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Anonymous Programmers Reveal iPhone Unlocking Software
CNN reports details of a group of anonymous programmers who are planning to sell iPhone unlocking software on the Internet. They demonstrated the software hack for CNN and had a T-Mobile sim card working moments after removing the AT&T sim card. This is bound to stir up a lot of controversy: in the US iPhones are supposed to work only on the AT&T network in the first two years according to their agreement with Apple.
..that people are going to use their gadgets in ways other than the ones they're 'supposed' to.
At the bottom of the
... here in sweden we are allowed to do whatever we want with hardware that we buy.....
I wonder if they will work their website much like the 3rd party unlock stuff for Sony Ericsson. I can't imagine they would sell the entire program, more likely it'll be missing some key components so that users are forced to pay a fee to complete the unlock process (by logging in to their server)
Locks make no sense, at least not for consumers/customers. I can see how it could work to their benefit, but I don't give a rat's ass about them. If I wanted one, why would I want to be locked in to one specific service provider? My cellular provider up here in BC, Canada, which is Telus, puts stupid locks in their phones, too. I can't upload my own ring tones or anything like that, and I'm instead forced to pay them outrageous fees to download ringtones from them. Only because they've locked the phone to perform only the functions they want it to. No reason I shouldn't be able to upload my own ringtones if I want to, since the phones have that capability from the factory. It's only after Telus blocks those features that they are no longer available to use. Ridiculous. All things like this, DRM, etc, are doing nothing but giving me bad opinions of the companies that use such tactics.
When you purchase an iPhone you are not signing anything (other than a credit card slip). Hence, you have not entered in a contract with AT&T, so whatever AT&T spokesperson says, it is not tenable. Furthermore, unlocking one's phone is not illegal in the US.
I can't believe unlocking an iPhone causes such a stir. GSM phones are unlocked every day through mysterious hacks and the iPhone is no different. What is the big deal?
These people should be neutralised immediately! No stone should be left unturned. Pull all the troops back from Afghanistan if we have to. Order another 500 Predators! Close down all interstate traffic!
Won't someone think of the children? How can you sit quietly at home while this sort of vile attack on our American values is going on? I would happily help the Government slaughter half the population if that had the smallest chance of stopping this madness.....
I'd say they both knew this was going to happen.
Now, assuming the user experience stays totally under Apple's control (and it will as that is something Apple will and can defend), which of the several quasi-crappy carriers IS the best choice?
Any DMCA claim is going to be tough in light of the following:
From the Federal Register:
And from the US Copyright Office itself:
The only claim they might be able to make is one against those selling the information which will, inside a few days, get out and be posted everywhere so that anyone can do it.
I have no idea if the iPhone is subsidised.
Deleted
This is actually good for Apple because more people will buy an iPhone now that they know they will be able to use a less evil carrier.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
First you buy the iPhone and then you pay more to unlock it? Is that how much 'freedom' costs?
Next thing we know Apple will buy-out the company and start selling unlocked iPhones at a premium..
At the risk of sounding trollish, the pro-consumer OpenMoko looks very appealing in light of Apple's good-looking but artificially tied-down device.
I might be wrong, but wasn't the exclusive contract between Apple and AT&T put in place to ensure that AT&T would develop the network infrastructure and services to support the features of the iPhone? Sure, basic call functionality and SMS is available with all operators, but what about the other features, such as the visual voicemail?
I am personally looking forward to getting my grubbies on an iPhone once they land in the UK, and would be happy to be able to make a choice of operator/contract.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Having in mind what the demand curve for a software-based unlocking solution for the iPhone is, especially in Europe, these guys can easily charge more than 100 USD for the hack... at least until somebody else puts a competitive hack on the market.
A hungry bear does not dance!
I haven't heard anything about the functionality of these unlocked phones. Are all of the features of the AT&T data plans functional with a different carrier or is it additionally locked down in some way? Also, what happens when Apple pushes out an update that disables this hack. If the developers can't come up with a new hack in time, what happens to all the people who paid for the original hack that no longer works?
Name...That...Autocomplete!
I am very curious what Apple will do with the iPhone in Europe. I think pulling off the ridiculous AT&T-only lock-in prank is impossible here. Yes, we have locks on phones here too, but in principle you can buy any phone you like without a SIM-lock and use it with any provider. You only get a locked phone if you get it together with a contract, which is reasonable because the provider then wants you to stay with them. Exclusive use of particular phones with particular providers is unheard of here. And am I correct in thinking that locking a phone is illegal in Germany?
