Apple Bans Jailbreakers From the App Store 507
Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Mills writes in the Examiner that Apple has been cutting off access to the iTunes App Store for iPhone hackers and jailbreakers. Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer who successfully hacked the iPhone OS 3.1.3 and unlocked the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices, discovered he'd been cut off and twittered: '"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons," that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry.' Another hacker, iH8Sn0w, who is behind the Sn0wbreeze tool, confirms that his account has also been deactivated even though iH8sn0w's exploit had only been revealed to Dev Team, the group responsible for the PwnageTool. 'It is kind of surprising that two people associated with jailbreaking have had this happen to them so soon after one another, but it's too early to say if this is a campaign that Apple is starting up,' writes Mills."
I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll need a bit more evidence than 2 cases.
Anyway, that would be an effective way to encourage people to try out alternate ways to acquire the same software...
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the 80's all over again......
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple doesn't mind chasing away all the hard core developers who'll tweak the underlying system. The iPhone, iTouch, iPad are only really useful for video games, music/movies, and basic communications and information services, ala maps, sms, etc. Apple just doesn't need developers. Anyone interested in developing more serious applications should really look into Maemo/MeeGo or Android.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ almighty, it is 1986 all over again. "Yeah, Apple doesn't need all those people who just want to plug in any all video card. We aspire to a higher class of user." which, roughly translated meant "Okay, IBM and clone manufacturers, we seed 90%+ of market share to you to assure our purity."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Okay, IBM and clone manufacturers, we seed 90%+ of market share to you to assure our purity."
So its Apple who are behind all those OSX torrents!!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MS hasn't exactly changed in the last 10-15 years, why would anyone think Apple has either?
hint to folks(not aimed at you mighty): for a corporation to change at it's core is exceedingly difficult and feared by both a corporation's own management and their stakeholders in various forms. It almost never happens.
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not a single cede/seed joke in a story about apple.. what has happened to my slashdot
I can't help mysef. (Score:5, Informative)
cede [google.com] , not seed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Christ almighty, it is 1986 all over again. "Yeah, Apple doesn't need all those people who just want to plug in any all video card. We aspire to a higher class of user." which, roughly translated meant "Okay, IBM and clone manufacturers, we seed 90%+ of market share to you to assure our purity."
Back in 1986, there was no 'any ol' video card' as each platform was separate hardware and most home computers probably still had built in chips and connected to the TV. Microsoft was an insignificant player who wa
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you overestimate Apple's market position. Sure, in portable music players, iPod is king. HOWEVER, in mobile phones? iPhone is popular but it has a LOT of stiff competition. Android is rising fast - there are still tons of people who still prefer BlackBerries. Even more just take whatever is one sale. Apple isn't the behemoth in this market that some people believe them to be. They are exactly what they were back in the 1980's computer market: a solid competitor with good market share. Close-
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Except long term I have a feeling the carriers are going to be hijacking Android and only allowing apps from "their" app stores. There is simply too much money in apps and the carriers are going to muscle their way in some how. They don't want to be just dump pipes. We've finally seen unlimited voice plans fall to what I had been paying for 700 minutes of family talk.
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Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Informative)
I cannot believe Apple did not learn this lesson the last time in the 80s. They were in the drivers seat with the PC and they refused to let anyone develop any software for it. Well, everyone gave them the finger and now almost everyone uses a Microsoft OS (although I am glad that is finally changing). Looks like Apple's need to control every thing and try to sell all the software themselves is catching up with them now that Android is out.
Perhaps I don't understand you right, but when did Apple refuse to allow anyone to develop software for their PC's?
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What?
I don't remember that. The Apple ][ was pretty open, and I had absolutely no problems developing for it nor finding software. Hell we even had Apple clones in our user's group.
What gave Microsoft DOS th
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Yeah, "several years" head start indeed, but don't let the facts get in the way.
Quantify this for me. Your dates above show eighteen months of a head start, do they not? If the term 'several years' is indeed invalid, is the point somehow not the same? In fact would it not be a disadvantage to be comparing products that are 'several years' apart? Would not the newer product be expected to have superior features?
Are you going to put your rebuttal into a point within the context of the discussion, or did you merely get off on a tangent there?
