There have been quite a few reports of bricked iPhones ever since the release of the software update from Apple. Contrary to what some may believe, it doesn't look like the company intentionally created software that would brick hacked iPhones.

One of the developers of the unlocking application, Erica Sadun, said that "it wasn't intentional at all. If they wanted to brick hacked iPhones, they could have done a much better job of it." She further supported her stand on this by pointing out that the update bricked both hacked and stock iPhones. The problem, she noted, was with the update itself.

The new software, which was a complete rewrite of the original code, was still unfinished according to Sadun. She added that there were many parts of the application which consisted of hacks geared towards just getting the application to work.

Despite the fact that the code looks rushed, Apple did make sure that the update was very secure with every function certified, encrypted, and requiring a checksum. Sadun commented on this saying that "Apple wants no one else on the platform. It's a pretty strong statement of that."

This release seems consistent with Apple's current stand on hacking the iPhone. Vice president of Apple's hardware and product marketing Greg Joswiak said that while they will not be designing software to intentionally break third party applications, they won't care if their regular software updates do break the unlicensed applications. Note however, that he did leave a disclaimer stating that the company is always re-evaluating its stand on topics like this.