Still didn't manage to figure out what's the catch regarding the MacBooks? OK, I'll help you! If you look carefully at any of the current MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air notebooks(this is also true for some of the older models), you'll notice that the Apple logo located on the back of the screen lights up when the screen is on, simply using the excess light from the screen to illuminate. Now, let's move to the iPhone, shall we?
As you can easily notice, the iPhone and iPhone 3G have both a screen with a Apple logo behind it, but there's only one big difference - that logo is not lit at all by the screen he's back to back with. This is exactly where the hardware hack today comes in place. Hack my iPhone, please!
The Russian modder into this hack made a really brilliant Apple logo on the iPhone, replacing it with a piece of plastic and a LED. Even more, he came up with a custom piece of software that allows you to adjust the brightness of the logo. Sweet!
Since battery life is not heavily affected, if you're willing to lose the warranty of your iPhone, you should go to Russia and find this guy to hack your iPhone...or try to do what he has done, and get out much cheaper - or with a completely broken iPhone. Anyway, think positive, you only have to know somebody able to do it - it's just a LED and some plastic, it's not rocket science, after all!