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Your comment that you don't believe it made me chuckle. WHY don't you believe it? This seems to me to be precisely the kind of thing that Apple would try and get away with.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to use a service, you have to play by that service's rules. Don't like the rules, don't use the service.
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how is this different than MS banning hacked consoles from XBL
See, that whole thing really pissed me off. Instead of banning hacked consoles from Live entirely, why not just ban them from having a Gold account and allow them to keep a silver account? That way, people with hacked consoles can still pay Microsoft for downloadable games and DLC, yet can't "cheat" during multiplayer.
To what purpose does it serve to ban people from Live ENTIRELY instead of putting them on permanent silver account status? I can completely understand banning hacked consoles from multiplay
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Except they didn't ban the people. they banned the hardware from live, since it's untrustworthy. The people still have their gold status, and can sign in on another unhacked console, and use xbox live the way they always did.
Putting people on silver status would involve taking away a service they paid for. The fact that the device they were using is no longer considered kosher to use to access that service is a related, but seperatable issue. They still have all of the stuff they owned, and can use it on another console if they transfer the rights to that console. MS didn't steal money from them.
Personally, if I was going to mod an xbox, I'd have a second, unmodified one for normal usage nearby. Anyone who decided to take the risk also has the old owner onus applicable.
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Microsoft loses money on the hardware sales. If you're hacking your XBox and pirating games (last time I checked their wasn't a homebrew scene for the 360, and the only reason to hack is to pirate games), then Microsoft lost money on the hardware, and can't make it up with game sales.
But they CAN make it up with online sales of XBLA and DLC purchases....sales made impossible by completely banning hacked consoles instead of just banning them from Live Gold. So the question still stands...what does Microsoft have to gain by preventing hacked consoles from paying for XBLA and DLC?
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't turning off the device, they are removing your access to the iTunes store. Which is a service. Apple has a real and growing problem with people stealing the paid apps. It would be one thing if jail broken phones were just used for loading free software. But it's not.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
So wait. People jailbreak their phones because they want to do things that Apple doesn't encourage. But, they still want to buy stuff from Apple but Apple says "No, we don't want you guys buying stuff from us" and thus the only way they can get apps is to copy them illegally? That seems like a great way to create a massive illegal copying network..
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Informative)
As of oct 09 38% of jail broken iPhones had pirated apps on them. The number is rising. It's more or less a case that the pirates ruined it for the free software folks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hah...I jailbroke my iPod...but the app store has _never_ worked with it. Even when it's not jailbroken, on several different firmware versions, the app store app on the iPod itself just causes the whole device to lock up, and the app store on iTunes just makes iTunes crash. If I wanted a paid app I wouldn't have much choice but to pirate it...I never have, and it's even less likely that I will now as the hardware of the thing's already going to shit (I have 3rd generation original iPods that still work per
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So a clear majority of jailbroken phones have no pirated apps at all, or as the article states "There are more people who just want extra control over their device and not an opportunity to steal apps." And of those who do pirate, they used paid apps more frequently than the pirated ones.
Removing access to the store would result in 100% piracy rate on jailbroken phones. So exactly how is removing store access combatting piracy?
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If this is true why do F/OSS zealots get their collective panties in a bunch when some corporation profits on something that uses some open source code?
Redhat makes millions of profits from their linux distro and nobody cares, what they do care about is when they don't follow the license requirements, which turns it from legitimately using it for free to pirating, essentially.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to use a service, you have to play by that service's rules. Don't like the rules, don't use the service.
XBL and Blizzard are services. If I hack I can cheat and degrade the experiences of others. The iPhone is a device. It's mine. No one else should care what I do with it.
But the App Store is a service. The device is yours but you play by their rules to use the services for it.
Re:I don't believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't believe it (Score:5, Informative)
And you can still use your iPhone. You just don't get access to iTunes.
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And you can still use your iPhone. You just don't get access to iTunes.
...and, as a consequence, you don't get access to any software produced by any legitimate software developer for the iphone.
It would be sort of ok (well, still debateable) if this only affected Apple's own software. What you fail to acknowledge is that Apple has established a system which allows them to prevent iphone users from using software from anyone, or at least anyone who wishes for their software to reach a mainstream audience of iphone users.
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Personal computing was built by hackers. There would be no IBM clones, no Apple I, without people pushing the limits of what they could get their hands on.
