The guys at iPhone Dev Wiki have found a way to get serial access to the iPhone bootloader – without opening the case.
Something else from their latest progress report:
We know how to unlock the phone. Unfortunately the commands needed gave “Permission Denied” errors. We did find a reference to a hardware register that causes “Permission Denied” error in the bootloader, but we cannot software patch the bootloader because it is signed.
If all of that does not make much sense to you, don’t worry. Wait for a couple of months. We may just as well be able to install a Linux version on the iPhone! They have done it for iPod, so why not iPhone?
I am going to wait for a couple of months!
But something else on the official iPhone site is more interesting. Apple’s has released a guide to designing web applications for iPhone. There is not much new in it, but it covers the fundamentals well. If you plan to develop applications for the iPhone, you should go take a quick look. The most important things are the screen size and the interaction via fingers! Odd enough, iPhone does not consider itself to be a handheld device! It will NOT take the media = handheld style sheet. It will use the screen one.
Good times are ahead. Mobile phones with VGA resolution (640×480) are coming out, so the troubles with mobile screen sizes when you develop a mobile web app should reduce after a while.