iPhone Tethering App Released, Killed In 2 Hours

tjhayes writes "The iPhone App Store released an application called NetShare that allowed the iPhone to tether a laptop to the internet. It was priced at a $10 one-time fee. After being available for approximately 2 hours, the application has disappeared from the apps store. What exactly are AT&T/Apple trying to accomplish here?" They are trying to prove what is wrong with DRM, and demonstrate why hackers want to jailbreak the iPhone.

Comments

Pretty Clear

[tonyray]

The AT&T contract allows the owner of the iPhone to use the Net. Sharing that connection with unrelated people would constitute theft of service (just like sharing your TV cable, for example). Creating a program whose purpose is to fascilitate theft of service is a legally bad position to be in.

What you talkin' about willis?

[goombah99]

I don't get it.
Buy $600 phone.
Pay $60-90/month to use it.
And you can't tether.

That's what I'd be the most interested in anyways. WOW on the go would be fun.

Well duh and i'd like a pony too. You are paying for the service you are getting not the one you wish you were getting. Maybe someome will write an app called "net-sell". and I can go to coffeeshops and rent my iphone connection to all the people in the room.

Re:What you talkin' about willis?

[Austerity Empowers]

Contracts are made to be violated by the masses, with guns if necessary.

Re:What you talkin' about willis?

[DECS]

Yes, the amount they "outweigh" initial investments is called "profits."

However, the masses aren't complaining, just a few people here on Slashdot who think that not wanting to pay for things is an enlightened political ideology.

I'm all for intellectual socialism, where smart people take over and run things and prevent outrageous profit-taking by the ultra rich, but this is America. I find it hard to empathize with the fat slobs who sit around and passively complain about how much they are being charged to afford their affluent slob lifestyles rather than taking any actual action to stop the trend toward fascism, in most cases because they are actually benefiting from corporate profiteering and don't want to upset the trough that feeds them the slop they want to be cheaper.

For the record, I hate AT&T nearly as much as Verizon and Sprint, and I think the RIAA is largely ridiculous in every way. The only reason I can stand Apple is that it constantly titillates my passive consumption of technology in a uniquely entertaining way. I also am angry about the US' slide into complacent servitude to corporatism, but I blame my inaction on the ineffectual efforts of anyone else to do anything to really change things, and I lack the energy to fix everything myself.

So I'm not being elitist, I'm just tired of hearing ideological complaint dressed up as a significant opinion. One might as well put a "save the planet" bumper sticker on one's SUV. At least those people pay for gas; the gimme-gimme-free crowd wants to just steal their pop music and mobile Internet access, something that's hard to get behind as a political expression of "free speech."

Re:people just need to know

[speedtux]

You know, if people just fucking read the shit they sign, you wouldn't have to waste your breath talking about it.

Given that you are an OS X user, there's a good chance that you didn't make an informed decision yourself. So... direct your criticism at yourself.

Re:people just need to know

[speedtux]

I read everything I sign, electronically or not, EULAs included. I make informed choices, which is why I am pissed off that no one else seemingly can take responsibility for their own actions - a contract is something you read before you sign it,

Your contract doesn't contain the totality of what you need to know about a product. Your purchase contract does not tell you about the deficiencies or limitations of the iPhone or Macintosh.

so stop crying to your mother when you find out it covers something you don't like.

I'm don't have to cry to anybody: I did look at the iPhone in detail, I did read the restrictions and limitations, and I concluded that it's an overpriced piece of shit. And to save other people the trouble of wasting as much time as I did with doing so, I'm sharing my conclusions.