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iPhone 1.1.3 Update Confirmed, Breaks Apps and Unlocks
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."
My phone is activated and I use AT&T. There is no way I am upgrading until I can use my apps with it, too. And it'll suck, period, if I have to reinstall all my apps. I would consider doing so for the GPS triangulation.
I felt a great disturbance in the airwaves, as if millions of helpless iPhone apps cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
They cried out, "don't raze me bro!!!"
It gives a vague couple-mile area that you should be in or around. Google has been working to give this to phones lacking aGPS, but it's not a good excuse for lacking the feature when my zero-charge (one-year contract zero money) phone does have it.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The iPhone SDK will probably be released at Macworld (January 14-18).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
To answer your question: a long time, since the vast majority of users, vocal Slashdot geeks aside, don't give a rats ass about hacking any piece of consumer electronics they own. Most people buy products based on the features that the product claim to have, not on features that they *want* the product to have and believe that they can get by hacking the device.
A correlary of this statement is that Apple really isn't fighting its users, as a group. It's just fighting a small minority of users who hack their iPhones, so your statement about Apply "fighting their users makes no real sense", itself makes no real sense.
Disclaimer: I don't own an iPhone, but I might if I was richer.
How dare Apple fix security bugs that can lead to arbitrary code execution!
They're violating hackers' right to run their code on whoever's hardware they like!
Okay, I hate the fact that the iPhone didn't come out with an SDK at launch, and the fact that there's an existing playform for building phone apps (Java ME) that they completely ignored, and Apple's "Buy a new one if you brick it" policy (Could they at least take your bricked iPhone for $100 or something so the hardware doesn't go to waste?)
BUT
most of the security circumnavigation is a result of buffer overflows and other stuff that could be used in theory by attackers as well so they are right to patch it.
Personally I'm going to wait until after the SDK is released until I think about buying one, and anybody else who is currently trying to hack the iphone should do the same (even just to save their wallets from more brick costs).
It's turtles all the way down.
Would you rather them leave the vulnerabilities unpatched so that any web site could 0wn your iPhone if it wanted to? Granted, there should be a way to load third-party apps without resorting to these kinds of hacks, but we'll see what Apple does when they release the SDK.
By "small minority" you mean almost 18% of all iPhone owners.
Why does every one insist on giving the same old tired arguments every time an update comes out? Doesn't anyone remember that an SDK is coming out in a month (or less?) Everyone will be able to get their crappy Notepad++++ programs that way as well, and with Apple's approval no less.
The issue with the unlocking is a different however. But, until the US people stand up and actually say that they want universal unlocking for all phones e.t.c. exclusive deals like the iPhone will continue. (Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?
Funny. Microsoft allows complete and open access to their Windows Mobile OS (whether or not you can load your apps onto the phone is left to the decision of the carriers). In fact they even opened the source for the OS (okay, it's a Shared Source license, and it requires having an officially licensed version of Windows Embedded CE 6.0, but the source code is all there if you want to modify it while building a new device of your own). I think this is a case where you want Apple to act more like Microsoft rather than less.
On the other hand, I'm an iPhone user. I spent a fair amount of time playing with Windows CE in the past, and while I like the system I was not a fan of any of the current phones using it today. So I bought an iPhone, and I like it. The current lack of an SDK isn't slowing me down, since I probably wouldn't write any iPhone apps anyway (as much as I'd like to think I would, I know that I'd just dabble a bit and never actually finish anything). Sure, there are some things that are missing (GPS, full Exchange connectivity, an IM app), but I can live without those at least for now.
Well they're *supposedly* opening up 3rd party apps next year when they release a real SDK. I guess only time will tell.
As for unlocking them, eh. The only thing I'd really want that for is for when I go to Switzerland each year. Instead of paying the higher AT&T fees I could go with a prepaid card over there.
Apple wants to SELL the applications. If any coder can spend a weekend working up a decent solitaire game then that means they won't be able to charge $5 (or whatever) for their solitaire game on iTunes. The cell phone market has ALWAYS been about nickel and diming the customer to death. Charging for text messages?
The movement to provide on-demand services is NOT about improving life for the customer. It has ALWAYS been about improving revenue. Getting more for less.
and anyway...
