iPhone 1.1.3 Update Confirmed, Breaks Apps and Unlocks 412
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."
Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked... (Score:3, Insightful)
Real GPS feature coming to the iPhone (Score:3, Informative)
I would consider doing so for the GPS triangulation.
The Google 'My Location' feature will now work [iphonealley.com] with the iPhone. Additionally, here's a new GPS add-on, shipping in February for 89$, for the iPhone and iPod Touch [partfoundry.com]. There's also TomTom who is rumored to develop a GPS add-on [engadget.com] for the iPhone. See my journal for the rejected story last Friday on this subject.
;-) (and oh, I think we're kind of losers of focusing on the bad sides of the new update instead o
(I don't have an iPhone and don't want one, aside from the fact that they're not available in Canada anyway
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What did you expect? You purchased a product from a company. Said Company makes very clear that they do not authorize you to use third party applications and so when you do... they have an interest in tearing your mods out of the software. That's the nature of the product right now.
I don't think Apple is evil but they are working on a very fine edge right now. They are taking on the entire cellular industry with a product that they have tried previously to launch (Anyone remember Newton?) with updates
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Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cingular and T mobile currently have in place already to assist in e911 location awareness. It triangulates with the use of as many towers and antenna's as it can based on signal levels to each locating modulation unit to give you the location of where you are. Not very accurate in heavily developed cities where skyscrapers block a majority of the signal.
Worked with them before , I went to work at Sun , pretty cool tech.
It's a shame that they chose to use it to provide a service that the iphone really should have already had. Seams like they are trying to give people an app they get a revenue stream from instead of letting you use other available 3rd party apps where they don't profit.
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I really don't understand where you're coming from here, particularly as the Maps application is third party--lest you forget, it's designed & maintained by Google.
I highly doubt Apple's primary intent with that partnership is profit. M
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Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked... (Score:4, Insightful)
And lo... (Score:5, Funny)
They cried out, "don't raze me bro!!!"
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They were all using their iPhones on T-Mobile.
Re:And lo... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And lo... (Score:4, Funny)
Poor iPhone shaking on the ground, a running helicopter in the distance.
A fanatic iPhone hacker tries to twiddle with the touch-screen to get the damn big investment to work, next to him stands Jobs in a long latex costume, holding a firmware update next to the hacker's head. He says "Unlock this" and fires the update 1.1.3.
But Neo isn't there, Neo is home, enjoying a simple unlocked phone that has 3G and tons on applications and just works (and it was cheaper)
When iphone came out, a lot of people made the noise "locked phone ? forget it mate, i will go and buy something else"
Walled Garden (Score:2, Insightful)
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As for unlocking them, eh. The only thing I'd really want that for is for when I go to Switzerland each year. Instead of paying the higher AT&T fees I could go with a prepaid card over there.
Re:Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, don't buy one. Apple's responsibility is not to you, the hacker (I love when I get the chance to use that word in the traditional sense), but to the person who buys the device and will never do anything unsupported with it. Why? Because these people either don't want to deal with incompatibilities or problems resulting from an update, or because they can't deal with them.
Normal users don't want to "update their phone" (which is a weird concept to many consumers in the first place) and have it break in some way. Because the official SDK isn't out yet, and there are no guidelines that third-party developers are following, Apple has no realistic way to support their software across updates. Attempting to do so at this point would be a massive, stupid waste of the available time of their engineers.
"Well," you're thinking, "the users who install unsupported third-party apps would be able to deal with bugs, or understand." No, most of them are going to whine and bitch on the Internet like they do now when Apple reverts their phone to a standard, known-good state during an update. But even if I'm wrong about that, it doesn't matter. The responsibility Apple's engineers have to the customer base on the whole is to guarantee that this phone that people bought "just works".
But this presents a problem, right? It makes this amazing portable device only what Apple wants. For some, this is a real issue. You can't disagree with that, really. To solve this problem, you need a supported SDK. And that's coming. Officially. That means developers like me can write software for the iPhone and it won't vanish after an update.
Releasing an SDK means you have to support it. Putting together an SDK you can support, and that is easy for developers to use, takes time. It's not just documentation, which in of itself is a large task if you want it done right--it's API design, build toolchain design, getting the supporting websites together and ready, training your developer support people in the new stuff, etc. It's huge! But Apple is doing it.
For now, third-party software developed through unsupported means is just that: unsupported. In the near future, according to Apple, we'll have a supported means of developing software for the iPhone. And it'll be better software, because we'll have the documentation we need.
