iPod Touch Jailbreak! Now Playing at an Apple Store Near You.

Friday night, I'm at the Apple store. There's really no reason for me to be there, except to ogle the iPod Touch, which I do, um...every week. So! I'm holding the iPod Touch in my hands, wondrous almost-iPhone instrument that it is, and then I notice something a little off-kilter. A little strange. There are too many icons on the home screen. And there's something called an "Installer." And then it hits me.

SOMEBODY JAILBROKE THE APPLE STORE iPOD TOUCH.

Image from Lifehacker. Screen wasn't quite this busy, but NES and the Installer were definitely there.

I can't even begin to explain how hilarious and awesome this was. Apple is trying so hard to keep third-party apps off the iPhone and the iPod touch, and the hacker community has taken Apple's efforts as a direct challenge to their skills, pride, and worth as human beings. They're fighting back—and how! Take the one-click jailbreak site, which I'm pretty sure was the method used by the mystery Apple store hacker. Just point your iPod touch /iPhone at the site, download a little program called AppSnap, and all of a sudden, your device is liberated. It's everything you always knew it could be. It's reached its potential. And that potential comes packaged with Apple's Eternal Hatred and Ire, and a Possibly Void Warranty.

Life is hard.

But anyway, so I was standing there, messing around with this liberated iPod touch, and I just could not believe my eyes, could not believe this was happening. It was uproarious, and yet, there was no one with whom to laugh uproariously!

So I did the second best thing. Against my better judgment, I told the Apple Store greeter about the jailbreak on my way out.

Okay. So I was a snitch.

But I have to say, the look of horror and dismay on that greeter's face was totally worth it.