-- Cheers!
Would you like to kill (a) all woman (b) all men?
Maybe not surprising, but we'll have to wait and see what kind of effects it has on the iPhone.
Thing is, that kind of agreements aren't just because Apple or AT&T are "evil" and want to tie you to their network. They're a glimpse into how expensive the iPhone really is. That price you see when you buy one is already minus AT&T's subsidies, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're quite hefty.
That's how everyone else negotiates too. Exclusive contract is worth X dollars, for the features and hopefully new killer app, Y dollars, for tying some functionality to their network, Z dollars, and so on. Dunno how it works in the USA, but that's how we end up with 1 Euro phones down here, as long as you're tied to a telco.
Seeing the extent to which the iPhone is locked down, makes me think Apple negotiated some pretty damn hefty subsidies for it. I mean, for example, for any other phone, they don't even bother worrying what you do with it, as long as you have your two year contract with the one who subsidized it. If you have your 2 years T-Mobile contract anyway, and you want to use that phone with Vodaphone too (thus paying two phone bills for it), T-Mobile won't usually give a damn. It's just assumed that most people won't bother. If you wanted a Vodaphone contract, you'd have just gotten one of their phones. If for the iPhone anyone actually gives a damn whether you can use it at all on another network, they probably are paying more than the standard subsidies for it.
Thing is, the iPhone didn't happen before just because it's expensive, not because everyone else is a drooling moron and Apple is t3h genius. Symbian has all the expertise they need with touch screens even before they starting having anything to do with phones, for example. My old Psion 5 has touch-screen. Everyone just bet that there's not much of a market for a phone that costs as much as a laptop. Apple apparently bet that there's one if they get half the price subsidized by AT&T.
So it might get interesting. If Apple can't deliver the lockdown they promised for the extra money, AT&T would have to be dumb to keep paying for it. And that's at the very least.
Would the iPhone still be as attractive as a $1000 toy (a number pulled out of the arse, for example sake) if it were unlocked and usable on any network? Sure, for some nerds it would still be a cool toy, but more people -- or they significant other, if they have one -- would start wondering if they _really_ need one.
It might get interesting.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating curtailing consumer rights to save the iPhone. Just saying what I see at work there. (And I could be wrong too.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If the US government backed consumers instead of industry, the hackers wouldn't have to be doing this.
Enrico
Well fireworks are legal to set off in your backyard, they're small bombs...
If the bomb is big enough to damage someone else's property then they might arrest you for criminal damage, but if it just explodes in your back yard and makes a crater in your lawn noone will care.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
To quote Scot Adams' My New Favourite Response to people answering to their own mis-understandings of what he wrote, "I agree with your analysis of your hallucination."
I never said that the cost of manufacturing dictates the market price. It does however, yes, dictate whether you stay in that game or not. "Would it still sell for $1000?" is actually a damn valid question. It's the "can we stay in that game?" question, in fact.
Apple's model is based on getting a hefty part of the price subsidized by AT&T. Without it, would they still be in the game of selling iPhones? The others faced the exact same question, and that's why they didn't make an iPhone before. That's what I'm saying there.
So if you got tripped that badly by "Would it still sell for $1000?", then maybe it's you who needs to re-read those econ 101 notes. Because while you've proven that you can repeat the trivia, I see no sign of actual understanding there. _That_ question is exactly what determines whether you're in that game or not. If you don't understand that, the rest is just mechanically spewing trivia, and not much of a sign of economic wisdom.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Yes, but we live in Europe, the Continent of the Free"
Free? What? Do you mean you don't have to pay taxes to kill people in places you can't find on a map?
Hmmm. In the UK people have been arrested for making bombs before they set them off!
Remember, AT&T is just SBC renamed. SBC bought the name, and apparently because SBC had such a bad reputation, changed names.
MOD PARENT UP. SquiggleSlash is correct. Thanks, ~/.
Other telcos could start supporting the extra functionality like voicemail for the iphone. Then we will begin to see ads like "works with iphone!", and apple would start to sell their own (better looking) crack.
Everybody uses broad generalizations.
I personally believe, that many U.S. Americans do not have, such as, an iPhone. We need to do more for other countries, like, South Africa, so they can have an iPhone too. In the spirit of cooperation with countries, such as, the Asian countries, we can benefit the children for a brighter future. Thank you.