There's no "walled garden", just a device whose SDK is in beta somewhere inside Cupertino walls.
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Given the demographic, I was amazed by that-- well over half the people with an iPhone love it, but identify the fact that there is something fundamental missing to the point tha they are willing to void the warrantee to fix it.
The key is that people's needs are different,
Re:Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
I received an iPhone this year as a holiday gift. It's very nice.
The problem is that it's replacing something and I have expectations regarding the something replaced. I'm trying to replace my Palm TX, my cell phone (which was a really old phone) and my iPod (Photo). The only thing the iPhone completely replaces is my cell phone.
Palm has a KISS attitude about their devices and every time they have not stuck to that ethos, they have lost user base. But Palm has always had a SDK released that is based on the assumption that the Palm company cannot possibly know all of the ways someone might want to use their device. I think it's particularly arrogant for Apple to assume that only Apple knows all of the uses someone will want to put their iPhone to. They certainly don't display that kind of arrogance with the Macintosh computer. So, duly chastened, Jobs decided to release the SDK for the iPhone. After this Febuary, I'd say the iPhone (and iPod Touch) will begin to actually become useful.
For those of you who either have Smartphones or Palm devices or Windows Mobile devices, the one thing the iPhone really, really lacks is the ability to cut and paste! I've been using computers since the 1980s and I cannot recall ever not being able to copy material from one place to be used in another place. This ability to write once, use multiple is the hallmark of computing and this is involved in database, word processing, and user interactions both within applications as well as between applications. The iPhone OS must introduce this, and soon.
Until I can cut and paste, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
Until I can buy, download and install third-party utilities, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
I don't think my iPhone will fully replace my iPod because my iPhone simply doesn't have enough space on it for my entire music library. But the iPhone is more like an iPod Nano in the sense that one loads a subset of one's library on the iPhone, not the whole magillah.
I am hoping that the iPhone does have hidden capabilities to move beyond AT&Ts Edge network to 3G wireless data. Certainly the European units have this capability, else they won't sell well.
Until then, I shall remain a slightly dissatisfied iPhone user.
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But not useless for creating applications which is all most people really want. The ones that want unlocking, they will have to wait five years (four and a half now).
All I ever wanted was to be able to build applications myself, it's not at all useless nor will be the applications that come from this.
Compare to Symbian Signed (Score:3, Interesting)
But not useless for creating applications which is all most people really want.
It will probably need each app to be signed by the holder of a code signing certificate. Based on what I've seen on other similar platforms (such as Symbian Signed), the terms of service [symbiansigned.com] attached to code signing will likely have a technicality, such as no charging for copies of signed binaries, that makes it incompatible with the requirements of the GNU GPL [gnu.org], such as granting permission to distribute source and binaries for a fee and disclosing Installation Information.
Re:Compare to Symbian Signed (Score:5, Insightful)
But as someone else said, Apple will need to protect the non techie users who will go mental if a software upgrade breaks their unit. Moreover, if apps on these things are to become popular with the masses, then there will have to be integration with iTunes, since that is what most people use to manage their iPods. That means that iPod software installation will have to work like podcasts do: you can get them through iTunes with no hassle, and they won't harm your iPod or break with updates. There is really no alternative if it is to become mainstream. If it does, everyone is in for a treat. I'm hoping that excellent Mac shareware companies like Panic will write software for it (if you don't know who Panic are, then shame on you!).
There's no reason why Apple couldn't make the iPod Touch into the new Newton. I'm hoping they will, and the massive black space on the iPod's home screen makes me confident that they will. It already does almost everything you'd want a digital media player to do, so the space can only be taken up with radically extending the use of the device. It's crying out to become a PDA for regular people.
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And all you had to do was pay 500 bucks for a locked-down phone and then wait a year and a half for an approved SDK (still vapor at this point) and 5 years for a choice of provider. P.T. Barnum had a name for people that do that.
By the way, how many phones do you know of that last 5 years? What are the odds that the "early adopters" who bought iPhones on 0-day will still
Re:Walled Garden (Score:4, Insightful)
Not remotely GPS-like.. (Score:4, Informative)
Close enough for the cigar (Score:2)
Re:Not remotely GPS-like.. (Score:5, Informative)
I'd imagine towers are denser in most dense walking areas, allowing more accurate positions (with more intersecting hyperbolae), and that's where I see the feature being most useful. T
That is, the feature isn't a replacement for something like a Garmin or TomTom, but I can see it being very useful for when you're lost in a pedestrian area and have time to look at a street sign and get your precise position once it gets you very close.