The IBM PC clones weren't built by hackers (I doubt the PC would have been the most attractive machine to a hacker-type anyway), it was built via a clean-room reverse engineering of the original PC BIOS.
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On the other hand it is entirely consistent with previous Apple behavior, so it may be true.
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And they would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for those meddling DEVELOPERS!
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No proof (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, and see this Apple KB article [apple.com]:
So who's to say it's not someone just messing with these guys? All it takes is a few bad login attempts to temporarily disable ANY Apple ID.
And even if Apple was disabling just these Apple IDs, it's clearly not of all people with jailbroken devices, else we would know about it; instead it's specific, individual people (who are probably in violation of Apple's terms of service for Apple IDs).
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So who's to say it's not someone just messing with these guys? All it takes is a few bad login attempts to temporarily disable ANY Apple ID.
That's an excellent point. I guess we'll all have to wait for Apple to make a statement if they are instituting a policy against jailbreakers. Until then maybe knee-jerk reactions are a bit over the top? What an amazing concept...
I'm all for holding a company's feet to the fire when they step over the line but 2 isolated examples with no independent corroboration or statements by the company tends to make me skeptical of the whole story. Even then, Apple has every right to cut off access to these hackers. I
Re:No proof (Score:4, Funny)
You mean
You might want to
be very misrepresentative of what was actually said.
Figured it'd happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Kind of silly, IMO. You're going to ban people from possibly paying for apps? Not every app is jailbroken, some are cracked incorrectly (some of the antipiracy mechanisms in apps I've seen are nothing short of hilarious trolling), and some are out of date. Additionally, if an app is really good, a user may buy the app to support the dev.
So you ban people and what happens? People jailbreak all the free apps too.
Seems like a bad move on Apple's part.
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Seems like a bad move on Apple's part.
What are you talking about? They're half way there!
All they need to do now is Ban the non-jailbroken phones from the Appstore as well, and soon the world will be a better place.
(kidding)
(... Well mostly kidding)
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They didn't ban everyone with a jailbroken phone and most likely wont do so, but only the two guys who originally released the hacks to jailbreak iPhone.
Re:Figured it'd happen (Score:5, Informative)
Get a grip people. There haven't been any reports that Apple is banning people who jailbreak their own personal phones, they have banned TWO people who are involved in discovering and propagating exploits for the iPhone. Yes, these hacks are being used to jailbreak but it's a much different thing to ban someone who is actively seeking new ways to break into the iPhone OS than it is to ban someone unlocking their own phone.
If Apple starts banning en-masse people who have jailbroken their iPhones then we can break out the torches and pitchforks. Until then it's a company saying "no more soup for you" to a couple of hackers who are looking to exploit the company's secure system. And yes, I'll be right there with the rest of you if Apple does start pushing around joe average over this issue.
Re:Figured it'd happen (Score:4, Insightful)
If Apple starts banning en-masse people who have jailbroken their iPhones then we can break out the torches and pitchforks. Until then it's a company saying "no more soup for you" to a couple of hackers who are looking to exploit the company's secure system.
So you're willing to protest when you get cut off but not when the guys whose software freed your phone get cut off? That's mighty neighborly of you.
Re:Figured it'd happen (Score:5, Interesting)
So you're willing to protest when you get cut off but not when the guys whose software freed your phone get cut off?
It's a matter of scale and purpose. Someone hacking their own device and keeping that action to themselves is a single event. Someone making tools and enabling others (most likely people who couldn't do it in the first place) to hack their device is a manifold increase in the number of hacks, possibly also enabling further, deeper hacks of the device and network security.
There's no hard and fast cutoff as to what I would consider a reasonable degree of a company's ability to defend its closed system. When we are talking about cellular networks it wouldn't take much to cause major problems, even legitimate users can bring down the system. Add in people changing the software in unanticipated ways and then DISTRIBUTING those changes and you can easily cause havoc. On the other hand, stuff like DeCSS which enables a person to make backups of their DVDs has a less direct effect upon other users. It can still cause problems with piracy and such but it's not going to suddenly make everyone's DVDs unusable.
