It can be used as a mobile phone(which in the end,is its main purpose)for texting and calling,a multimedia device used fore storing and playing video and music files,as well as viewing photos and pictures,or as an internet browser-based device,with the help of the implemented Wi-Fi technology that Apple was so kind to add.The variety of applications that the iPhone offers is simply enormous,as the applications(commonly known as iPhone Apps,Apple iPhone Apps,or just Apps)are grouped into a multitude of domains,such as gaming,GPS systems,social-networking and many others.
These applications can only be purchased from the official Apple online store and the iPhone will execute only official Apple approved applications.Some of these applications include familiar names such as Twitter,YouTube,Facebook and others.Due to the large variety of apps,a huge number can be quite useless to one,as Apple registered over 20.000 apps from several domains.
There are four generations of iPhone currently available names iPhone,iPhone 3G,iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.Each iPhone model brought something new and innovative to the family,such as the possibility to make 3G video calls in the case of the iPhone 3G,but there are some features that remained untouched through the device's evolution and are characteristic to all iPhone models,like the screen size,the button alignments and positioning,and others.
The multimedia and internet features and content can only be used if the iPhone is first registered as a mobile phone,with a proper carrier.On July 3,2007 however,a man called Jon Lech Johnson discovered a way to bypass this requirement and use the specified features anyway.He did so by using some simple software programs and editing the iTunes binary.He later posted the recipe of his succes on his personal blog,so anybody could do it.This was the first time an iPhone was unlocked.
If the first unlocking of the first iPhone was a success thanks to Jon Lech Johnson,the second iPhone,the 3G,turned out a tougher nut to crack,as it required an in-store activation.This represented a challenge for hackers as they faced the store seller in their "holy mission".The iPhone was sold with a SIM Lock that restricted the access to a particular carrier.This practice is often met at subsidized GSM phones,but opposing the GSM phones,iPhones cannot be unlocked by introducing a serial number or any kind of code.
The iPhones were original registered to AT&T but statistics show that only a quarter of the sold devices were registered to AT&T,as hackers found a way to unlock the iPhone by registering it from other networks.Apple speculated that the phones were shipped over the sea and unlocked there.However,it was once again that an Apple iPhone model was unlocked,as the same thing would happen to the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.