Oh, and Iraq!
Er... is 'All Republicans' an option?
&, there's never any cover charge/payper liesense hostage agreements.
4 [google.com] 646406827 [google.com]
infactdead corepirate nazis still WAY off track
(Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01, @09:35AM (#20433195)
it's only a matter of time/space/circumstance.
previous post:
mynuts won 'off t(r)opic'???
(Score:-1, Offtopic)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30, @10:22AM (#20411119)
eye gas you could call this 'weather'?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=800488111
be careful, the whack(off)job in the next compartment may be a high RANKing corepirate nazi official.
previous post:
whoreabull corepirate nazi felons planning trips
(Score: mynuts won, robbIE's 'secret' censorship score)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01, @12:13PM (#20072457)
in orbit perhaps? we wouldn't want to be within 500 miles of the naykid furor at this power point.
better days ahead?
as in payper liesense hypenosys stock markup FraUD felons are on their way out? what a revolutionary concept.
from previous post: many demand corepirate nazi execrable stop abusing US
we the peepoles?
how is it allowed? just like corn passing through a bird's butt eye gas.
all they (the felonious nazi execrable) want is... everything. at what cost to US?
for many of US, the only way out is up.
don't forget, for each of the creators' innocents harmed (in any way) there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/US as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile will not be available after the big flash occurs.
'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi life0cidal glowbull warmongering execrable.
some of US should consider ourselves very fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate.
it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc....
as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis.
concern about the course of events that will occur should the corepirate nazi life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon is in order.
'do not be dismayed' (also from the manual). however, it's ok/recommended, to not attempt to live under/accept, fauxking nazi felon greed/fear/ego based pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking hypenosys.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?
This is simply not true. Sure, you may smash your phone into the wall. But there exists plenty of carrier bound phone offers which you cannot unlock/should not unlock. I don't think it's illegal anyway - but so I hope it isn't in the USA either (DMCA, anyone?)
Us Swedes have the attitude of doing what we want, however. But we haven't got that luxury most times either. Let's not delude ourselves that we are More Free than The Other Ones on this issue.
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
Yeah, but the UK's a police state. Hell, you're not even citizens, you're subjects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQdhMSEqhfg
The jury is the ultimate check and balance ot whether a law is sane as they have a two fold responsibity:
1) Decide on guilt or innocence.
2) Decide whether the Law is just.
Here is a link to wikipedia - jump down to the bit about Jury Equity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury
I dont read
Check out this cNet opinion on this: http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9767325-7.html
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
Actually, in the US, at least, setting off fireworks in your backyard is illegal in most cities. It's a fire hazard.
I've seen some very good analyses on how this restriction is due to cost, but I'm surprised not to read that all Apple needs to delete any iPhone "mod" is just an update via iTunes, to which it'll be connected as often as your average iPod is.
To continue on the iPod example, we can see it somehow can be unlocked by external softwares that partly replace iTunes (e. g. Floola), but on the contrary no alternate reprogramming of the iPod itself has got any success overall. The same will apply to iPhones.
Herve S.
First, the iPhone I purchased is now my property, and Apple has no right or claim to my use of it.
As for you, AT&T:
BE ADVISED: YOU ARE IN BREACH OF CONTRACT. If you cannot fix your network, so that calls are not repeatedly dropped in URBAN areas with FULL SIGNAL (as on your network mine have been day-in, day-out for 3 YEARS here in Scottsdale using a variety of devices), then I will consider the QoS clause in our service agreement to have been violated. My service will be canceled, and I will move my iPhone and my phone number to T-Mobile.
By the same logic, an OS/X upgrade only costs 10 cents for the CD, and the latest Intel CPU is just a couple of dollars worth of silicon. I think you'll find that recouping R&D costs is the biggest chunk of the price in high-tech products.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
... as are almost all others that are subsidized by another company in most European countries; btw.
Here in France for instance, they always have been locked, with a clausa saying that the user can require unlocking after his (generally two-years) initial contract lock. And you sign this when buying.
Herve S.
And I think you'll find that Apple still charges you $129 for it. Or do you think that's pure profit too, because the only physical cost was the CD and manuals?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Anonymous" sellers? How does that work - cash payments left under a bench somewhere?
Even in the US there's no anonymous. When you recharge an anon-registered Tracfone, you are on-camera during the purchase of the card at the register. The serial # on the purchase card is time stamped upon activation and can be matched to the time stamped pic.
