It's a big day in the iPhone world today as multiple solutions for "unlocking" the device have appeared on the Web, including a free version released today (read the Engadget or Gizmodo posts for the step-by-step details -- not that you'd ever unlock an iPhone, right?).

So what does this mean? The biggest takeway: If a platform, device or application becomes big or popular enough to become a "target," anything is possible. This is both good and bad.

It's this phenomenon that causes hackers to spend untold hours dreaming up new viruses and attacks on Windows Vista. Um, that's bad.

But becoming a target for hackers and enthusiasts can be a good thing as well. Whether or not you believe unlocking a locked phone is a good or bad thing, it's hard to argue that the enthusiasm and attention of the devoted iPhone community -- a device not much more than two months old -- won't pay great dividends for Apple. Hackers may have unlocked the iPhone, but they've also created thousands of optimized Web sites and widgets for iPhone, as well as dozens of "native" iPhone apps, even without a formal iPhone native development kit release by Apple.

Click here to read more from our new Telephony 2.0 Weblog, updated daily.