However, I find it utterly reprehensible that Apple doesn't allow developers to distribute their applications on their own. iPhone owners should be able to install whatever they want on the device they purchased.
Why? It's such an entrenched idea, but you don't get to rewrite paragraphs of books, or scenes in films, or suits in a pack of playing cards or the firmware in your alarm clock. The iPhone is sold as is, why should we expect to use it any differently?
The iPhone and iPod Touch are, unlike the average alarm clock, single purpose machines implemented on top of general purpose ones. I see many good reasons to want to change the firmware, use your own iPhone on your carrier and pay full price for unlocked units. If it's yours you should be allowed to do anything with it.
Bad example. Apple does nothing to prevent you from using an iPhone as a monitor stand, doorstop, hammer, frisbee, or whatever else. The limitations that people complain about all have to do with the software, which like the contents of the book, you do not own.
I understand that people want Apple's software to allow certain things, but I think stating it as if Apple is impinging on the user's rights because it does not is a dishonest exaggeration.
All they should do is void warranty if someone tempers with the OS. Same for books.
It's a very simple point: there is a difference in the rights you have over hardware and software just as there is a difference in the rights you have over a book and the contents of the book. Pretending that the rules of one should apply to the other is nonsensical.
The reason this distinction is important is that many people claim that Apple is impinging upon their rights with the restrictions built into the OS, but they don't actually have any rights over the OS and ownership of the hardware does not grant them any. By analogy, owning a book does not grant you any rights over the copyrighted contents. People readily understand the latter, but seem to violently reject the former.
All they should do is void warranty if someone tempers with the OS.
That is all they do. Why would you think otherwise?
Not true. Read a bit about "ibricks": http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/more-on-apples-late...
Apple, on the other hand, has worked pretty damn hard to restrict their customers from being able to install their own software. That is very much a "fuck you" direct from Steve Jobs.
I tend to take it as a given, considering that the iPhone is essentially a miniature computer and the past decade or so has thrived on customizable, hackable personal computers.
Apple has always wanted to assert extra control on the products they ship. With Mac's, they've controlled the hardware. Now they're trying to control the software. Imagine a version of OS X where every application had to be approved. Does that not strike you as horribly wrong? I wouldn't want to use an operating system with those restrictions, though I imagine the best response to such an OS would be to not purchase it.
iPod / PMP (Apple, Microsoft, Creative) Camera (Cannon, Nokia, Sony, etc) GPS unit (Garmin, Tom Tom, etc) Phone (cheap flip phone) Gaming device (PSP, DS)
There are exceptions of course -- and workarounds/hacks to circumvent protection (just like Jailbreaking on the iPhone) but more or less these sorts of closed appliance like devices are quite popular on their own. Apple simply combined them into one physical device and kept the same rules.
Apple doesn't sell the iPhone as a general purpose computer so any consumer who buys one expecting it to function that way probably bought the wrong product. I can understand why someone might want that option but it doesn't change the fact that Apple does not sell a product that fits those needs and, based on the success of stand alone devices sold in the same fashion, it is almost completely irrelevant in real world sales or usage for most people. There is of course jailbreaking -- there's also Linux on iPhone hardware. I'm not sure how much progress they've made but I seem to recall they at least had a booting kernel a while back.
1) No native IMAP support 2) No native Exchange support without a BES 3) Horrific attachment viewer. 4) No real-time spellcheck 5) No auto-correction 6) No easy way to sync contacts/calendars over the air 7) No (minimal?) HTML e-mail support (unfortunately sometimes it does help make long e-mail chains more readable) 8) Gotta rely on your carrier for push e-mail -- or in the case of Sprint "Oh yeah we'll send it if we get a chance. Give us like 20 minutes K?" e-mail service. 9) No intuitive way of deleting lots of e-mail messages that don't happen to all be sequential to each other in the list. 10) No folders -- just one big flat mailbox. Hard to save messages on your phone this way. Again, fixed if you have a BES but I don't want my $200 SmartPhone to require $2k-$5k in hardware/software to be functional.
It certainly gets the job done for the basics but once you get used to having more options and flexibility it's hard to go back.
No.
