Microsoft-approved Windows Phone 7 unlocker goes live

Even so, they (ChevronWP7) appear to be calling it an "unlock". Just to increase the confusion, I guess.

Couldn't some homebrew software enable carrier unlocking?

I don't know about rooted Androids, but jailbroken iPhones can be unlocked.

Dunno the finer points of terminology, but this essentially developer-unlocks your phone, i.e. it uses the same mechanism that's used to let you sideload your own apps for testing if you're officially registered as a developer. The difference being that it's cheaper (and possibly less of a hassle to get?) and doesn't actually let you put apps on the app store. I think that's different from the iPhone jailbreaks which don't play as nicely with the security mechanisms, but again I'm not really up on the details there.

You DID notice the "Microsoft-approved" part there, yeah? Microsoft has backed this project since day one, as I recall, going as far as sending free WP7 phones to people active in the project for them to hack away at. They have dictated the terms of use, and those terms are "unlock at will."

(Doesn’t WP7 have springy lists? Not that it matters, really.)

Apple certainly is in a position to not allow arbitrary software. That said, I’m not all that sure whether that’s – all things considered – a net plus for Apple.

Jailbreaking isn’t all that hard and has generally always been possible. Apple could easily make it about as hard to unlock iOS devices.

There is this iPhone Configuration Utility from Apple which allows anyone to, for example, configure their iPhone to access some peculiarly configured 802.1X. You have to download it from some obscure support webpage, Apple doesn’t market it anywhere. They could add a switch in there somewhere (hard to find, for sure) to unlock iOS devices, complete with a big scary red warning label†.

They could limit your warranty when you unlock (and, for example, kick you out of warranty when you can’t restore iOS to its default state). They could refuse to answer software related support questions. It would nevertheless be an improvement and bring them a lot of good will.

It’s clear that Apple wants a device that by default only allows their software or software they approve. It’s clear that they don’t want to support any other devices. But couldn’t they still get that and nevertheless allow anyone who want to to unlock?

What do they fear?

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† I’m adding detail and color to show that this is a realistic scenario and it wouldn’t be a wholly extreme change on Apple’s part.

I dunno. I had some success with the platform, porting a Phonegap based Android/iOS application. I'm still working out the tweaks, but Microsoft's support of Phonegap has really been an incentive to consider supporting the platform.

Microsoft has been supporting the hackability of many of their recent products. Look at how quickly they embraced the community developing hacks for Kinect.

Could be the new Microsoft. They are surely seeing the benefit with Kinect as people come up with usage and capabilities that Microsoft never envisioned.