I own a hacked iPhone with the 1.1.2 firmware with about 15 third-party applications on it. This thing is by far the most useful consumer electronics device I've ever owned (besides my pc of course). I don't have to upgrade to 1.1.3 and it is still useful to me. When it's cracked I'll upgrade.... but either way it's still a win/win for me.
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
Okay, I hate the fact that the iPhone didn't come out with an SDK at launch, and the fact that there's an existing playform for building phone apps (Java ME) that they completely ignored,
I have been doing Java stuff for a long time. And I've even done a few small things in J2ME in the past.
But if you think about it, there's a good reason the iPhone doesn't have J2ME - it's not M. That is, nothing about the iPhone is anything like the reference J2ME platform, and it's really not a "Micro" kind of platform in the traditional sense of the word. But there's also no good Java GUI API to an all touch input device either, so you combine that with Java processor and memory requirements and it's really not a good fit for the iPhone, at least right now.
Now that XCode/ObjC has garbage collection, there's really no good reason a Java developer couldn't move over to Objective C if they really want to develop something for the platform.
When the API is finally released, we probably will see someone release a J2ME emulator for the iPhone which would be kind of interesting. But I think it would be some work to put that together.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The original poster was talking about users running applications. Apple is also taking away region unlocks, but that's a different matter and a very different issue and there are arguments that make sense for both sides of that conflict.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you're determined to pay too much for a calling plan and an overpriced phone, this is what's going to happen. Sure, it looks cool, but it's locked down enough to make Microsoft blush. I mean, come on.
Mod me to hell, I don't care, I have karma to burn.
The iPhone is a slick product. Kudos to apple for pushing the edge of UI design. But, once again apple's closed-system philosophy is their undoing. Yes they're releasing an SDK as a business response to Android. They're *responding* in this department, not innovating. That's why Google's Android will overrun the market and apple will be stuck with their ~3% market share just like the Mac.
Predictions are difficult, and I'm no seer. This one looks obvious to me though.
Its a good honest question.
:)
I just bought an iPhone. 2 days ago. I am both pleased and underwhelmed. I find that it doesn't do as much as i would have hoped. It does a lot well, and the browsing is nice, i wish it were faster. Even in wifi mode, it isnt as fast as browsing on a laptop over wifi.
Its a great start. It really is a nice way to use a phone but i do think that it will be a challenge for apple or any developer when they open their sdk, to add more complex functions to the ui workflow.
Currently there is no copy and paste for example. How do you do it with just a touch screen ui? You only have so much screen space, plus you run the risk of touching other things on screen and activating their functions.
Its a great start, and the os will get more and more apps from apple over time, atleast i hope thats their plan. I hope they upgrade it with functionality and apps, even as new hardware versions come out, i hope the os and apps continue to be available on all of the versions over the years.
Itunes for windows absolutely sucks. My pc can run crysis at 1920x1080 with evertyhing set to very high except the shaders which is set to high.... but it can barely run itunes.
Itunes is a programming peice of shit. Apple really hates PC users. It shows. It is fucking obvious, and i feel ripped off in that regard. Apple NEVER supports their hardware on the PC, with quality software. It has been that way for a while now. Apple purposely neglects the iTunes software on windows and it is a fucking rip off scam. Its a bait and switch. Buy the hardware, but its a nightmare to use on windows. Just the way Apple wants. It does not at all inspire me to even consider buying a MAC. Its Apple's way of saying "See we told you PCs are slow and bad..." when in reality its Apple playing bullshit. They should be investigated by the feds for it and i'm dead fucking serious.
Youtube and Google maps is incredible on the iphone.
Email needs some more functionality.
The iPhone needs Instant messeging through a native app running in the os (AIM, YAHOO, MSN, etc). Currently you can do it through webpages like meebo.com
I cant open a link in a new window in the browser. You can with a bookmarklet but, not natively in safari. This makes it a pain when browsing because it doesnt cache the pervious page, it seems quite slow when going "back".
There are problems, but overall, if the os is robust enough and there is enough ram and processing power, all it takes is some smart thinking in the ui department to continuously add features and improvements.
Like i said, its a great start. Apple needs to follow through and improve the software both on the iphone, and on windows!!!!!!!!!
Sorry wrote this while on a phone call so i appologize for the jumbled thoughts.
I'm not a developer, but I'm really thinking this Walled Garden thing is for the birds - which makes me want one of these less and less.