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A general idea of where you are is all you need.
It takes what? 5 seconds to zoom in to your exact location.
Re:Not remotely GPS-like.. (Score:4, Funny)
This way big brother might know I'm in the red light district, but at least he won't know whether I'm in Marv's Muff Emporium or Kinky Kurt's Krotch Kingdom
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the luxury of turn by turn navigation
Cycling to work the other week through the Melbourne CBD I followed this car being driven by this guy who seemed transfixed by the GPS attached to his windscreen. He can't have had good GPS coverage because there were tall buildings on all sides and he slowed right down before each intersection, presumably to wait for his navigation system to catch up. Then he got a red light (that happens if you go slow enough) and stopped 10 metres back from the stop line, apparently with all his attention on the GPS.
I
3rd party (Score:5, Interesting)
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Multiple levels of ADC membership (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:3rd party (Score:4, Insightful)
And has anyone considered that maybe Apple has been rewriting portions of the iPhone's software in conjunction with developing the SDK, and that might be part of the reason why Apple's updates break 3rd party apps?
Not to be too defensive of Apple or anything, but many have guessed that part of Apple's aversion to 3rd party application up to this point has been because the OS is still in flux, and software developed for 1.1.2 won't work with 1.1.3. Each of the iPhone updates have forced the 3rd party developers to rewrite their apps, lending some credence to this idea.
I think we should just wait until the SDK is out and see what the situation is. If the SDK is terrible, then by all means complain.
Tis the Season (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tis the Season (Score:5, Insightful)
A correlary of this statement is that Apple really isn't fighting its users, as a group. It's just fighting a small minority of users who hack their iPhones, so your statement about Apply "fighting their users makes no real sense", itself makes no real sense.
Disclaimer: I don't own an iPhone, but I might if I was richer.
Re:Tis the Season (Score:4, Informative)
Unlocking is not the same as running applications (Score:4, Informative)
But that's not taking away anything at all (Score:2)
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Well, I've seen figures (guesses? estimations?) that put the number of unlocked iPhones at 1/6 to 1/3 of total iPhones sold. - that is not a small minority.
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Corrected that for you.
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A bunch of DSM, NISMO, Honda and Subaru fanboys would be laughing at you right now if they were so busy crying about broken heads, transmissions, and warranty's. Some were voided for just showing up at a racing event or car show.
That all said, I so wanted an iphone when it came out. I was so pissed it was not on my carrier. I am so glad I didn't get one now!
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If Sony's any indication, roughly never (or at least until the gadgets themselves stop impressing).
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Apple's not fighting their users, they're protecting them, from their perspective.
The jailbreaks are dependent on vulnerabilities which really can't be allowed to remain, for the security of the entire userbase. When the SDK is released all the developers who've already made apps will have a big head start and the good ones will even have an opportunity to get paid for their hard work if they choose.
Should be unnecessary to point this out on /. but a hack is, well, a hack. Isn't that the fun of it?
The cryPhone (Score:2, Insightful)
P.S: article tagged cryphone.
Re:The cryPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
The whyPhone (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is Apple fixing known and demonstrated security flaws in products? I can't imagine why!
I would think the fact that they are soon releasing an API for the phone would be seen as an indication they in fact supporting development as best they can. But you simply cannot have Apple leave gaping security holes in a product open or someone WILL exploit them eventually. Would you rather Apple left open the hole that let any
Re:The cryPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
The movement to provide on-demand services is NOT about improving life for the customer. It has ALWAYS been about improving revenue. Getting more for less.
and anyway...
I own a hacked iPhone with the 1.1.2 firmware with about 15 third-party applications on it. This thing is by far the most useful consumer electronics device I've ever owned (besides my pc of course). I don't have to upgrade to 1.1.3 and it is still useful to me. When it's cracked I'll upgrade.... but either way it's still a win/win for me.
Not the model as we know it (Score:2)
That makes no sense. Regardless of how many "MySuckySolitare" games people release, Apple is still free to sell whatever they like on iTunes and probably get uptake that is affected negligibly by unpolished experimenters - have you SEEN most Palm software?