In this case I think that perhaps the iPhone hackers broke the terms of service of the iTunes Store and they had their accounts terminated. Apple has a right to do this, it's spelled out in the TOS. As long as they use it selectively for major infractions I'm not too worried about it, it's when they use it to ban every single little violation that I'll be worried. Is that arbitrary? Perhaps but everyone draws the line somewhere.
Finally, I don't jailbreak. If I didn't care for Apple's rules I wouldn't have bought the iPhone in the first place. If I wanted a more open device there are some out there and I would have gotten one. My iPhone works just fine for me without hacking anything.
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It can happen. I'm sure a lot of XBox 360 users were thinking the same thing before Microsoft did their mass bannings from XBL.
Of course it can happen. Google could also start arming its employees with Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapons and send them out in the streets causing mischief and mayhem but I don't think too many people are losing sleep over that possibility! ;-)
The point is that only fools panic over what COULD remotely possibly maybe happen. Keep an eye on the issue, yes. Respond if it gets out of hand, yes! But don't make the assumption that two incidents equals a mass ban. That's just jumping th
Re:Figured it'd happen (Score:4, Insightful)
"The problem is the very real and growing problem of pirated paid apps on jailbroken phones."
This doesn't fix that problem, unfortunately.
Dear oh dear... how about some fact checking? (Score:5, Informative)
The other guy cobbled a VB front-end onto a load of other people's utilities to make a questionably legal Windows version of an existing OSX program for creating custom firmware bundles.
Bit of an overreaction on Apple's part if you ask me.
The Apple Experience (Score:5, Funny)
Is a lot like the experience you have after having a few too many drinks and wandering into a dark alley at 3AM.
Re:The Apple Experience (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, an overpriced blowjob?
Hmmm ... I suppose that's not too far off the mark, actually.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but the hooker at least looks stunning!
The cynic in me would say she's wearing way too much makeup.
Re:The Apple Experience (Score:5, Funny)
And a black turtleneck.
A Word to the Wise (Score:2)
Sounds like it's time for a little spoofing. One account for access to the app store, another to give the Apple security thugs some red meat to chew on. Time to teach Mr. Jobs some manners.
Closed Ecosystem (Score:4, Insightful)
That is one of the huge drawbacks of such a closed ecosystem.
However, the original post is less agitate than the summary:
Is Apple starting to ban those associated with jailbreaking?
The answer is probably not. [...] however it definitely would put an iron grip on those who pirate free software. The details of what is going on remain extremely murky but maybe they are taking down some of the bigger players.
You've a right to hack hardware you own... (Score:2)
...But do not expect the hardware/software's creator to give you carte blanche access to the resources to do it.
And heaven help you should you do what they fear you or others could do if your code has a serious bug; spam or interrupt the cell network or a local wifi network. The onslaught of Apple's lawyers, not to mention the FCC and other international communications regulators, would by a iPocalypse in itself.
Re:You've a right to hack hardware you own... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which explains the constant cellular outages caused by thousands of rogue apps on Android phones. That's pure fear-mongering by Apple and the carriers to keep their lock-in.
Serves right. that much fanboism eventually had to (Score:2, Insightful)
have a price tag with it. in this case, price is freedom.
apple users should face the distasteful truth. the company which is providing them 'stylish' and 'hip' products that 'just work', is just wanting to keep them as cash cows without any consumer choice.
Silver lining (Score:5, Insightful)
This obviously sucks for the people involved, but I can't help but feel this is actually superb news. Maybe this will finaly drive home that the ability to jailbreak your devices does not excuse manufactures for making locked-down closed devices. Far too often I've heard arguments of the form: "[DEVICES] are not locked down, because you can jailbreak them if you want to."
Not just for jailbreakers (Score:3, Insightful)
I got the exact same message a couple of weeks ago when I tried to log in to ADC. Here's a screenshot: http://tomasf.se/other/appleid.jpg [tomasf.se]
I'm not a jailbreaker, though, so either Apple made a mistake in my case, or this has nothing to do with jailbreaking. Now to figure out how to resolve this... :-/
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I got the exact same message a couple of weeks ago when I tried to log in to ADC. Here's a screenshot: http://tomasf.se/other/appleid.jpg [tomasf.se]
I'm not a jailbreaker, though, so either Apple made a mistake in my case, or this has nothing to do with jailbreaking. Now to figure out how to resolve this... :-/
It's pretty easy to resolve. Buy an Android phone.
