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Hacked iPhones Confirmed As Bricking With Latest Update
mhollis writes "Field experience has confirmed that if you have a hacked iPhone, it will become an iBrick if you use Software Update to install the latest update on your iPhone. The BBC reports: '[Apple's] warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update. Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the United States but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.' The only 'solution' is to unhack your iPhone."
Let's say I have an iPhone. I've hacked it so it now is using t-mobiles network. How is the update being applied then if it is no longer on the AT&T network? Is it because a person gets it from iTunes or something?
"we see that you have altered your iPhone in an unofficial way. Further updates will not be available for your phone. Thank you, have a nice day."
dontcha think?
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
Remember when the first generation of Windows-ready iPod's came out, which came with MusicMatch Jukebox? Steve extolled it's virtues ... only to release iTunes for Windows a year or so later. My guess is that Apple will eventually become a carrier, but just weren't ready to dive into that business Quite Yet. Just give it time, they'll stab AT&T in the back.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
1) Apple won concessions from AT&T that were unprecedented. Some of these were really good for users, like a cheap plan with unlimited internet access.
) Do do this, they had to make a deal with AT&T that included AT&T being the sole US service provider for 2 years. Unless AT&T has no lawyers (ha ha), you can be assured that the contract includes an obligation by Apple to shut down any hackers and keep them from opening the phone. Thus, Apple has not choice and will be forced to continue to stop hackers on the iPhone, even though insider's comments suggest people there may even personally like the activity.
3)The new firmware does not "brick" the phone. The use of this term reflects the large number of newbies who don't know what that means. It returns the phone to an unhacked state from which one cannot escape (so far). If you were not using a normal AT&Y iPhone plan, you can't use your phone until you sign up. This applies to phones that have been hacked even a little bit.
4) The new firmware may not be so easy to open up. My guess is that it will also be cracked, but I would not be surprised if it is more difficult than before since there are several things Apple can do fairly easily, and now they have an awareness of what they need to do. (Wherewas before it was very uncertain what hackers might emerge.)
Is Apple deliberately bricking the phones, deliberately disabling the hacks, or are they just updating their own product the way they best see fit, which coincidentally mucks up phones that have been hacked? I've seen a lot of rhetoric assuming Apple is doing this on purpose for nefarious business reasons, but not much evidence to support it (would love to see some if anyone can provide it).
Does Apple have an obligation to keep your phone working after you've hacked it and violated your warranty? Should they make sure their updates don't affect any third party hacks? Is that even possible?
I'm not trying to defend Apple's increasingly annoying tactics here, but am curious as to how much effort people think Apple should put into preserving third party hacks?
Um, no, you hack your phone, and a re-install of the upgraded OS reverts it to an un-hacked state. Nothing surprising, evil, or permission-ish about it.
Apple doesn't care if you want to play Tetris on your iPhone. They _do_ have to pretend to care that you want to go with a carrier other than who they have a contract with (AT&T). So if you did something to change who you go through as a carrier, and since Apple didn't write the hack, they don't promise how it'll act going forward.
What else could they do? They have to keep their business partners happy for legal reasons, and how in the world could they support a third-party hack they didn't write? I don't think it's reasonable to think that they should have to do a full regression testing of every version of every unlocking hack out there. In fact, I'd prefer they don't. I'd rather they spend their time working on features for the mainstream, and let those who unlock their phone do so with the understanding that they unlock hack may not work after you upgrade the software.
Over the past several years, Apple has done this with the iPod, iTunes, and now the iPhone. Their best interest is to keep their products under their control. Whenever there is a method to utilize iTunes through wine they include updates in order to interfere with installation and operation. It used to be that you could download previous versions of their binaries from their website that would work in wine but once there was a capable way of installing them through wine they were altered to impair such activity. I'm talking about 7.0 and up. I haven't tested 6.x and below. This is how they run their business and it's up to them on how they wish to run it. While I don't like it I respect their business decision. Apple makes a good product but it makes sense to use their product only when using their products.
For the best interest of the consumer, stop using their restricted products. If you do, just don't update the software. I hate saying don't update but it's their policy to break any alteration in their products. Also don't trust downloads of their binaries from other sources. While some can be reliable, it is best to get them from the source. My suggestion is to use Amazon.com with their DRM free music downloads, or use the Real.com subscription to listen to streamed media using Helix or the RealPlayer. There are other online music sites but right now Amazon.com has the model that stands out more than any other for commercial music.
iDidn't buy one so iDon't care about iT.