After all, Apple started the iTunes store selling so
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That said, playing solitaire on a touch screen is pretty sweet. Eve
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They want to block things that hurt their business including:
VoIP & IM apps that take away their call and message revenue
Apps that connect to the internet and use that nice "unlimited data" plan for things AT&T doesn't want it used for
The official line from the carriers is "unauthorized 3rd party apps are a security risk to our network" (although if this is true, why hasn't a carrier or phone maker come up with a demonstration on a simulator or a t
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When I upgraded my phone, I went with the Samsung Sync. Although it lacks availability of 3rd party apps, I bought it for the short term - it h
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Not quite a chip, but yes [wikipedia.org].
Mouse.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say we'll see a fix for the fix by the end of January. So all the iPhone users can get their fix fix fix.
How dare they! (Score:5, Funny)
They're violating hackers' right to run their code on whoever's hardware they like!
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Valid Security Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT
most of the security circumnavigation is a result of buffer overflows and other stuff that could be used in theory by attackers as well so they are right to patch it.
Personally I'm going to wait until after the SDK is released until I think about buying one, and anybody else who is currently trying to hack the iphone should do the same (even just to save their wallets from more brick costs).
Why no J2ME (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been doing Java stuff for a long time. And I've even done a few small things in J2ME in the past.
But if you think about it, there's a good reason the iPhone doesn't have J2ME - it's not M. That is, nothing about the iPhone is anything like the reference J2ME platform, and it's really not a "Micro" kind of platform in the traditional sense of the word. But there's also no good Java GUI API to an all touch input device either, so you combine that with Java processor and memory requirements and it's really not a good fit for the iPhone, at least right now.
Now that XCode/ObjC has garbage collection, there's really no good reason a Java developer couldn't move over to Objective C if they really want to develop something for the platform.
When the API is finally released, we probably will see someone release a J2ME emulator for the iPhone which would be kind of interesting. But I think it would be some work to put that together.
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Now that XCode/ObjC has garbage collection, there's really no good reason a Java developer couldn't move over to Objective C if they really want to develop something for the platform.
Er.. other than having to learn a new language with a new object model (ObjC's OOP doesn't exactly map to Java or C++) and a whole new set of libraries, you mean?
After all that, frankly, garbage collection is only a minor concern. If you're learning a whole new development platform, you may as well learn how to free your own memory when you're done with it.
Sure, they could go through all that, but a barber could learn to be a mechanic too. Even moving from Java to C# is no trivial task, and C#/.NET is fund
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The second paragraph makes me question whether you actually know what J2ME is, or have any understanding about the relative specs of feature phones, smartphones, the iPhone, and desktop computers. (And it's pretty moot, anyway, considering the fact that Apple has locked out third party development until february, and depending on the control they leverage with their signing process, could continue to lock out competing p
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Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue with the unlocking is a different however. But, until the US people stand up and actually say that they want universal unlocking for all phones e.t.c. exclusive deals like the iPhone will continue. (Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?
Re:Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Apple has worked extremely hard to put themselves in the limelight, to maintain as high a profile as possible
Apple has? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because Apple has? Or the media has? Because every single phone since the dawn of time has "worked extremely hard to put themselves in the limelight". Apple just managed to actually succeed - and is being punished for that. Success is why Apple is being singled out, not because they tried any harder or any differently than other phones which get ignored.
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Seriously, what success? Apple's Jesus-phone was probably the most hyped product of 2007. Months in advance you couldn't get around all the articles promising a revolution in mobile phones.
The reality is that I've yet to see one on this side of the pond, while I have a lot of Apple-fans in my network. They couldn't care less about some overpriced locked-down gimmick. Apple has been pushing ou
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Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?
Because in general the only phones anyone on Slashdot cares about are smart phones. Most smart phones makers (Palm, RIM) sell those phones through multiple carriers, so while often locked, they're locked to the phone service you have, not a competitor. The iPhone is the first really nice smart phone that a lot of people here would need to switch carriers to use without a hack, which is why people keep complaining. The issue is finally affecting them.
What percentage of customers are actually impacted (Score:2)
But does it BRICK hacked phones? (Score:2, Interesting)
Jesus Christ, iPhone is not life or death (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod me to hell, I don't care, I have karma to burn.
Re:Jesus Christ, iPhone is not life or death (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T iPhone 900 minutes + unlimited data + rollover minutes = $85ish after taxes.
As for the 3rd party apps, I'll reserve judgment until after the SDK comes out. Like any half intelligent consumer, I bought the iPhone because I was happy with what it did, out of the box, at the price they charged. I did install the jailbreak + some third party apps on the original OS, but none of them were that useful. When the software update came out I knew it would trash my 3rd party apps but didn't care, so I installed it.
