Apple bans hackers from App Store
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
This warning applies to owners of 3GS iPod touch 3 iPod touch 2 with serial MC Any 3g unlockers
iPhone OS 3.1.3 is now out from Apple. Supposedly it fixes some very rare battery reporting issues on 3gs devices with a specific problem (It does not make your battery last longer). There are no new features. The release only stops jailbreaks. That's right. No new features.
DO NOT UPDATE YOU WILL BE SORRY.
Currently there is no jailbreak for this firmware. Unofficial sources have confirmed that they have patched up the method we used to jailbreak 3.1.2 so you will not be able to jailbreak. If you update you will lose all your jailbreak apps and will not be able to get them back. In other words, updating means you lose a lot of stuff in return for almost nothing back. In addition, there is no ETA on a jailbreak for 3.1.3. It may never be jailbroken. It is likely that they (dev team, geohot) will not waste another hole on 3.1.3. They will most likely hold it for the bigger update that will come with the release of the iPad and iPhone 4.0. Unlockers - you cannot unlock the new baseband. This would apply to those 3g users that can jailbreak 3g. If you update, you will not be able to unlock.
To summarize: - Update adds NO NEW FEATURES, do not update.
I don't know much about the inner workings of jailbreak, nor have an iPhone, but given the way Apple protects its IP, I'm really curious.
Not to mention that if they start prosecuting their customers that's terrible PR, and the ones most likely to jailbreak are the ones recommending iPhones to their friends and family (i.e. the technically inclined), and also the ones who would make a huge fuss about it. It really would do them no good at all.
They have, where the DMCA is applicable. The thing is, contrary to popular belief, the DMCA does not give them any sort of right to sue an individual for the act of jailbreaking itself. It is, after all, your phone. But it does come into play when people distribute the hacks to do so, as they involve breaking Apple's copy protections for the express purpose of modifying Apple's copyrighted firmware.
By analogy: A publisher does not have the right to stop you from cutting up a book and re-arranging the pages, but they do have the right to stop you from distributing such a book, even in modified form.
The beatings will continue until usability improves.
If that doesn't match with Apple's philosophy, they should at least be upfront with the idea that you're leasing the device and that Apple reserves the right to override anything you do to it because it doesn't match their "vision".
If only there was a way Apple could ensure there were no stickers, skins, or markings on individual iPhones. Then they could really make sure no one got confused and thought the iPhone was ugly!
It's really just not worth the hassle, honestly. I will never own an iPhone primarily for these reasons.
But anyway, in some areas you're right. Sometimes less choice makes a device easier to use. At the same time it lowers the threshold at wich I cannot do something that I absolutely must to do. At that point "ease of use" becomes irrelevant.
That's why Apple has become utterly irrelevant to me. Obviously, many people will never hit that threshold, so Apple is going to keep on selling a lot of devices. I just can't understand how anyone calling himself (or herself) a hacker can accept the kind of limitations imposed by Apple, which are hugely more restrictive than anything Microsoft came up with even in their most evil moments.
Apart from the things which are completely unfixable by design - e.g. the iPhone's utterly standard screen size, touchscreen and lack of keyboard which means any app will work and which isn't something that can be retrofitted onto Android, and the things which it doesn't even make sense to talk about fixing, such as the already available third party apps, and the things which can't be implemented without violating Apple patents or Apple license agreements with third party companies or reverse engineering Apple sync protocols...
Apart from that, even if we agree that the amount of work is exactly the same (which I don't), that still leaves the implication that people who are interested in finding highly prized low-level exploits in iPhone software would be equally interested in (and skilled at) putting little appreciated internals and UI polish on a completely different system. Which is certainly not a given.
And that's assuming that the Android project leads would accept arbitrary and widespread changes.
1. Was a decent phone with a good address book
2. Provided a good web surfing experience
3. Provided a good email service
4. Fixed voicemail through visual voicemail
5. Made the carriers provide unlimited data
6. Integrated mapping with GPS
7. Music player
This combination made it a killer device.
Your App Store purchases are locked to your Apple ID via FairPlay DRM, right? While indeed less serious than a device ban, that puts all your existing apps (or other non-music purchases) in a pretty uncertain state.
If your ISP gets a DMCA notice because you were downloading a cracked version of an app that you already own, do you think they're going to accept the explanation that 'it's okay, I already own it'? What about in the context of some of the proposed 'three strikes' laws? Nasty potential minefield.
* Depending on interpretation, of course.
To me, that just sounds like doing what you want with a device you own, and telling Apple that you appreciate the sentiment but don't need their babysitting.
When you download a movie or a game from an unauthorized source, that's copyright infringement. When you download an exploit that lets you use your phone in the ways you want, that's just downloading an exploit; it doesn't transmit any substantial intellectual property owned by any other party, so I don't understand your complaint or comparison, really.
The one provision which jailbreaking may violate is the DMCA's restriction on circumvention of "copy protection". Technically, sharing any mechanism to circumvent "copy protection" is illegal in the United States. I don't think that jailbreaking qualifies as a circumvention of copy protection on balance, though, because most people aren't doing it to make copies, but of course that depends on the judge.
This is the same message that you get if you enter (or, more importantly, someone else enters) your password wrongly multiple times: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2446
i see it as a net loss for apple. you're not going to deter whatever "deviant" behavior you think exists on current jailbroken iphones, whatever that may be. if people want to download free apps, they're going to do it. if anything, i'd think you're hurting your image by turning against hackers like this.
will apple recover any lost profit because they paid their own engineers to build these fixes? who knows, all i know is that another jailbreak will be available soon. people who want to control their own devices will find a way to do it.