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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.
it works
I believe it is against the EUL for developing applications on the iPhone.
You don't like their terms, don't use their product.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Maybe people realised a $10 _phone_ can provide the same functionality.
I downloaded it and it works great! I checked this morning and it is gone again. I'm only going to use it to for light browsing when Wifi isn't available. I think a lot of iphone users use Wifi quite frequently, I know I do, so having the ability to tether makes the data plan worth the money. I suspect the 30 dollar data plan is underused my many, so this app shouldn't put too much stress on ATT's network.
I know tethering is against the AT&T rules and regulations... but why was it pulled for all non-usa iphones? We don't have the same agreements with our carriers outside the USA, and yet ... we suffer because AT&T can't stop complaining...
And those that purchase iPhones to "jailbreak" them are just as dumb. If you hate Apple's stifling environment so much, don't buy an iPhone.
Why go thru the hassle of hacking something that you know is against their rules and agreements? You will get shut down in a minute anyways.
The queue is really lagging. The app is back up and still for sale. Come on, Slashdot mods, stay current!
What are you talking about? It's not "theft of service" if it's your own laptop. You'd have to be pretty close to someone's iPhone to "steal" bandwidth, thanks to the relatively short range of bluetooth. And just because a knife can facilitate murder doesn't mean it was created for that purpose.
Why does my post history abruptly stop? I want to laugh at the stupid things I posted as a kid.
No, its not, its ATT protecting its revenue stream b y charging an insane (I believe it is $80 per month for the laptop connect plans), at which point ATT does not care whether or not you use a pc express card or a phone or usb dongle to use your laptop.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
You don't like their terms, don't use their product.
Exactly. And in order to ensure that as many people as possible know about Apple's restrictions and the consequences of those restrictions before they get locked into a contract, we keep talking about it.
Incidentally, any of the S60 Nokias, many Palms and many Windows Mobile phones have no restrictions on tethering. They're also cheaper than the iPhone. And the Nokias use the same web browser as the iPhone.
Now, what exactly are you trying to say?
And those that purchase iPhones to "jailbreak" them are just as dumb. If you hate Apple's stifling environment so much, don't buy an iPhone. ... and we are going to continue to talk about what Apple's restrictions mean and that many other phones have more capabilities than the iPhone at a lower price.
If Apple were to set the standard for smartphones, with their restrictions, DRM, and stripped down functionality, smartphone users would be in trouble. Let's stop Apple now while there is still time.
I was quite shocked, but knowing apple, I shouldn't have been.
I was shocked to learn this about the original iPhone, since it was only since I switched to OS X that I started regularly using a phone for Internet access via Bluetooth. Apple made it really easy to set it up (there's a little Bluetooth wizard that does everything for you), and by not supporting this on the iPhone they have made sure that pretty much any other make of phone integrates better with their OS than their own phone.
My old (cheap) Nokia phone can sync calendars with iCal, sync contacts with Address Book, and be used as a modem, all via Bluetooth. The iPhone needs a cable to do any of these (and can't do the third one even with a cable).
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I'm more inlined to believe that this is likely at&t's doing not Apple. at&t charges extra for tethering on other phones and since the iPhone has a special plan for data, they don't want iPhone users going nuts on the 3G network and affecting the percieved speed of the network.
At&t (as well as the other 3 major US Cariers) have been known to intentionally cripple phones so that users can't take full advantage of the features.
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My one button Apple mouse disagrees.
that seems fine, but it only pays for the software. Who pays for the extra traffic over the network ?
My HTC handheld has Internet connection sharing (WM5) supplied for free in the base install. But I have to pay to use that functionality - not MS, but my ISP, which is T-Mobile.
I get 3 GB transfer per month for £10. I could get 1GB transfer free with my line rental, but understandably, they don't like you using that to feed a laptop. Not many people download huge files on a handheld, but a laptop is a different matter. HSDPA is nice to have available to a laptop, but FTP is blocked which is a bugger.
Sharing that connection with unrelated people would constitute theft of service (just like sharing your TV cable, for example).
Is it illegal for me to share my Comcast internet connection with my room mate with a wireless router?
So what is the difference between me sharing with them or my father next door?
