My question is: is a unlocked iPhone treated the same way by Xcode? or in other words, can one develop using a unlocked iphone without any problem? When I say unlocked I mean not the official way.
I ask this because I have the possibility of beta testing my apps with some friends and some of them use jailbroken iphones and some just unlocked their phones on an unofficial way. I would like to know if it will be trustable to have these devices testing my app.
I think it all depends on how you went about jailbreaking and how much you've changed the system. Obviously, there's a difference between unlocking and leaving everything else untouched compared to replacing large parts of the OS.
However, I'm sure there are folks who can go into far more detail.
I think Xcode does not realize that, it treats all devices as not jail-broken. The only difference you might see is (depending on the stuff you have installed in your jail-broken device) you will get many messages in the console. I remember once I installed winterBoard and I was getting many many debugging messages about it. Messages not regarding my code!.
Regarding permissions: many things are different. So, you should test at least once you app on a not jailbroken device.