To be honest, I didn't need any of the apps and am not really missing any functionality. I didn't even know there were ways to install 3rd party apps on the newer firmwares, that's how little I care.
Once the SDK comes out and apps are "officially" available I'll take another look and see if there's anything I can't live without.
why Android will push out the iPhone (Score:3, Funny)
Predictions are difficult, and I'm no seer. This one looks obvious to me though.
You are forgetting one important detail. (Score:2)
A regular person isn't going to buy an Andr
iPhone SDk announced before Android- Occam applies (Score:3, Interesting)
The iPhone SDK was announced before android.
But even if it was not, apply Occam's Razor - what is the simplest explanation for the iPhone SDK? Simply put it's the entire internet whining to no end ever since the iPhone launch that they want an SDK for the iPhone - more importantly, among them many registered Apple developers. It could be that Apple actually listens to customers and developers, a plan so crazy it just might work!
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Yep, those Macbook, Ipod, and Iphone sales figures sure do suck.
At $200+ per share I'll have some of that "undoing" myself thanks.
Mot sure if people realize this (Score:2)
Ummmm...it's just a phone, people.... (Score:2)
If you bought a car and completely changed the engine you wouldn't complain if the manufacturer didn't service it or keep a stock of oil filters for it.
Just a thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally love my iPhone. It does everything I need and then some. For instance I NEVER used youtube, but now I find myself using it in the oddest situations (like when an guy at work was talking about conway twitty I searched and found some concert clips and showed him). I also dont mind the wait for third party apps, I would rather have a well thought out SDK than something hacked together. Heres something I dont understand regarding third party apps; why does everyone feel that Apple has to support them and be careful when updating. I find this analogous to a contractor building a house and having to redesign it every morning when someone cuts holes for windows or runs wires where they want to. If the "hacker" community involved wants to create a cell phone then do it. Don't complain that someone spent a long time to refine the hardware and software for a device and then claims ownership and is protective of it. If their so happy with their unlocked phones then don't update, if its so perfect leave it alone. Better yet why not treat it in the true spirit of open source and give Apple the respect for what they did and fork it. Make your own project, create the firmware, make a loader, refine its synching abilities, and so forth. I love the open source community and use a lot of their software daily, linux especially is a one of the best things ever to happen to computing. What I don't like is the direction its moving, and the attitude towards the iPhone makes this apparent. I attribute this to the RMS opensourcers' and their socialist, anti-capitalists ideologies (Honestly what is wrong with making a profit off of your creation, this isn't the 70's and these are not command line e-mail apps were talking about).
I dont mind the way Apple does buisness and believe they listen to their consumers. I cant tell you how many posts I read complaining of a lack of gapless playback on the iPod, only to find out that these posts were dated and that the feature had been included. The thing with Apple is that they don't just "do" things to shut people up. I admire that. They have a direction their moving in and they keep the course. I cant stand these companys that try to make a swiss army knife style device that is just crap. Have some focus and get the core features working. I had a gps-enabled blackberry on nextel and I dont think I ever got it to find my location. Thats crap, if a feature is there it should work, with the least amount of flaws. My iPhone always works and the only two apps I ever have problems with (Mail when I check my IMAP account from to many locations simoultaneously i.e. on my laptop while connected on my phone, and safari has the occasional page crash) are corrected very quickly. If an app hangs hold the home button down and it will restart. I never have to reboot my iPhone and can honestly say that its been on for about 4-5 months straight. Thats stability.
In time I agree that most of these arguments will be mute and have been a waste of time. The SDK will come, it probobly will be limited in the beginning but will eventually be full featured. It will become unlocked, I mean, Isn't it illegal to keep a phone locked after the contract is up anyway. If this isn't allowed then someone will take them to court and force them to obey the laws.
Now for a request. Could everyone stop complaining and get innovating. Take all this negativity and focus it into the iPhone killer. I would love this and probably be one of the first buyers . Ohh yeah I own Apple stock (sort of a disclamer), but I would ditch it and my iPhone in a second if there was truly a better product. I'm only loyal to my family, my money goes to the winner.
Steve says: Pwn Different (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Why do people like the iphone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I just bought an iPhone. 2 days ago. I am both pleased and underwhelmed. I find that it doesn't do as much as i would have hoped. It does a lot well, and the browsing is nice, i wish it were faster. Even in wifi mode, it isnt as fast as browsing on a laptop over wifi.
Its a great start. It really is a nice way to use a phone but i do think that it will be a challenge for apple or any developer when they open their sdk, to add more complex functions to the ui workflow.
