say that it is within their capability to implement a scheme iPhone side. I strongly believe that downgrading is going to be hard come next FW update, so I'm waiting a little while before I upgrade.

Interesting I hear that the next (3G) iPhone is going to be unlockable too