Okay, don't buy one. Apple's responsibility is not to you, the hacker (I love when I get the chance to use that word in the traditional sense), but to the person who buys the device and will never do anything unsupported with it. Why? Because these people either don't want to deal with incompatibilities or problems resulting from an update, or because they can't deal with them.
Normal users don't want to "update their phone" (which is a weird concept to many consumers in the first place) and have it break in some way. Because the official SDK isn't out yet, and there are no guidelines that third-party developers are following, Apple has no realistic way to support their software across updates. Attempting to do so at this point would be a massive, stupid waste of the available time of their engineers.
"Well," you're thinking, "the users who install unsupported third-party apps would be able to deal with bugs, or understand." No, most of them are going to whine and bitch on the Internet like they do now when Apple reverts their phone to a standard, known-good state during an update. But even if I'm wrong about that, it doesn't matter. The responsibility Apple's engineers have to the customer base on the whole is to guarantee that this phone that people bought "just works".
But this presents a problem, right? It makes this amazing portable device only what Apple wants. For some, this is a real issue. You can't disagree with that, really. To solve this problem, you need a supported SDK. And that's coming. Officially. That means developers like me can write software for the iPhone and it won't vanish after an update.
Releasing an SDK means you have to support it. Putting together an SDK you can support, and that is easy for developers to use, takes time. It's not just documentation, which in of itself is a large task if you want it done right--it's API design, build toolchain design, getting the supporting websites together and ready, training your developer support people in the new stuff, etc. It's huge! But Apple is doing it.
For now, third-party software developed through unsupported means is just that: unsupported. In the near future, according to Apple, we'll have a supported means of developing software for the iPhone. And it'll be better software, because we'll have the documentation we need.
There's no "walled garden", just a device whose SDK is in beta somewhere inside Cupertino walls.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Apple's not fighting their users, they're protecting them, from their perspective.
The jailbreaks are dependent on vulnerabilities which really can't be allowed to remain, for the security of the entire userbase. When the SDK is released all the developers who've already made apps will have a big head start and the good ones will even have an opportunity to get paid for their hard work if they choose.
Should be unnecessary to point this out on /. but a hack is, well, a hack. Isn't that the fun of it?
I personally love my iPhone. It does everything I need and then some. For instance I NEVER used youtube, but now I find myself using it in the oddest situations (like when an guy at work was talking about conway twitty I searched and found some concert clips and showed him). I also dont mind the wait for third party apps, I would rather have a well thought out SDK than something hacked together. Heres something I dont understand regarding third party apps; why does everyone feel that Apple has to support them and be careful when updating. I find this analogous to a contractor building a house and having to redesign it every morning when someone cuts holes for windows or runs wires where they want to. If the "hacker" community involved wants to create a cell phone then do it. Don't complain that someone spent a long time to refine the hardware and software for a device and then claims ownership and is protective of it. If their so happy with their unlocked phones then don't update, if its so perfect leave it alone. Better yet why not treat it in the true spirit of open source and give Apple the respect for what they did and fork it. Make your own project, create the firmware, make a loader, refine its synching abilities, and so forth. I love the open source community and use a lot of their software daily, linux especially is a one of the best things ever to happen to computing. What I don't like is the direction its moving, and the attitude towards the iPhone makes this apparent. I attribute this to the RMS opensourcers' and their socialist, anti-capitalists ideologies (Honestly what is wrong with making a profit off of your creation, this isn't the 70's and these are not command line e-mail apps were talking about).
I dont mind the way Apple does buisness and believe they listen to their consumers. I cant tell you how many posts I read complaining of a lack of gapless playback on the iPod, only to find out that these posts were dated and that the feature had been included. The thing with Apple is that they don't just "do" things to shut people up. I admire that. They have a direction their moving in and they keep the course. I cant stand these companys that try to make a swiss army knife style device that is just crap. Have some focus and get the core features working. I had a gps-enabled blackberry on nextel and I dont think I ever got it to find my location. Thats crap, if a feature is there it should work, with the least amount of flaws. My iPhone always works and the only two apps I ever have problems with (Mail when I check my IMAP account from to many locations simoultaneously i.e. on my laptop while connected on my phone, and safari has the occasional page crash) are corrected very quickly. If an app hangs hold the home button down and it will restart. I never have to reboot my iPhone and can honestly say that its been on for about 4-5 months straight. Thats stability.