Either way, the software wasn't intended to share out internet connectivity with strangers. It was designed to give the owner the ability to give their own laptop an internet connection.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
What exactly are AT&T/Apple trying to accomplish here?
Quite simple:
1. AT&T (like other mobile operators) would like you to pay extra for the privilege of using your phone as a modem. This has nothing to do with Apple or iPhone: e.g. the same thing applies to my Windows Mobile smartphone on T-Mobile (UK).
2. Apple needs to play nicely with AT&T and its other mobile operators and can't be seen encouraging people to breach the terms & conditions.
3. Presumably, someone at Apple OK'd this software without checking the AT&T T&Cs. Someone else spotted the error and took it down.
Nothing to see, move along.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
No offense, although I'll probably be moderated as a troll for this, but you're just an idiot, plain and simple.
It doesn't take a triple digit IQ to know the phone didn't have SSH and a terminal, so either you're trolling or really are an idiot if you bought the phone knowing that only to turn around and complain about it.
Blackberry also passes all e-mail and everything else through their servers. Again, troll or idiot.
And there was no secrets about Mobile Me.
So which is it? Troll or idiot?
... is the fact that Apple has been switching sides on this issue:
First they allow, two hours later its gone, then after a day they allow once again and eventually bham its gone. Cant they make up their mind whether to allow the App or not.
C'mon Apple think about all the fanboys who think you are perfect*.
* Before you mod me as troll do note I am typing this on my Macbook Pro and was about to get this app after work when it jsut disappeared again.
1) Unique -- Uh, how about the user interface? One can be nit-picky about anything not being "unique." For example, there is nothing unique or original between a Ford and a Mercedes vehicle, I mean they both have wheels, seats, and use gas right? (sarcasm in case you miss it).
2) Battery -- Well, your usage is different. I have never ever purchased a second battery for a cell phone in all the years I have owned a cell phone. Your experience obviously is different. Oh, you do realize you can buy a replacement battery from Apple right?
3) Palm OS does all the same things -- Are you kidding me? That OS is CRAP, wait that would give crap a bad name it's so shitty. If people wanted to use something designed in 1995 have fun. You have got to be kidding trying to compare Palm OS to any of the modern cell OS systems.
Oh, and I don't own an iPhone. Your comments just were too ridiculous to ignore.
Also, I need utility from my phone;
Perhaps you should have researched the phone before buying it. Hell, you could've read one of the dozens of articles here on slashdot with the words "iPhone" and "lock" in the title.
I didn't buy the damn thing to show it off.
So, you bought an iPhone hoping to use dozens of features that it doesn't support, but don't want it for the one thing it is good at?
Badass Resumes
"Idiot", by your perspective.
Okay, I'll bite. Funny thing is, I don't even have an iPhone, but I'm pretty familiar with another of Apple's products. I have a video iPod, and I absolutely love it.
It has little to do with it being an Apple product. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the company, precisely because it tries to be all glitzy. But just as frankly, my iPod is head and shoulders above any other mp3 player I've ever used. Sure, it's pretty, but it also has a very nice display. I find that navigating using the touch wheel is much easier than the clunky buttons on most other players. Getting music and videos is stupidly simple. Although I'm technically proficient and can rip CDs and DVDs, jump through hoops encoding and transferring stuff, I appreciate the fact that with my iPod, I don't have to. I hate the DRM that Apple imposes on content, but it works well enough for me, and when I need to get past it, hey, I can still rip CDs and DVDs and jump through hoops encoding and transferring stuff.
You say, "I want it to work the way I want it to work and use it the way I want to use it." Well, you've pretty much stumbled onto why there are so many Apple devotees. Sure, there are some fanboys, but for most of them, Apple's products just work. It's that simple. They don't have to rip and encode and transfer and configure and read manuals and learn rocket science.
The iPhone undoubtedly has some areas where it falls short. I've used an iPhone, and I'd love to have one, but the game-breaker for me is that I'd rather shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails than to subscribe to AT&T's service, and although I probably could, I just don't have the motivation to hack it. (Better things to do with my time.) I really don't see the battery as an issue. Honestly, in about 15 years of having various cell phones, I've never once had to replace a battery. I always end up getting a new one before my battery stops holding a charge. Is it a consideration? Sure, I suppose, but stacked up against other things, it's not a major one.