"I don't like it" and "wrong" are not interchangeable.
And btw, they have gone after sites that talk about how to jailbreak the iPhone. Copyright was just an excuse.
On what grounds would they aside from copyright?
Copyright was just an excuse.
I don't understand. Are you saying they have not had legitimate copyright claims, or that they have but that they are somehow irrelevant?
I like how you can predict the future... How else do you know what a company is going to do, before the company does it?
If Apple honestly believed they would never go after someone for jailbreaking, then they wouldn't waste their time laying the legal groundwork to do so.
Jailbreaking per se is not illegal. Violating copyright to do so is. The EFF filed for a DMCA exemption which would allow violating the DMCA for the purposes of jailbreaking, primarily of iPhones. The EFF is the one attempting to lay legal groundwork by changing the law -- what they propose is currently illegal. Apple's filing is only a response to the EFF's comments.
Wow. It's almost sickening to see the inversion of the principles of software freedom that Apple is able to get away with and not get criticized in the fanboi community. Geeks have been lambasting Microsoft for merely having proprietary formats for 20 years. They even got fined for billions of dollars just for not documenting their protocols well enough. Now Apple plays god and controls every single application that can ever even run on a platform. They make developers sign NDAs that prevent them even talking about technical details of the platform publicly. They do these things that are the antithesis of everything the open software community have been trying to achieve for the last 15 years and not only do people like yourself give it a pass, you go out of your way to stand up and defend it. I find it breathtaking.
Why are you trying to restrict what Apple can sell so it only covers devices that conform to your standards?
Irrelevant. Regardless of whether I am a fanboi, my question stands.
Geeks have been lambasting Microsoft for merely having proprietary formats for 20 years.
Yes, but also irrelevant. I don't like Microsoft (or any company's) proprietary formats, but I think they should have the right to create and use them.
They even got fined for billions of dollars just for not documenting their protocols well enough.
That both annoys and pleases me, but it's not relevant.
Now Apple plays god and controls every single application that can ever even run on a platform.
Yes. It's an Apple platform. They ought to be allowed to. (What kind of attack is "stop, you're playing God" anyway? Kids "Play God" in sandpits, that's no reason to ban sand pits.)
They make developers sign NDAs that prevent them even talking about technical details of the platform publicly.
Yes, and they ought to be allowed to do this. I don't personally enjoy it or think it fosters a great community, but that's also not relevant.
They do these things that are the antithesis of everything the open software community have been trying to achieve for the last 15 years
Where and why do the open source community come into this at all? The open source community pushes its own agenda, not no agenda.
and not only do people like yourself give it a pass
I give it a pass because I see no reason not to. This doesn't mean I like it and approve of it personally, but I think it should be allowed and acceptable.
you go out of your way to stand up and defend it.
It needs defending; most of the attacks are plain silly.
This is the crux of where we disagree. I don't think you'll see many people claiming that Apple doesn't have a right to do what they've been doing, but the fact that something should be allowed does not imply that it should be considered acceptable.
Flash pop-up ads on web sites, for example, are completely unacceptable. If some web site pulls that crap with me, I stay the hell away from it. If I have to use that web site for some reason, I'll grouse about it. I wouldn't try to deprive those web sites of their right to use Flash in obnoxious ways, but I sure won't stand for it.
Similarly, Apple's behavior is unpleasant and disturbing and it should be treated as such. This is one of the big advantages of the Android platform, and why I will not get an iPhone: openness. Freedom, if that doesn't sound too hokey. It's important to me.
Now, of course, this doesn't restrict Apple from building in mechanisms to prevent this sort of thing. I won't buy their device because of them, but I doubt this bothers Steve Jobs one bit.
It's entrenched idea because, for most of these, I do get to do those things. I'm free to rip pages out of the books I own, or write in the margin, or re-word stuff with white-out and a pen. I'm free to mix several decks of cards to make my own weird set. I would expect I can hack on my alarm clock too, except I have no idea how to alter the firmware. :) I have "re-purposed" analog mechanical clocks. And why not? I owned them.
Why should "as is" mean "stays as"?
They can. It is the iPhone OS, which they do not own, that does not support this.
Ah well. There's always Android.