Cops picked up a teenager using a Tracfone to phone in bomb threats to his high school. Took about a day to make the match and get him more days off than he bargained for.
As a side note, I would like to use my Tracfone sim in an iPhone, the sim puts me on AT&T anyway.
Well fireworks are legal to set off in your backyard
That's actually not strictly true. You are not allowed to set of fireworks in any place where there is a chance of you injuring or disturbing other people without a permit. Now nobody ever bothers applying for these permits and the police never actually procecute you for it. But according to the law it's illegal.
but if it just explodes in your back yard and makes a crater in your lawn noone will care.
Not true either. First of all, all explosives either imported or manufactured in sweden have to be approved by Sprängämnesinspektionen before they can be used. In addition you need a permit to use and in most cases own explosives, which depending on the type of explosives you're talking about, is virtually impossible for a private individual to get. Setting of a home made bomb does indeed break a number of Swedish laws.
So no, Swedish law is actually nothing like you think it is.
--- Help a kid become an engineer, buy them a Catapult Kit today!
A lot of news outlets have reported that the iPhone's price is not subsidized, among them reputable sources like ars technica.
But I guess your own question applies to you, too. Where's the evidence that it is subsidized?
Traditionally, Apple's margins have always been around 25%-35%. I'd be extremely surprised if the iPhone was different in any way; and so far, teardowns (which tend to underestimate prices somewhat) seem to suggest the iPhone's margin is business as usual for Apple.
As long as you don't endanger anyone with your bomb, you should be ok in many countries.
There are records of who was called on that phone, contact all the called. And you know where the phone has been with the GPS records, it's just another TomTom. This takes only minutes.
Orwell and JE Hoover never dreamed of these kinds of invasions.
In the apple store give the client a choice. Say, "would you like to buy that phone with or without a service contract through AT&T?" If the customer opts to sign and activate the contract right there in the store, he gets the subsidized price. If he does not, then he gets the expensive price.
Why is that so hard?
I choose C (c) all men except me.
In much of the US even walking your dog off the leash is illegal. In fact there are a million everyday freedoms that people in other countries take for granted that are illegal in the US. However, Americans have been brainwashed into believing that they are living in the land of the free, and most are uneducated enough about the world outside of the US that they believe it.
Apple's R&D expenditures are low compared to other high tech companies, both in absolute and relative terms (e.g., 3.7% of sales for Apple, vs 14.9% for Microsoft):
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2007/Jun/rand.asp
Apple essentially doesn't do any research at all. Much of their software is based on open source projects, and they rarely come up with their own technologies. Instead, they do some good engineering putting together other people's technologies. For example, almost all the iPhone and Leopard technologies were developed elsewhere (e.g., multitouch, spaces, quick look, time machine, animated interfaces, iChat background replacement, Finder sidebars, Cover Flow were all developed elsewhere).
That kind of freedom is wonderful, but why don't you take it a step further: How about if your neighbor puts together a bomb big enough to take out more then his own house.
Is he free to do so "as long as he doesn't hurt someone"?
Or would you say that there are limits to this "freedom"?
How about if he mixes in nuclear material (dirty bomb), or heck builds a nuke...
I notice that you still haven't answered that question, and not only from me. Instead you do a piss-poor ad-hominem.
Your assumption that the software on the iPhone doesn't count in that total price you calculated price of components is... bizarre, to put it very very mildly. Doubly so discounting an embedded version on account that a desktop version exists. It's akin to saying that Windows CE is free because Windows for PCs already existed.
So to paraphrase that ad-hominem right back at you -- in case that's the only pseudo-logic you're equipped to comprehend -- do most things confuse you as much as the simple concept that software costs money to develop, money to port, and money to test? Or that such costs need to be recouped? How did you stumble upon slashdot anyway? No, seriously.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
After all these failures trying to introduce artificial limitations in their products just for marketing purposes (include DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray/DRM/Microsoft Vista/Sony rootkits/etc. too) that by now they would just acecpt that consumers WONT STAND FOR THIS CRAP.
before iPhone, handset makers received one-time revenue, mostly from carriers who sold service - monthly revenue. carriers used service to subsidize handsets, so they had the handset makers implement subsidy locks. but the locks didn't impact the makers' revenue stream much and firmware updates were rare, so "unbreaking" wasn't really issue
with the iPhone, the carrier doesn't subsidize the handset, though at&t is looking to earn back the dev costs of virtual voicemail. however, apple is getting a cut of monthly revenue, as well as a new customer bounty.