Apple isn't perfect. I don't know of many people who think it is. And yes, they have a reputation for being excessively stylish. But that doesn't change that their products are very, very good. You want people not to get caught up in the glamour and not to overrate their products; I'd ask you to do the same and not underrate them, either.
Hell, the thing doesn't even have MMS. To be honest he probably bought it for it's internet connectivity, but then again every other 3G device is capable of this as well.
Good thing AT&T doesn't offer the device on anything longer than a 24-month contract, otherwise the grandparent might be crying foul over how he didn't realise just how long three years was.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Apparently, the are many 3G providers outside the US which have no problems with tethering your laptop to your phone. This is what people have a problem with: a few backward providers dictating how the rest of the world can use *their* iPhones.
AT&T can't decided what is available in the App Store. At best, they can only make requests. Stop making excuses for Apple. Even if they have some sort of agreement with AT&T that prevents AT&T customers from tethering, the iTunes store is internationalized to the point that they could easily offer the tethering app to less restrictive countries and not to AT&T customers.
Why is it against the terms of use of the iPhone?
It's not for free. You're paying for 3G service when you pay your iPhone bill.
To be honest he probably bought it for it's internet connectivity, but then again every other 3G device is capable of this as well.
That's exactly why I bought it. Because I use a Mac at work and wanted a seamless solution for connectivity while away from the desk. I bought the iPhone to replace an old LG Verizon phone two years past its end of contract date.
I do like the iPhone. But I very much dislike Apple's behavior here. I want both functionality and my privacy rights. I don't give a shit which company we're talking about, that's my bottom line. Which is why I jailbroke the phone. For perfectly legitimate purposes, I might add.
AT&T had to ban this to protect the network, the same reason Comcast has to ban BitTorrent. I'm sure all of you understand. It is very important to protect the network from new, predatory applications or we will never have innovation. Just look at how the plain old phone network collapsed and became totally useless after the courts forced the telcos to allow their customers to plug in unapproved phones. Overnight people were plugging in 3, 4, 5 phones, vastly exceeding the phone rental limits. Some were even using newfangled wireless phones that let them consume Precious Network Resources from places the Telcos never planned on, such as the yard or bathroom.
It doesn't take a triple digit IQ to know the phone didn't have SSH and a terminal, so either you're trolling or really are an idiot if you bought the phone knowing that only to turn around and complain about it.
*cough*He said:
Finally, I've had to jailbrake the phone for MobileTerminal and ssh, which is also critical to my job.
If you jailbreak your phone, you can indeed install ssh on the iPhone.
Just in case you were serious (ha) you don't need an extra battery, for long trips you can just use any number of external battery packs that are no larger than that second battery you claim to desire.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Why not?
What I use my Internet connection for is none of my Internet provider's fucking business, and if you believe otherwise then you're just a tool.
Written over ten years ago, but oh so foretelling of things to come
It doesn't matter what phone device we're discussing. Those clients of yours who are attorneys have an ethical obligation to protect the privacy of their clients. A distributed and privately controlled solution to internally shared calendaring and business contacts is very much needed.
I'm not sure how this app works, but other people (jail breakers) don't do this over bluetooth, they establish an ad-hoc wifi connection with their laptop and start up a proxy on their phone. All in all, I'm never one to side with The Man, but I can see why AT&T wouldn't want people to have unlimited download plans with a laptop on 3G. There isn't a whole lot of bandwidth to go around, and the only reason they could possibly offer unlimited data plans for the iphone is that they can reasonably bet on a relatively low traffic flow, as compared to some git on his laptop with torrents running over 3G. (Which, I'll note, is something AT&T _will_ boot you off their network for)
So you bought it for it's internet connectivity, even though every other 3G device is capable of this as well?
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
That one also makes me dizzy.....
My nokias sync, do share net, and some even support sending SMS stright from the address book, my iPhone does not.
That is something that still does not fit in my head. Still I am happier with the iphone.... but if they bridge this gap for me it is the absolute winner.....
