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If you've been looking for a reason to jailbreak your iPhone, look no further. Yesterday, iPhone developer Alec Renolds announced on multiple online forums that his long-awaited BitTorrent-powered application called "appDowner" is about to be released. When he first announced this project last year, the idea was to create a simple BitTorrent client for the iPhone. Unfortunately, personal issues got in the way of development and the project was put on hold for months on end.

But now, Renolds has returned and this time he's expanded on the original concept to create what appears to be a full-on App Store replacement application.

Now that iPhone's new OS 3.0 is available with all its nifty features like spotlight search, copy and paste, push notifications and maybe one day MMS and tethering, many users have happily upgraded their devices. For most people, upgrading to the new OS is as technical as they want to get. For others, however, a true upgrade isn't complete until the jailbreak is done.

After waiting for a few days, the fabulous iPhone dev team at last provided us with a new set of jailbreaking tools. If you're ready to dive in, you can use this guide to get going. And unlike some of the other guides on the net, we'll share our personal experience and tips so you know just what you're getting into...and what to avoid.

The latest update to the Skype iPhone application delivered some minor improvements and fixes, but the biggest update involves a new warning message directed at the owners of jailbroken iPhones. After launching the updated version of Skype (v 1.0.2), you'll see a message that reads "this version of Skype is only supported on unmodified iPhone OS." Why is Skype doing this?

Over the weekend, the first unofficial iPhone App Store that allows for paid applications was launched. Called the "Cydia Store," it's actually a feature within the Cydia application itself. If you're unaware, Cydia is an application installed during the process known as "jailbreaking" where iPhone owners run a software program that removes the restrictions that prevent the installation of unauthorized applications. In the new Cydia Store, developers are able to sell applications designed specifically for jailbroken phones. This "grey market" for iPhone apps, as some call it, could soon mean big business for developers who want to create software outside the guidelines of what Apple originally intended.

If you own an iPhone and you're fairly technical, then you've no doubt gone through the steps necessary to "jailbreak" your iPhone - the process that opens up the phone to allow for the installation of unapproved third-party applications. However, for the non-technical consumers who are now purchasing the iPhone in droves, this final, critical step in making the device more usable is often unknown or overlooked.