This should be illegal. A company can not negatively change the terms of usage of a product after it has been purchased. In the documents purchasing the iPhone, did Apple state it would brick phones that were hacked to work with a different carrier? On top of this the US Copyright Judge (Librarian of Congress) has allowed cell phones to be unlocked in order to promote competition. Where are our congress people to protect us from this sort of uncompetitive, self serving, monopolistic behavior?
Apple: firmware update likely to make unlocked iPhones “permanently inoperable”