This just in from Apple's smoking crack department (all companies have one of those, right?) - its latest attempt to stop THIEVES, sorry, iPhone unlockers is to cripple the MacBook. Woop! Way to go Apple. Not a home goal there at all.

In a case of what appears to be cutting off your only chance of a healthy revival to spite your slightly outrageous mobile network deals, Apple has apparently modified the firmware of its new MacBooks so they can't be used in aiding and abetting the process of iPhone unlocking. Which is just silly.

Hong Kong Phooey

Actually, what's particularly silly is that currently the only way to get an unlocked 3G iPhone is to jump on a plane to Hong Kong - making it a somewhat expensive purchase unless you live in mainland China. But so far its attempts to thwart the unlockers have been targeted at tweaking the iPhone itself to keep the batons hatched down.

Now, and these are just unconfirmed rumours at the moment, the story seems to go something like this, according to Gizmodo, users with Apple's newly revamped MacBook have found problems getting it to recognise an iPhone when it's in what's known as DFU recovery mode. This is a key part of unlocking the iPhone as currently the only way to overwrite the in built firmware with an unlocked version is to fool it while it's in DFU mode.

Face in nose/bite shocker

Now, obviously Apple needs to be seen to be trying to combat the problem of unlocked phones - after the hefty deals it signed with network operators to exclusively carry its megaphone.

But if it's true that it's hobbling the MacBook to try and achieve this, then it will surely just push people onto PCs to unlock their phones, which means fewer MacBook sales in the longrun. Double duh.