In time I agree that most of these arguments will be mute and have been a waste of time. The SDK will come, it probobly will be limited in the beginning but will eventually be full featured. It will become unlocked, I mean, Isn't it illegal to keep a phone locked after the contract is up anyway. If this isn't allowed then someone will take them to court and force them to obey the laws.
Now for a request. Could everyone stop complaining and get innovating. Take all this negativity and focus it into the iPhone killer. I would love this and probably be one of the first buyers . Ohh yeah I own Apple stock (sort of a disclamer), but I would ditch it and my iPhone in a second if there was truly a better product. I'm only loyal to my family, my money goes to the winner.
I love speculating as much as the next person, but let's just wait and see what the SDK is like. Remember that the SDK is for both the iPhone (which I don't own) and the iPod Touch (which I own). I'm waiting to see what happens at Macworld in a couple of weeks before I jailbreak my Touch, but I've played around with a couple of jailbroken units and they are incredible. If you've seen one, you'll know what I mean: the iPod Touch isn't really an iPod in the traditional sense, but the next great ultra portable computer and probably gaming device (there's a roll ball game available that demonstrates the potential of the platform). My experiences with jailbroken iPods have convinced me that Apple is sitting on a goldmine. So are developers if Apple does the right thing.
But as someone else said, Apple will need to protect the non techie users who will go mental if a software upgrade breaks their unit. Moreover, if apps on these things are to become popular with the masses, then there will have to be integration with iTunes, since that is what most people use to manage their iPods. That means that iPod software installation will have to work like podcasts do: you can get them through iTunes with no hassle, and they won't harm your iPod or break with updates. There is really no alternative if it is to become mainstream. If it does, everyone is in for a treat. I'm hoping that excellent Mac shareware companies like Panic will write software for it (if you don't know who Panic are, then shame on you!).
There's no reason why Apple couldn't make the iPod Touch into the new Newton. I'm hoping they will, and the massive black space on the iPod's home screen makes me confident that they will. It already does almost everything you'd want a digital media player to do, so the space can only be taken up with radically extending the use of the device. It's crying out to become a PDA for regular people.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
The question you should be asking, is how many of those people will have enjoyed using the phone and had no problem using AT&T with them. I understand that you don't want an iPhone with the current restrictions on it. But just because you feel superior for turning your nose up at it; it does not mean that people who have been enjoying one for the last year are fools. Just that they have different requirements for a phone. If you really want to be able to program for your phone, go buy a Windows phone, and a copy of Visual Studio. If you want a tightly integrated phone, with a nice UI, that ties into a complete music delivery system... buy an iPhone.
I received an iPhone this year as a holiday gift. It's very nice.
The problem is that it's replacing something and I have expectations regarding the something replaced. I'm trying to replace my Palm TX, my cell phone (which was a really old phone) and my iPod (Photo). The only thing the iPhone completely replaces is my cell phone.
Palm has a KISS attitude about their devices and every time they have not stuck to that ethos, they have lost user base. But Palm has always had a SDK released that is based on the assumption that the Palm company cannot possibly know all of the ways someone might want to use their device. I think it's particularly arrogant for Apple to assume that only Apple knows all of the uses someone will want to put their iPhone to. They certainly don't display that kind of arrogance with the Macintosh computer. So, duly chastened, Jobs decided to release the SDK for the iPhone. After this Febuary, I'd say the iPhone (and iPod Touch) will begin to actually become useful.
For those of you who either have Smartphones or Palm devices or Windows Mobile devices, the one thing the iPhone really, really lacks is the ability to cut and paste! I've been using computers since the 1980s and I cannot recall ever not being able to copy material from one place to be used in another place. This ability to write once, use multiple is the hallmark of computing and this is involved in database, word processing, and user interactions both within applications as well as between applications. The iPhone OS must introduce this, and soon.
Until I can cut and paste, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
Until I can buy, download and install third-party utilities, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
I don't think my iPhone will fully replace my iPod because my iPhone simply doesn't have enough space on it for my entire music library. But the iPhone is more like an iPod Nano in the sense that one loads a subset of one's library on the iPhone, not the whole magillah.
I am hoping that the iPhone does have hidden capabilities to move beyond AT&Ts Edge network to 3G wireless data. Certainly the European units have this capability, else they won't sell well.
Until then, I shall remain a slightly dissatisfied iPhone user.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.