this revenue provides apple with significant incentive to undo subsidy lock breaks. firmware updates provide the vector, and it won't take much to get people to give up on alternate carriers - paying/waiting for another crack isn't going to fly with anyone.
iPhone firmware updates aren't just for fun new features - they're critical because it's a fat target for exploits: full-fledged communication apps (browser, mail) running with admin privileges on a "hot" platform. as unnecessary as the admin issue seems, given the OS X foundation, it was probably done to help get it to market quickly - and it also explains why apple only supports sandboxed "Web 2.0" apps.
You may want to revisit your post.
/.itis.
/. comment like this would have gotten a troll rating.
1) Since when has ECO101 had anything to do with reality in the Marketplace?
2) Lot's of products are sold at a "giveaway" price to lock you into something else that will actually make you the profit you seek. Or have you never owned any game controllers? XBox ring any bells here? What was the price on them when they came out? IIRC, and I do, they *Lost* money on
those. Additionally, I believe I've paid $1 or $0 for most of my cell phones. Surely, one cannot make a profit selling a cellphone for $1.
Or are you merely a troll? How this post rates a 5 insightful can only be explained as
Oh,well. Quality seems to be a lost value. I remember back in the day when a
I think the iPhone's initial appeal is that it is quite pro-consumer -- meaning, ordinary people can figure out how to use all of its many features. It remains to be seen if OpenMoko will be able to say the same.
Europe's freer than the US in some respects, but not as free in others. There's no nation in the world that's totally free, and likely never will be, since "freedom" and "government" are a contradiction in terms.
At first I was going to agree with you, but then I thought: what if the government stops other people from perpetrating uncalled-for violence against me? The ol' your-freedom-stops-at-my-nose idea.
Am I LESS free because of this governmental interference (with anarchy), or I am MORE free because now someone isn't killing me?
My hypothesis:
Starting from anarchy, increases in government correlate with increases in freedom. The strength of this correlation decreases as government increases, and at some point, they turn inversely correlated. Freedom begins to decrease as government increases. The point at wich this happens depends on the type of government, the type of freedom under analysis, and the point of view of the observer.
People view these relationships differently - each person brings their own views about what freedom means to them, under the current political bargain they live subject to, weighs all of these variables and eventually says "too much".
Where this tipping happens can be be unexpected to citizens of stable Western democracies: witness Iraq, where polls overwhelmingly show that most Iraqis want security first, democracy second. They'd prefer immediate, if authoritarian, security at the expense of voting booths.
It was easy to THINK that oppressed people want democracy above all else. However, it's hard for them be thrilled about constitutional drafting sessions and discussions about oil-sharing provisions when cabinet ministers are being assasinated, firefights happen on neighborhood corners and fathers are pulled out of bed at night and shot in the street.
Freedom truly is relative.
These thoughts influenced by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall
---
if you were just referring to the freedom to buy an unlocked handset, well, um, never mind then. :)
OK, Europeans win that one. But we USians have the freedom to buy an unlocked handGUN :)
... to read this. :-(
:-)
And then they will ask Apple a few questions, I presume.
That estimate only covers the cost of parts!
/. has all these folks who claim to be
Not to be too cynical, but seeing as
uber geeks and hax0rs, I shouldn't have to state that they must have spent a
fortune on programming for this product. EVEN if they used only ultra cheap
programmers from you-know-where-places, it would still have taken many many
thousands of hours to write, and assuming it was put together in China, and shipped
to the US, a cost of $220 is about as realistic as the $1000 arse value.
No, I suspect, a more realistic cost to be in the neighborhood of $500 to produce.
My reasoning is based on:
1) having worked for years in the assembly of everything from EKGs to IBM Mainframes to 747 flight simulators
(not your video programs, but full scale mock ups of the cockpit), so I have firsthand knowledge of what
it takes to assemble electronic devices,
2) Having worked for years in the shipping business, I know what it costs to ship products from China in 40'
containers over the ocean,
3) the amount of advertising that was done,
4) the cost of software development (my current line of work),
5) cost of prototyping, packaging, product manuals, etc.
Considering its negative relationships with customers in the recent past, the AT&T name is no longer a good business name, in my opinion. The iPhone hassles have made the AT&T name even less desirable.
