Hackers Finally Unlock iPhone 3G 186
nandemoari quotes a story at Infopackets:
"2009 has gotten off to a great start for a team of iPhone enthusiasts with little regard for Apple's licensing requirements. They've finally figured out a way to get the phone to work with any cell phone carrier (and not just AT&T). The iPhone Dev Team is best known for their work on 'jailbreaking;' the technique of altering an iPhone so that you can run any applications on it, not just those approved by Apple. Given the company's questionable vetting policy for entry to the official App store, it's not surprising many users approve of jailbreaking."
Re:Finally (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm hoping we can get Android fully running (including supporting all hardware devices) on it.
Re:I do not understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it meets their requirements, and the manufacturer support and aftermarket accessory selection is second to none.
Re:I do not understand... (Score:4, Insightful)
... why people NEED to have an iPhone. There are alternatives in the market.
Few people NEED to have an iPhone. Many people WANT to have an iPhone. I won't buy an iPhone due to the operator locking-thingie/price, so I'd be happy to hear about the alternatives.
Please, somebody tell me why anyone should buy an iPhone.
It is a nice device. It reportedly works very well.
What the nerd community most often fail to realize is that all features aren't equal. A well implemented and well integrated feature in a convenient interface is worth way more than the same feature implemented crappy, or accessed through a annoying interface.
Re:I do not understand... (Score:0, Insightful)
My iphone is great. Why shouldn't I have it, you troll?
The other knockoffs are patheticly ugly, clunky, and don't do half the things my iphone does in the way that it does them. Yes it matters. The seamless integration between the Phone OS, the standard apps, the 3rd party apps, my mac, iphoto, itunes, ical, mobile me.
For you to have asked this question, you clearly haven't used it for more that a minute if at all.
I don't give a frack about steve jobs, I just like the product.
I already had ATT so wtf do i care about jail breaking. i also have netshare. :D
This phone is fracking awesome. Frack all you haters.
This is also an excellent case study (Score:5, Insightful)
In why DRM is retarded. As you say, this is some of the tightest security ever found. Yet, it has been broken by some very smart people. Such is the fate of any DRM that is sufficiently widespread that smart people care to go after it. You can be as clever as you like with your DRM scheme, you are going to find someone as clever as you will likely break it.
Also annoys me since I think some of these technologies are a good idea, if they weren't implemented in an assholish way. Code signing, for example. I really like the idea as a potential security measure for users/administrators. When I download Firefox, the fact that it is signed by Mozilla gives me a pretty high degree of certainty that it is legit, safe code. It's not 100%, of course, someone could break/steal their certificate, or someone inside could sign bad code, or my system could be compromised, but it is a good additional check. Also if anyone trys to break something like that, I'll say they are up to no good.
However when it is implemented in this "You may only run things we bless," well then you are being a jerk. People are going to break it because they want to be able to run their own stuff.
Personally I think Apple should have gone the route of having store with signed code but allowing unsigned code. If you install a signed app from their store, it installs with no question. If it is another app you get a "Warning, this code is unsigned and could be unsafe," box with a button for more info. Ask for more info and it explains that Apple has looked at signed apps and decided they are ok and aren't going to mess up your phone. They haven't looked at unsigned apps so they don't know, and if it messes up your phone they can't really help you.
Yes, that would mean people could have apps that'll mess up your phone... You know just like every other smart phone out there. Doesn't seem to have killed that market, I don't think it'd kill the iPhone.
Fortunately, there are people like this that will break their DRM, so you can use it as you wish.
Re:I do not understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much *everything* I wanted to be able to do previously is now possible in an elegant way, and I'm serendipitously finding that loads of oh-so-simple intuitive shortcuts have been quietly added and left to be discovered.
I won't bore you with details, but there is a good comparison to be made with open source - you sometimes need the BDFL to bring out the best in a project, simply to avoid the endless conflicts and design by committee which can lead to a product which does everything poorly, rather than doing a small number of things in a superbly polished way.
I have only bought an iPhone in the last three months, having held back since their launch on the grounds that slack-jawed fanboi drivel was not something to take seriously, but I've had to grudgingly admit that Apple have got something very right. Perhaps best summed up with Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous quote (take note, usability engineers!):
"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."
Re:I do not understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
A good example; you're standing on Oxford Street and feeling hungry. You open maps, get it to pull down your current location. Then type 'Italian' into the search. You look at one of them, e.g. Carluccio's*. From there you can get to their webpage, get directions to it and call them, all with one press of a button. After you eat there, you decide you like the place. Pull out your search results and add it to your contacts. Whenever you want to find it again you can pull it out of your address book.
It's pretty smooth.
*This is not an endorsement or otherwise, I've never been to that particular Italian.
Re:Rather than linking to some random blog... (Score:2, Insightful)
We NEVER link to the most appropriate site for the story, that's what digg is for.
Re:This is also an excellent case study (Score:4, Insightful)
How well would it reflect on Apple if some of their most popular apps were unsigned ones?
Why most people unlock... (Score:3, Insightful)
So just running unapproved apps is not the reason for the unlock. The reason is so one can take their locked phone and use a different carrier. A great example is so I can use Kyivstar in Ukraine while traveling (or any other GSM/GPRS provider) and not pay thousands of dollars to roam from ATT while in Europe. Instead pay 50-60 USD and buy a local prepaid SIM. BTW. They sell at most airports. So if traveling, research first before you pay 75 dollars to have a 10-15 dollar SIM card kit mailed to you in the US.
And as this is BETA software, be patient while the bugs are worked out. Me especially as a Ukraine user reported Kyivstar was not playing nice yet.
Re:This is also an excellent case study (Score:4, Insightful)
If people paid for everything they got, and there was no piracy -- there wouldn't be DRM.
Nope. See DVD region codes, which are used to create market segmentation and remove first sale rights. And DRM would still be used to create lock-in and artificially cripple devices so that you have to pay the provider for functionality that you could normally add yourself.
I'm not attacking you here, just the idea that Apple's doing something dumb by protecting their assets and their market. That's capitalism for better or for worse.
DRM backed up by laws like the DMCA is not capitalism; it's a removal of our property rights.
Re:This is also an excellent case study (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I'm really tired of explaining how this works over and over and over again. So here's the short version:
You're wrong. Completely. You're either a shill for the music industry, or you're an idiot who drank their kool-aid. They may try to tell you that you don't really own the music you buy, but you do! And nothing you or anyone else could possibly say will change that fact!
Okay, I lied -- I am going to explain it, a little. There's a fundamental problem with that argument that you're ignoring: Property rights are more important than some shmuck's business model! Region coding and every other form of DRM are an infringement on my rights as the owner of the copy. If that undermines their business model, too bad -- they deserved to fail anyway!