Is Apple going to ease up on iPhone jailbreakers? Based on what COO said yesterday, kind of sounds like it

In remarks at an investment conference yesterday, Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook said that because the demand for hacked iPhones exists, there would always be a level of hacking.

That type of hacking could be taken to be the type of jailbreaking that when performed successfully, can "free" iPhone from its tethers to geographically exclusive carriers such as AT&T Mobility in the U.S.

Since no one at Apple speaks about such sensitive matters without Steve Jobs' OK, I wonder if Cook is sending some sort of a signal that Apple may ease up on jailbreaking-throttles in successive decimal iPhone firmware updates.

At some point, either Apple or the jailbreakers will get tired of the arms race. Not that the jailbreakers won't keep trying to free up the iPhone, but Apple may decide it is time to move forward and concentrate on making the iPhone an even richer experience and stop their preoccupation with matching the jailbreakers' moves, tit-for-tat.

I am convinced that this evolving attitude will then be followed by Apple buying out its five-year iPhone contract exclusivity with AT&T.