Anonymous Programmers? Maybe I'm too paranoid. But look who benefits: Apple. Big time. Surely, it's not too much a stretch to wonder if they set up AT&T from start to bilk them?
but then I thought: what if the government stops other people from perpetrating uncalled-for violence against me? The ol' your-freedom-stops-at-my-nose idea.
:)
I get what you're saying, but then, this isn't government increasing your freedom in an absolute sense, but instead acting as a deterrent to tyranny and slavery from third-party forces. Which I think is appropriate.
It seems to me that the most free state would be that of a solitary godhood (which makes one wonder why a god would surrender his freedom to cater to the prayers of his followers), but I suppose one could argue that a solitary person was perfectly free as well, although lacking in certain abilities that society could provide. Two people could exercise a fair amount of freedom as well. From there, like the three-body-problem, it gets considerably more complicated.
Anyway, an interesting reply. I vaguely remember Maslow from my college days, and I'll have to check out the J Curve book when I get a chance. Thanks for the recommendation.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Unlocking a phone for the purposes of using it with another carrier is a specifically defined exception to the DMCA. Take a look at III.5.
Nintendo doesn't sell hardware at a loss. They make a profit on everything they sell. They have to, they don't have other sources of cash to fund a loss-leader console.
Honestly, selling the unlock has to be illegal in so many ways.
The DMCA has a specific exemption for this.
+++ATH0
Where it will end up five minutes after the first person pays for it.
Oh, and then I should probably think about buying an iPhone...
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
... I'd be reverse-engineering the visual voicemail protocol, yesterday. That's really the only special carrier support the iPhone needs - everything else it does is done with standard GSM/EDGE/WiFi connectivity.
My wife is a free-lance sign language interpreter, and she has a Sidekick II for her voice phone and email in the field. The Sidekick has a bunch of other smart phone features, but the only one she uses at all is the mobile browser (which occasionally renders pages useably). The rest of its features (camera, address book, calendar, etc.) either don't work or don't sync with her Mac at home.
She would drop the Sidekick for an iPhone in a heartbeat - if she didn't have to switch to AT&T, which bites relative to T-Mobile in the DC metro area (and that's saying something - T-Mobile's coverage in DC is tolerable, barely).
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
"Us Europeans are on the whole just as ignorant and arrogant as Americans, it's just we're ignorant and arrogant about different things"
Oh yeah? How many Iraqis did you Swedes kill? Did Sweden invade 24 countries since the 2nd world war? Did Sweden kill directly or cause the deaths of 11,000,000 people since then?
Sweden is the 7th most peaceful country on the planet. Only those countries that kill other people are SERIOUSLY arrogant.
How much do you think AT&T is about to sue Apple for?
Probably most iPhone users will go with AT&T, even if it is possible to hack the phone. Some of them may do it because it is easier, or they are not technically savvy/confident enough to feel comfortable using a crack, or because they don't trust the crack to continue working, or fear some sort of reprisal.
But, if there are a significant enough percentage of people who are willing to use the crack in order to use another service, perhaps AT&T can keep those customers in the old-fashioned way... by providing a decent service for a decent price. I'd encourage them to do so.
Ha ha! Sorry. Couldn't say that with a straight face.
Surely Apple in designing the lock-feature in the iphone, and AT&T in its due diligence would have asked the questions: "Can this be cracked?" If so, "What options are available to us?" Do nothing. Rush out a firmware fix to block unlocking. Renegotiate the deal. Sue. etc. etc. If they didn't, they deserve to get hosed. If the answer to "Can this be cracked?" was "No" then Apple needs to recruit some good hackers.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
AT&T has a very simple solution to prevent future sold iPhones from being hacked/re-sold. The answer is blindingly obvious. Make it financially difficult to do so. Since the iPhone has exclusive rate plans, they can simply increase the early termination fees to levels which make it stifling to unlockers. And, they can simply change the sales arrangement such that iPhones cannot be sold without a service plan in place before the purchaser leaves the store. That way, all iPhones sold would fall under the early termination fee, which would be too high for most people to want to pay.
Now, personally, I'm all for unlocked iPhones, but I fail to see how this can't be prevented in the future. Apple/AT&T had to know that at some point, the iPhone would be/could be cracked. If they didn't, they'd have been blind to HUGE market of phone unlockers out there who've been doing this for over a decade.