An iPhone hacker Apple hired has lost his internship with the company after he forgot to reply to an email concerning his future employment.

Nicholas Allegra, aka "Comex", 20, was hired by Apple last year when he was 19 after repeatedly being able to unlock the company's mobile operating system.

But now his employment at the Cupertino, California company has been terminated after he forgot to reply to an email.

"So ... no point in delaying," Allegra wrote on Twitter late last week. "As of last week, after about a year, I'm no longer associated with Apple."

"As for why?" he added in another tweet. "Because I forgot to reply to an email."

He told Forbes that the email he forgot to answer was an offer to continue his employment at Apple as a remote intern.

"I wasn't too happy about it, but it didn't seem like I was able to fix it," he said of his employment being terminated. "So that's what it is."

Mr Allegra was behind the popular JailbreakMe site before he joined Apple, which made it easy to remove Apple-imposed restrictions from iPhones and iPads by "jailbreaking" them. Once an i-device is "jailbroken", it allows users to install unapproved apps and themes obtained for free outside of the official app store.

When he announced last year that he had been hired by Apple, he said he accepted the offer because he became "bored" of breaking into Apple's operating system.

Comment is being sought from Apple.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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