Not only has the iPhone 2.0 software been released a day early for first-gen handset owners, bringing functionality like push email, but it’s already been unlocked. The iPhone Dev Team have in fact been working on early builds of Firmware 2.0 since it went into beta testing, and reached an unlock and jailbreak solution before Apple even released the official version.

The team is now promising a publicly-available release of their infamous Pwnage tool, which will allow anybody to unlock and jailbreak their handset for use with unsigned apps and any SIM card. There’s no release schedule as of yet, though.

Of course, the necessity for such a hack is somewhat reduced as Apple is releasing the handset in a greater number of countries and partnering it with the App Store, which will make third-party software official. Somewhat worrying, though, is the fact that some users are experiencing problems with their iPhones and the new firmware, including interface lag, crashing apps and hard resets. There are rumors that the build was only intended for the iPhone 3G and that Apple has planned a different release for the original handset.

[via Gizmodo]