iPhone 2.0 Jailbroken By the iPhone Dev Team

According to a post on IW, iPhone hackers calling themselves the iPhone Dev Team have reported breaking into the iPhone firmware upgrade that ships with the recently launched software development kit for the smartphone.

The group reported late Tuesday it had "decrypted the disk image and jail-broken the firmware." In essence, the hackers had found a way to run applications on the firmware without a development certificate from Apple.

To show its work, the group posted screenshots of applications running on the beta version of the firmware, which Apple plans to ship in its final form as iPhone 2.0 in June. The developers said their applications only work with "hacked activation," which means they won't work on iPhones from exclusive wireless service providerAT&T (NYSE: T).

"However, come on, this is like 2 hours ago it happened, you AT&T folk won't be left in the cold," the group said.

If true, the hack calls into question whether Apple will be able to maintain the tight-fisted control it wants on iPhone application development. Apple is requiring independent software developers to submit their work to Apple, which will be the exclusive distributor through the company's new online App Store. Developers can set their own price for the software, but Apple takes 30% of sales revenues.