Re:Not just for jailbreakers (Score:5, Informative)
Really? Wow, so Google doesn't lock people out of accounts that have had too many bad login attempts?
Because that is exactly what has happened here [apple.com]; nothing sinister.
Nice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep digging that hole for yourself, Apple. It'll save Android from having to do the heavy lifting.
Irony (Score:2, Insightful)
Technically they are right. (Score:2)
A manipulated verification procedure for software to be installed *is* a security problem. If the procedure is manipulated, then it is imaginable that binaries transferred from the appstore to the phone get manipulated on the way and that apple is liable for the damage from that. If the promise is a safe delivery of an application, then, as a customer you probably can sue them if you can prove that apple got knowledge about this and did *not* inform you. So technically speaking, an jailbroken iphone is a sy
Folks? Could we wait for a reply from Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a possible other side: Someone learned their login credentials, or at least the name, and tried too many times to log on as them. Poof, account locked for security reasons.
I'm usually not the first to come to Apple's defense (personally, I try hard to avoid their products exactly for the same reason I avoid Sony, I'm not a big fan of vendor lock-in), but I think we should first of all wait 'til it's verified that this is due to their jailbreaking.
Then there's still enough time to give them the verbal smackdown they (then) deserve.
Let's not jump to conclusions now (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So they should (Score:4, Insightful)
The vast majority of jail-breakers don't pirate apps. Well that or I hang out with the wrong people -- jailbreaking is extremely common, but I haven't seen an iPhone with a pirated app yet.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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The vast majority of jail-breakers don't pirate apps. Well that or I hang out with the wrong people -- jailbreaking is extremely common, but I haven't seen an iPhone with a pirated app yet.
You probably don't hang out with any high school or college kid ...
Anyway, I like how someone that starts a debate is now modded as "Troll" and an army of knights in shiny armors having the same kind of single-sided argument get modded Informative and Insightful.
The stats from October (Score:5, Informative)
Back in Oct 09 there were 4 million jailbroken iphones, of those at 38% have at least one pirated application. The numbers are real and growing. In order for the app store to be a viable business Apple has to protect the IP of the app holders. It's really sad, because there are great free uses of jail broken phones. It's too bad the pirate community ruined things for the free software community.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_iphone_app_piracy_statistics_reveal_try_before_you_buy_myth.php [readwriteweb.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've tried to follow along in this thread but I have missed something or the conversation gradually changed as it went on.
Are you implying that Apple is protecting the IP rights of software developers by blocking access to the only store to buy the applications that those software developers make? If so, can you explain that logic?
If I was selling applications there and Apple really was blocking jailbroken phones as this article speculates, using just your numbers, that is 4 million less people that have N
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Re:So they should (Score:5, Insightful)
where do you come up with this? Jail breaking exists because there is a demand for features that apple refuses to provide. It's no different than rooting a google phone, and for the same reasons.
Easy examples: Flash, multitasking, tethering.
I'm an apple hater, someone who doesn't even have an iphone, and even I know this. Basically, there wouldn't be jailbreaking if apple was actually giving their customers what they want.
Re:So they should (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll add my experience:
I've jailbroken my phone, and I have not placed a single app that was available on the appstore on my phone without purchasing it from the appstore.
I jailbroke my phone so I could get into the file system of the phone because I absolutely hate using iTunes to get files on and off my device. I also liked to be able to multitask and not have my preferred music player stop working because I wanted to look up something on the internet.
In fact, if I couldn't jailbreak my phone I wouldn't have purchased it in the first place since in its default state, it's a pretty crappy device for my needs.
Re:So they should (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a rather silly question - why did you buy it in the first place?
In its default state, I wouldn't have, and I didn't. I waited until it was possible to hack the device, then I purchased it once I saw that it wasn't a flakey hack and it was established that I wouldn't brick the device by breathing on it the wrong way. At that point, when I considered the total package (jailbroken iphone), it WAS what I wanted in a device since the alternatives (Verizon, Tmobile, Sprint) were not actually viable alternatives.
So in short, the unjailbroken iPhone was not something I wanted. The Jailbroken iPhone was.