Currently there is no copy and paste for example. How do you do it with just a touch screen ui? You only have so much screen space, plus you run the risk of touching other things on screen and activating their functions.
Its a great start, and the os will get more and more apps from apple over time, atleast i hope thats their plan. I hope they upgrade it with functionality and apps, even as new hardware versions come out, i hope the os and apps continue to be available on all of the versions over the years.
Itunes for windows absolutely sucks. My pc can run crysis at 1920x1080 with evertyhing set to very high except the shaders which is set to high.... but it can barely run itunes.
Itunes is a programming peice of shit. Apple really hates PC users. It shows. It is fucking obvious, and i feel ripped off in that regard. Apple NEVER supports their hardware on the PC, with quality software. It has been that way for a while now. Apple purposely neglects the iTunes software on windows and it is a fucking rip off scam. Its a bait and switch. Buy the hardware, but its a nightmare to use on windows. Just the way Apple wants. It does not at all inspire me to even consider buying a MAC. Its Apple's way of saying "See we told you PCs are slow and bad..." when in reality its Apple playing bullshit. They should be investigated by the feds for it and i'm dead fucking serious.
Youtube and Google maps is incredible on the iphone.
Email needs some more functionality.
The iPhone needs Instant messeging through a native app running in the os (AIM, YAHOO, MSN, etc). Currently you can do it through webpages like meebo.com
I cant open a link in a new window in the browser. You can with a bookmarklet but, not natively in safari. This makes it a pain when browsing because it doesnt cache the pervious page, it seems quite slow when going "back".
There are problems, but overall, if the os is robust enough and there is enough ram and processing power, all it takes is some smart thinking in the ui department to continuously add features and improvements.
Like i said, its a great start. Apple needs to follow through and improve the software both on the iphone, and on windows!!!!!!!!!
Sorry wrote this while on a phone call so i appologize for the jumbled thoughts.
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The conspiracy theorist in me says that this is at the request AT&T (or whatever their name is at the moment - I lose track) because it could compete with their income from text messaging. Who knows?
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For what it's worth, I was at apple when iTunes for windows came out. Apple didn't write iTunes for windows, it was outsourced to a bangalore programming team. This might be one of the reasons it sucks so badly.
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Oh and I've used the iPhone for a week straight.
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why the fuck is this tagged suprising[sic]?
It is tagged "!surprising," as in "not surprising."
apple released a shitty locked down phone and people hacked it.
"Shitty" is a matter of opinion, the majority of which seems decidedly opposed to yours.
the only suprise here is that apple didn't BRICK your iphones with the update.
Apple patched the vulnerability used by third parties to add hacks. Since they are coming out with an official SDK and since this adds a way for users to add custom icons for Web apps it's not like there is not going to be third party apps, some people are just impatient.
You must be new here... (Score:2)
This is adopted in several programming languages. There are other computer based meanings, but here on
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Re:Wake up Apple! (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny. Microsoft allows complete and open access to their Windows Mobile OS (whether or not you can load your apps onto the phone is left to the decision of the carriers). In fact they even opened the source [microsoft.com] for the OS (okay, it's a Shared Source license, and it requires having an officially licensed version of Windows Embedded CE 6.0, but the source code is all there if you want to modify it while building a new device of your own). I think this is a case where you want Apple to act more like Microsoft rather than less.
On the other hand, I'm an iPhone user. I spent a fair amount of time playing with Windows CE in the past, and while I like the system I was not a fan of any of the current phones using it today. So I bought an iPhone, and I like it. The current lack of an SDK isn't slowing me down, since I probably wouldn't write any iPhone apps anyway (as much as I'd like to think I would, I know that I'd just dabble a bit and never actually finish anything). Sure, there are some things that are missing (GPS, full Exchange connectivity, an IM app), but I can live without those at least for now.
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But it did bring back an article I read more than 20 years ago. It was about the useless scripting language which developers had to use to develop apps for the Newton. When the API comes out it could be a total joke, if that is how Apple want to play it.
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I am constantly amazed - wait scrub that - consistently bored at the level of Slashdot's ferocity towards an issue of which they have the tiniest morsel of information to go on. Bah this is pointless, it'll just get downmodded by iPhone hating groupthink.
You're right - suggesting that one's opinion is held by a small-but-presumably-correct minority and that it will result in dismissal by the implied incorrect majority is indeed pointless. In all seriousness: if it's pointless, why even mention it? Remem