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Hacking the iPod Firmware
skreuzer writes "Earlier in the week, someone figured out how to get all the fonts and graphics off the iPod's firmware. Today, Engadget has an article that details on how to mod your own iPod's firmware and display just about any graphic for icons such as power, battery, status, etc."
Hardly modding the firmware! Isn't there some way of programming your own apps on the thing?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People have always had a need to stand out in, individually or as a group. It can be your clothes, your car, your behavior, your language, your status symbols, your furniture etc. etc. Both in terms of high status, social group (us vs rest) and individually (you vs world).
Artists have been creating their own designs forever. Couple hundred years ago here, speaking Latin proved you were a "learned scholar". 100 years ago the executives built housing on top of the hill, workers down the hillside. 60 years ago clothing was used to signalize if you were against the Nazis. 30 years you'd be wearing hippie clothes and join protests. And today you mod your iPod to show how "cool" you are.
The "plastic surgery" generation is nothing more than human nature with better tools for the job. People were just as willing to endure for the sake of beautey before as they are now.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Well, it voids their warranty because they dont want to pay tech staff to fix it when you mod your firmware, and it locks up.
When the price of a device is set, is is set with an assumption that a certian level of support is needed. They do not count for people having un-flashable firmware, because they modify their firmware to the point of total failure.
In any embedded device, it is not hard to write over the wrong part of your firmware, which will block you from restoring your firmware. If you do this, who is going to fix it for you? Also, lets say you modify the firmware to make non-optimal use of the hard drive, causing the hard drive to fail quicker. Should they be responsible for fixing this?
So, they decide to make firmware mods a warranty voiding act. They are not saying "You cannot mod your firmware". They are saying "If you mod your firmware, we are not responsible for it when it breaks."
It's a troll. The "iPods are only cool because they're trendy" comment is posted, in one form or another, in EVERY iPod topic.
It always illicits the same responses: "I got it because it's the best, not because it's cool", "I hide my iPod to not get mugged for it", and "you slashdot geeks just don't get it". Then the comparisons come up between the iPod and less "hip" players.
It is absolutely a troll, because it sets out to offend iPod owners and get them to defend their gadget. And what do you mean, "when I posted"... when you posted what?