Re:So they should (Score:4, Informative)
I jailbroke my phone to get these features:
1. A bash shell and openssh so I could have scripts for maintaining servers with me at all times.
2. Multitasking - why should GPS apps suspend and lose location info when someone calls? Why should Rhapsody not be allowed to run in the background? (Note to Apple: offer a Rhapsody-like streaming service please)
3. Steve Jobs may like how the iPhone GUI looks, but I don't worship Jobs and have my own ideas how my iPhone theme should look. Jobs is a brilliant guy, but he is a bit narcissistic. Why should he lock down my phone because I choose to use it differently than he uses his?
4. To enable tethering, which I haven't used other than to test it, but to know it's there if I am in a pinch and need internet access from a laptop immediately while on the road
And yet, I've not "pirated"[sic] a single application. I know people who don't jailbreak who claim to "pirate"[sic] apps, by syncing friends' phones to their macs (I don't know if it can be done as I'm not interested in "stealing"[sic] apps). I download plenty of apps from the app store - and some music (I'm mostly happy with my CD rips, but I do want to buy some tracks on occasion). I even purchase paid apps, such as TomTom, bejeweled, and quite a few others. Funny thing though, aside from TomTom, Defend Your Castle, and bejeweled, I don't bother with the apps I paid for all that much. I've found that many of the free ones are better, or just about as good! Why buy "fastlane" when the only real improvement over the free version is additional scenery?
I don't "pirate"[sic] apps or music, and have no desire to. And yet, I jailbroke my phone. In fact when I mistakenly downgraded to 3.1.3 (and did not have my hashes on file) I figured out a way to upgrade generate the hashes and upgrade from 3.1.3 back up to 3.1.2.
Posted anon since I figured out how to successfully revert back to 3.1.2 and I do not want Apple to ban me from the app store, since I actually LIKE giving Apple money in exchange for product on occasion.
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there's no law broken in jailbreaking an iphone either, so what's your point? Yes, you had a contractual agreement, but that's not law (nor would it hold up in court if apple tried to sue jailbreakers)- this is well established in the mod-chip cases in the US, which are legal.
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Re:So they should (Score:4, Insightful)
Jail-breaking facilitates piracy
So how is banning jailbreakers from the app store going to help with that? It seems like it would just force the jailbreakers to use pirated apps exclusively.
And assuming Apple limits the bans to the authors of jailbreaking tools rather than end users, it won't do much to deter the development of such tools. You don't need access to the app store to write the tools, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the authors of the tools have no problem pirating apps themselves.
I think jailbreaking isn't a great idea, and Apple is within its rights to deter it through security improvements and the like, but this just seems counterproductive.
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And this punishment just happens to only be effective against people who don't pirate.
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Jail-breaking facilitates piracy
Jail-breaking facilitates a lot of things, like SSH daemons. If Apple wants to stop piracy of digital media, they should stop selling digital media devices, because they facilitate piracy too.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But the majority of them cost, what, £5? Maybe £7 or £9?
More like £1.
From Apple's point of view, jailbreaking is a means of piracy and exploiting AT&T's bandwidth for things like tethering, and a possible vector for attack.
From free software advocates' point of view, jailbreaking is the freedom to install software that Apple/AT&T wouldn't approve.
From everyone else's point of view, it's a non-issue.
I can definitely relate to those who'd like to run any code they want on their phone, but IMHO they should really just cough up the money for a dev lice
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$99 isn't that much if you're already spending $1000/year for service.
Three problems with your argument:
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Nonsense - I signed up for the iPhone Developer Program as an Individual, as have many. It's one of the first questions asked, as it determines how you're listed in the App Store.
Re:I can't wait for my contract to expire (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever since you started making money hands over fist with iTunes...
Ummm... Apple has never started making money hand over fist with iTunes. Income from iTunes and the iPhone app store together are a negligible portion of Apple's revenue. Seriously, they both barely make more than the operational cost.
Re:I can't wait for my contract to expire (Score:4, Funny)
Ummm... Apple has never started making money hand over fist with iTunes. Income from iTunes and the iPhone app store together are a negligible portion of Apple's revenue. Seriously, they both barely make more than the operational cost.
It must suck for a company to have a component of its business operating at a profit.
Re:I can't wait for my contract to expire (Score:5, Interesting)
Cite that please. You're arguing that they make little to no money from content distribution through iTunes? I think you're full of it.