I haven't bought one, but I would be curious to know whether you can get AT&T to unlock your iPhone 'legally'?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It is now totally legal to unlock your phone. Legal, as in, perfectly all right according to the federal government. You can make your phone work with any other carrier. Period. No arguments. This is raw verifiable data. If apple pushed software out to remove your rights in that manner, in an attempt to circumvent this consumer right, the folks affected could have a potential case against them. Just because apple and at and t (two companies so now maybe RICO applies as well) choose to ignore the law in the first place and claim they can get away with it by publishing some bullshit doesn't make it either legal or ethical. Corporations try this stunt all the time,(MS is infamous for it) they regularly get beat back down. You can't sign away your rights, nor agree to a contract that says you don't have some rights. You can attempt it, but it isn't legal. You can have stacks of papers that look official that might say something along those lines-but it still isn't legal. Apple can push all the updates they want, but if it results in someone's rights being violated, as in having their customized and legal phones go back to being less functional or non functional, they are most likely breaking several laws. We won't know until the source code gets subpoenaed and audited by independent third parties though, but my hunch is it was deliberate software sabotage designed to try and stifle normal consumer rights by "punishing" those who took advantage of said rights. I hope they lose a billion dollar case and some of the execs go to jail with the RICO charges if this plays out like I think it should.
Want a car analogy, everyone's favorite? You buy an acme motors car, according to them and some "end user driver agreement", it is designed to run on "roads", burning "gasoline". Acme claims they can restrict you to only using such and such a brand of gas, and only drive on such and such a toll road owned by their friends someplace else. There is a factory recall-update fix, you take in your car, they "fix" it, now if you try to use the "wrong" brand of gas or drive on the "wrong" road the vehicle doesn't function. Think they should be sued, think any laws might have been broken?
A bricked iPhone can be returned for a full switch... Correct me if I am wrong, but its not like they can tell the phone has been "unlocked", as I have not opened this phone in any way, and as such have not voided any warrenty on the hardware.
If you check the comments here, you see one particular comment of interest:
You see, they can tell,
Which means: You're iScrewed if you update... and I TOLD YOU SO. A month ago, long before any announcement by Apple... Steve said no unlocking. Even though he's wrong this time, he's stubbornly sticking to his guns like always. Maybe you'd like to buy a real smartphone when you get that bad taste out of your mouth. For God's sake, whatever you do, don't say, "Thank you sir may I have another."I have always despised the iPod. Massively overpriced etc... However, with the iPod Touch, bloody Steve Jobs has finally made me want an iPod. (I have absolutely no use for an iPhone). But I have no delusions of being able to run third party apps or whatever on it. I want it for what it does out of the box. Anything else down the line is an added bonus.
As for the iPhone... The early adopters got burned with the price drop. And now the people who hacked their phones can't do what they want to do with their precious toy. I'm sorry, but I find that quite amusing. I realise this will be an unpopular opinion, but Apple is a business like any other. If they want to cripple third party apps for now, that's entirely their choice and, sadly, their right. Anyone who harbors the delusion that when they buy a device they actually own it and can do what they want has clearly not been paying attention to any technology of the last 5-10 years.
It's not like Apple didn't warn folk this was coming, which is a hell of a lot more than other companies have done.
Apple released a product, making it painfully clear it was to remain on the AT&T network, if you don't like at&t, you aren't forced to buy the product if you choose to "hack" it, and make it work on other networks, props to you, but you really can't expect apple to continue to support it... new updates ARE NOT mandatory, only if you choose in itunes. i have an iphone (its not hacked) but if i were to hack it, i would do so with full understanding that apple would not support it
Ars is saying that iPhones really aren't bricked by this update, so I'd chalk this up to sensationalism.
The worst is when people fucking defend apple no matter what. They go and sleep with the worst service provider in the country,
I get 4 bars of signal with AT&T, in my _basement_. Verizon, at my house, I was lucky to get a call that wouldn't drop in a few minutes.
they completely lockdown the device with no hope for the third party softwares on the brick,
Really? Then AppTap installer doesn't exist? I don't have dozens of third-party apps installed on my iPhone? Oh, do tell, AC, how is it I could have hallucinated all of this? Could it be that you're, you know, either lying or ignorant? Either way, you're wrong.
Personally, I am glad I have not bought any apple device.
Fair enough. Apparently your semi-literate rant is fueled with both ignorance and hatred - a combination which rarely leads to effective selection of technology by criteria which actually matter.
Incompetence. Apple hasn't done anything really clever technically in a long, long time. They rely on 'creative design,' attractive appearances, and heavy heavy marketing.
They weren't even able to turn MacOS into a modern pre-emptive multitasking OS. They ended up having to buy in a third party OS from NeXT, after spending many millions in failed attempts.
One of the most difficult things to engineer into a portable device is a robust battery compartment that can use commercial off-the-shelf _standard_ batteries. It's a lazy cop-out to seal the batteries into a product. I know, because I worked for years at a medical device manufacturer where we struggled with a design to let the customer use a simple off-the-shelf 9v battery. It's an EXPENSIVE and difficult undertaking. Again, Apple really isn't competent enough to design a robust battery compartment. My Newton, which is fine in other regards, has a botched battery compartment.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
You can be locked in for as long as the contract you've signed specifies you're locked in for. And even if you hack the phone after 6 months, Apple are under no onus to support you with firmware updates because they will argue that you have invalidated a warranty by doing the mod anyway.
If you don't want the vendor lock in then don't by the product, it's that simple. I've never owned a single Apple product and I probably never will.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.