It was probably inevitable; the fact that Apple's iPhone is now available with a software unlock in more than 40 countries all over the globe before it's even supposed to be officially available in some of these areas.

The image (left) shows the list compiled by the iPhone Dev Team of 32 countries and 69 carriers with the iPhone software unlock already been tested and good to go. The phones were confirmed to have working incoming and outgoing calls, as well as SMS compatibility, EDGE/GPRS access, and non-visual voicemail access.

In actuality, however, the list above has recently been appended with an additional 10 countries and 11 carriers according to additional contributions from the source's website. With the growing number of software unlocked iPhones being made available worldwide, who knows? Perhaps you'll find a working iPhone just around the corner from where you live before you know it.

Additional countries and carriers include:

• New Zealand/Vodafone
• Spain/Movistar
• Poland/Orange
• Czech Republic/Vodafone
• Bahrain/Batelcom/MTC Vodafone
• Israel/Cellcom
• Hungary/T-Mobile
• Belgium/Proximus/Base/Mobistar
• Kuwait/Wataniya
• Ireland/Meteor

By the looks of it, it seems that iPhone hacking isn't going to stop anytime soon, given the mobile phone's flexibility and power. Just today, we learned that these hacks "have finally gone international" as three Israeli computer engineers have hacked the phone's system making it compatible with mobile carriers in Israel.

According to initial reports, the hackers (Dubbi, Ofir, and Eli) bought the iPhones in the United States for personal use without thinking of tinkering with its security system. Ofir was even quoted saying that "the iPhone would be just a nice gadget and not an active phone if it was used in Israel".

It's unclear at this stage, however, why the three ended up cracking the iPhone but Eli shared that anyone can actually do it. He added that while hacking the phone's security system didn't cost any money, it did cost him a lot of time.

As of this writing, the three are still not willing to made public how they did the trick.