"Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty.[2] This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions[3], and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives."
Another tack: I am thinking of writing an App which would enable DRM for the user (as opposed to DRM against the user) so that people could share pictures and documents, and be assured that the shared copy is erased at a certain point in time and never present in an unencrypted form, except in RAM at the time the data is being used. This would work fine on non-jailbroken iPads. (Not strong enough for espoinage work, but enough to establish a CYA audit trail with corporate documents with an NDA.) Unfortunately, there can be no expectation of this working for jailbroken devices.
(I'm also going to put in the FAQ, that this is not a safe way to share pictures and assure they won't wind up on the Internet. The iPad's screen is high resolution and people can just photograph it.)
The flash RAM and the li-ion battery can actually be physically harmed by incorrectly functioning software!
Long ago, there was a computer that had its databus wired up in such a way that reading from a '0' location in the ROM eventually fried the processor. They saved on a single buffer chip that would have avoided this and the design was 'fixed' in the next release.
Software should not ever be able to 'damage' hardware beyond slightly accelerated wear, such as when ordering a harddrive to repeatedly seek across the whole drive and so on. Tricks like that should not result in stuff burning up or dying, if it does that is just bad design.
The wear on the flash ram is just whatever it would be if you packed that number of writes in to a much longer amount of time and the li-ion battery discharge would simply mean that you get the same number of cycles but over a shorter life-span.
That doesn't count as 'physical harm', after all, then normal use also causes 'physical harm', it just takes longer.
The reason that happened was because they didn't have a 'safe range' on the frequency that drove the CRT, driving it too slow would burn up one of the coils in the high voltage circuitry that drives the coils to do the deflection.
Never monitors have been designed to shut down when presented with an out-of-range synch signal, and digital ones will display a message to that effect.
Hardware should be designed with software failure in mind, and in fact should survive being attacked by software deliberately written for the purpose of damaging the hardware.
Assuming the software is going to play 'nice' is assuming that there will be no bugs, that there never will be a successful exploit and so on.
1) I buy a macbook pro (covered under warranty, etc)
2) I install software that disables the fans
3) I update the firmware to disable the automatic shut-down when overheating (or move it so it only happens at an even higher temperature)
4) I run high-cpu software until the machine crashes
5) I repeatedly do this for months on end
I'm pretty sure that machine will be toast soon enough. Is it fair that I should then take it to Apple and ask for a new machine "because it's under warranty"?
Designing good hardware is hard, but it definitely can be done and a few ntcs and a crowbar are not going to break the bank.
You make a great point about why passively cooled systems are better though :)
Just my 2c.
Q: How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: It can't be done, it's a hardware problem.
The implication of the joke is that if anything is 'hardware' you are not supposed to be either able to 'fix' it or 'break' it using just software.
Hardware is taken as a 'given', no matter how crappy the software you run on it, no matter how malicious your intent, the hardware is supposed to survive.
If you decided to try all possible pieces of software you could possibly run on your machine by simply enumerating them (yes, that's going to take a while) then you should not have to do a full hardware integrity test after every run.
Most devices you can render into useful bricks if you mess up their software.
At least like this you have the option to go back to 'factory settings' (ie, a blank start) and you can expect to get your device back to the way it was when you bought it.
In fact, back in the day it was possible to damage your keyboard through software. That must have been fun. Not.
Leaving it in the sun where it gets really hot can cause hardware damage.
Sitting on your phone can cause hardware damage.
Leaving headphones plugged in and in your pocket causes hardware damage (learned that firsthand).
They still warranty all of that stuff, and they are far more likely to cause damage than the "this driver is so bad it actually fried my CPU" idea.
- Microsoft - Xbox and Xbox360 - Sony - PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP - Nintendo - NES, SNES, GC, Wii, DS
Why should Apple be treated any differently than any game console manufacturer? Every one of those game console manufacturers void your warranty if you mod them. Every one of them restricts which development tools you can use to develop on them, and has very stringent application approval processes.
Why is it that Apple all of a sudden deserves special anti-trust attention? Is it because they developed a game console that also happens to be a phone? Or maybe it's because they developed the first phone that doesn't suck.
The way I understand it is this: Softmodding might not void your warranty, but it might as well, because if your hardware ever breaks and needs repair, you're not going to be able to "put it back the way it was" before taking it into the shop. So, you take it in, they fix your Xbox, boot it, see a hacked dashboard, and say "you modded it so we're going to bill you for the repair."
Software mistakes cannot always be fixed.
I love modding my computers, consoles, smartphones, and various electronic devices, but I do so full well knowing that if I fuck up, it's my fault and not Apple's.
Sure, an iPhone is usually recoverable, but if for some reason it isn't, I take full responsibility and don't expect Apple to provide me with another guinea pig free of charge.
If Microsoft and Sony were like Apple, you wouldn't have titles like Call of Duty on both platforms. Everything would have to have been created originally for one console, and one console only. Otherwise it wouldn't have been "originally" created for it.
Is that what we see in the console world? Of course not. Sometimes the console makers compete for exclusives, but they are exclusive because the company writing the game is doing it that way, not because the console makers are forcing them to.
Apple specifically tries to prevent that kind of cross platform thing from happening on the iPhone.
Now imagine if you took Call of Duty on PS3, and did a hacky port where you stubbed DirectX code for the PSGL calls, and used some common denominator between PS3's online service and XBox Live. I'd highly doubt Microsoft would let this go to market, given how poorly it'd perform. Now imagine if these ports were all automated by a third party layer.
In fact, I'm curious to see how many successful games out there use something like Unity to allow PS3/XBox/Wii ports without any code changes.