Apple loses big in DRM ruling: jailbreaks are "fair use"
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The reality, of course, is that Apple has been doing very little to prevent the Jailbreak scene, and I'm sure those who do Jailbreak couldn't give a rat's ass about the legality of it.
This doesn't change how Apple approaches Jailbreaking, nor does it suddenly make jailbreaking less of a pain in the ass. And it surely doesn't change users' attitudes. In other words, nothing has changed.
> The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that jailbreaking one's iPhone should be allowed, even though it required one to bypass some DRM and then to reuse a small bit of Apple's copyright firmware code. Apple showed up at the hearings to say, in numerous ways, that the idea was terrible, ridiculous, and illegal. In large part, that was because the limit on jailbreaking was needed to preserve Apple's controlled ecosystem, which the company said was of great value to consumers.
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Also, a previous article: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/02/apple-sides-with-m...
They're providing value to consumers by attempting to legally restrict those same consumers from modifying products they purchased? I understand Apple's general argument about a restricted ecosystem for the typical consumer, but how is the user experience improved for someone who wants to jailbreak a phone by preventing them from doing it?
Not just true power users would want to jailbreak their phones, but only power users are actually able to take that kind of responsibility, and Apple doesn't want iPhones getting wrecked or just not working right.
Apple had tried hard to sell their devices as an experience rather than commodity, now they can no longer live that way. the unlocked iphones become a commodity.
A commodity which only Apple sells, and which you'll end up paying full sticker price for one way or another (either up-front to get it without a two-year contract, or through an early termination fee if you switch carriers).
You're free to put another SIM in that phone after jailbreaking, but the bill will still come every month.
Such decisions may affect the carriers, but anything that makes Apple's hardware more useful is good for Apple.
in my book that's a major win!