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Jail-Breaking iPhones at the Apple Store
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article in Xconomy, iPhone hacker and author Jonathan Zdziarski was invited to speak at an Apple Store in Cambridge, MA last week where he talked about the history of iPhone hacking, jail-breaking, and limitations of the official SDK. From the article, "Zdziarski was one of the first software engineers to figure out how to hack the iPhone, and he's the author of a forthcoming O'Reilly Media book called iPhone Open Application Development, which gives readers explicit instructions on jail-breaking iPhones. So for Apple to give Zdziarski the podium at an Apple retail location is a little like Steve Ballmer inviting Linus Torvalds to speak at a Windows product launch." Zdziarski reports in his own blog how the open source community was on the iPhone developer scene as early as 2007, long before enterprises got there, and estimates that nearly 40% of all iPhones have been jail-broken to run the third-party community software installer. Finally, this story from Top Tech News suggests that open source software might actually create competition for Apple's "official" developers, because applications using the open source iPhone compiler are not subject to the same limitations as official Apple SDK programs are."
Not jailbroken, an overpriced pretty piece of junk (yes I own one) jail broken and with installer, an awesome tool and I love it.
I get the feeling Apple secretly likes the fact that it's been cracked and made useful, regardless of how ATT feels about it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
This is not a mistake on Apple's part. Their contract with AT&T probably prevents them from releasing an unlocked phone within the time period of the contract, and if Apple were to release unlocking instructions themselves it would legally be almost the same as releasing an unlocked phone: ie contract violation. Instead, they have been careful to remain neutral about it, in order to respect their contract with AT&T. At the same time, they are very happy that people all over the world use (unlocked) iPhones, and Apple executives have probably spent a lot of time thinking about how they could have played the game differently with AT&T to still get the contract with them (which you'll remember took a major infrastructural investment on AT&T's part to bring the iPhone -- and only the iPhone -- visual voicemail) , while not having to wait on their laurels for third parties to purchase, unlock, and ship their phones to the rest of the world. It must be very painful to have to keep mum, when the whole world wants your product, and you have a contract you've signed in your home country that keeps you from giving it to them. The news that they are inviting a speaker who is active in iPhone unlocking just confirms this suspicion, and of course the biggest confirmation will be seeing if Apple suddenly changes policy upon the expiration of the AT&T contract. We don't know the terms of that contract, but it's safe to guess it's a 12, 18, 24, or 36 month contract. I'm betting it was a 12-month contract, which is a very long time in the mobile phone world, and that upon the anniversary of the release of iPhone you will see an end to the silence on Apple's part regarding unlocking.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in the specific case of the iPhone, Apple is perfectly happy to let the hackers hack.
I was at a seminar given by reps from RIM, the Blackberry maker. The guy -- fairly senior -- said there are features that they would love to include on their Blackberrys (blackberries?), which the customers want, but the carriers won't allow them to provide those features because they want to offer their own services and charge customers high rates for them. So, by analogy to RIM, Apple probably needs to provide a veneer of protection to keep its contract with the carrier, but is quite happy when somebody hacks their phone, as it helps them to sell more phones.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Pretend to be more customer friendly than they really are? From some of the anti-Apple stuff I've read on here, it seems that Apple is, in fact, more customer friendly than they appear to be. After all, if this was Microsoft or many other companies, I'm sure DMCA letters would have been sent out by now. I think it just goes to show that Apple are generally only as restricting as they need to be.
Not all of us mind paying for software, you know. That's one thing I have never understood about the OSS movement -- that some people think that everything should be free and that anyone who tries to make a profit from software is somehow "bad". The two worlds can co-exist together.
Can anyone provide IPA on Zdziarski? Gee, that's seems unpronounceable
Note that "inTheLoo" is one of twitter's sockpuppets, along with "Mactrope", who just happened to also post (or rather, shill) in this thread.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.