Sure. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/steve-jobs-tries-to-downplay-the-itunes-stores-profit/ [nytimes.com] ...is an article where a NYT pundit postulates that despite Apple having publicly stated they make little money on the operation, he thinks they might actually be making a billion dollars a year (they make 25 billion or so a year as a company). Be sure to read the update at the end where he acknowledges he was mostly wrong after someone explained to him how much credit card transaction fees cost.
Re:I can't wait for my contract to expire (Score:4, Insightful)
You didn't read the article you cited, did you? It made the exact opposite point of what you argue - that iTunes is immensely profitable for the firm. Read the link you posted.
Actually I did read it as you should know if you even read my comments telling you which portions you needed to pay attention to. Please go reread what I wrote. The article mentions the long standing position of Apple and belief of analysts that Apple makes little or nothing on iTunes. Then, it proposes Apple could make a billion dollars a year, which is to say, still less than all the other divisions of Apple make. It bases that upon the theory that Apple's margins could be slightly better than for other products they sell, which the author admits in the update was incorrect. He further admits he failed to take into account the cost of running the servers and the bandwidth costs. his end conclusion is, "But I still think that with the scale it has, I still think that iTunes is a better business than Mr. Jobs makes it out to be." in reference to Jobs saying it doesn't make much money. Seriously, reading comprehension goes beyond just scanning the title, slacker.
Re:I can't wait for my contract to expire (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to be having a normal ego threat response. I pointed out that your comment about Apple making lots of money on iTunes and your implication that they have changed business practices to cash in on that instead of on the businesses where they are making most of their money, was misinformed. Even the pie in the sky estimates of Apples iTunes revenue make it about 4% of their income, while more enlightened estimates put it probably below 1%. I cited an article from one of those pie in the sky people, who realized his mistake when corrected, in the hopes that you'd see not only the logic, but where people that make that assumption went wrong.
Instead of rationally revising your opinion with the input of this new data (as the author largely did), you got emotional and defensive. As if being wrong makes you less of a person, you instead chose to irrationally defend that incorrect opinion, in effect being a less intelligent person. I'm not pointing this out because I want to make you feel bad or look bad. I don't know you and don't really care that much. I just hope you can impartially consider your decision making process and truly consider if you are being reasoned and logical in future.
Re: (Score:2)
Ever since you started making money hands over fist with iTunes, you've started REALLY SUCKING as a company. I don't want to buy from you any longer. My next phone will NOT be an iPhone. My next laptop will NOT be another Macbook.
And they'll be okay with that, just so long as you keep using iTunes for your media and software needs. New! Order Chinese food through iTunes!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, everything was better in the olden days. I remember when we could just bash everything but Linux, but now freakin' COMPANIES sometimes do things right! What is the world coming to...
Re: (Score:2)
Umm I do not have an iPhone but at least 13 MILLION people do. They expect to sell another 15 million or so this year and I would bet on it if the 4G is released.
You may not like the "lock in" from Apple or the "lame" AT&T service but it is FAR from "crap" or "stupid". The iPhone DOMINATES the worldwide smartphone market. http://theappleblog.com/2010/01/22/iphone-dominating-worldwide-smartphone-usage-report/ [theappleblog.com]
The N900 has it own limitations the biggest being having to use AT&T or T-Mobile and large
Re: (Score:2)
You're an idiot. That's smartphone online usage, not market share. In market share, the iPhone has little more than 10% [cnet.com], while Nokia has 36% and RIM has more than 20%.
Re: (Score:2)
For goodness sake, who gives a crap about the stupid iphone?
I care not because I own one (I do, but it's not jailbroken), but because according to Jobs, this is the computing wave of the future. Apple is trying to prevent any usefulness for jailbreaking before they release their latest computer, the iPad. They're scared of what freedoms users can have with an iPad if jailbreaking them becomes common, so they need to make it very undesirable. The next step is an OS kill-switch, and I believe it will happen now. I thought for sure they wouldn't go _this_ far.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course you would not be the first person to make that connection.
Apple has turned into just the sort of company they were criticizing when they introduced the Macintosh.
That girl even looks Scandinavian...
Re:Not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it was the "cattle" comment. Sounds like a flame to me.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Funny)