Yup. I like the email application. And I like how easily it works with the Mac too. I just want my privacy and a bit more utility. I'll even pay for it.
You must be new to the mobile phone market.
Buy any manufacturer's phone through Verizon for instance...
It would be theft of service, if your service contract forbids tethering.
I'm not making excuses for apple. I don't even own an iphone fyi.
A third party tethering solution is not the same as if apple provided the functionality to the core device. Even though at&t can't dictate terms to other carriers in other countries, you can't deny that they don't have some influence over what features apple can/cannot implement.
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Or at least that was my understanding.
So I want O2 (UK) to think very carefully before allowing tethering and opening up the shared resource to every possible application.
Right now I have unlimited data to my iPhone, but that will be no good to me if the network becomes saturated. (And yes, with an unlimited data plan, some users will run BitTorrent over a tethered connection just because they can.)
Apple's Hokey Cokey with the NetShare application? I can't explain that, but you can see where the conflict lies.
Allow the customers to do whatever they want, or protect the current experience for everyone.
Yup, it's back already
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
We have already seen what happens when Apple wants to pull an app. Remember the Aurora Feint thing? That app had some issues with security and privacy, and it not only disappeared from the store, but from iPhones also.
This app may be going on and off the store, but until it disappears from iPhones and a credit shows up on those accounts, it will be back.
This is likely more to do with servers and/or databases syncing up or some such. I had the same thing happen trying to buy Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart on the iPhone. It would show it, but say it was unavailable. A couple of days later all was fine.
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And Apple appears to be holding up any OTA sync application that might circumvent syncing through their "MobileMe" so-called service. I also can't sync my contacts to a central server or OTA without MobileMe.
This is 100% not true, and I think you know it. While the only consumer way to do this is with MobileMe, and by the way if you want good calendaring sync OTA solutions MobileMe is pretty weak (actually I would say unusable), there is a non-consumer way. Exchange sync works pretty well, although there are some caveats, although a lot less than if you have MobileMe.
Don't have Exchange and don't want it? Well I don't blame you, it certainly has lots of issues also, especially the cost for what you get, but it is a solution for OTA contact and calendar syncing with push mail that works with the iPhone without MobileMe. And if you or your employer is running the server than all of your privacy concerns should be taken care of (if the server is configured properly).
Yeah, I'd like some more options, and maybe some could come in the future. But for the time being MobileMe and Exchange are the price of admission. I'm hoping that once the Push services API is available Google or someone else will make a client/system that ties into IMAP IDLE and CalDAV so I can use my existing Gmail and Gcal setup, which works great with Mail.app and iCal.app, on the iPhone. Only time will tell though.
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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.
I think the point here is that you are OVER paying for the product you are getting, when tethering is, as far as I and every techie smart phone user I know goes, one of the main points of getting a smart phone. The whole point of spending such a high monthly service plan is the data transfer.
3G speeds don't seem fast enough to tempt users away from using old-fashioned internet when it's available (WoW with more than 120ms lag wouldn't be THAT much fun). I don't really see iPhone renting being popular in coffee shops when up against the common free WiFi.
Isn't this just another example of Apple innovating on a product to improve it's user experience and make it exciting, but then giving in on something that just restricts us the consumer?
iPhone: AT&T => no tethering
iTunes: RIAA => DRM
Moderators, please learn that moderation is not based if the comment subscibes to your world-view but rather if the comment advances the discussion or makes a non-redundant point or rebuttal. The above comment is a good rebuttal and is not flambate. The GP was being childish is his expectations and the parent pointed this out.
you could turn your iPhone into a developer device and never have to worry about them pulling this from the App Store. The question is, how to publish the source without attracting The Steve's attention?
They say the mind is the first thing to
WoW with more than 120ms lag wouldn't be THAT much fun
:-)
It depends. Between about 200 and 900 ms, the lag is annoying as hell, but once it gets above that, it's kind of entertaining since what will happen is largely unpredictable. Firefights in Alterac Valley when everyone is severely lagged are kind of like slapstick comedy. Players fall down and die for no apparent reason at all.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Why do you overpay? or are you simply saying you wish you could get all the things the iPhone offers for less? Either way, your argument that follows makes no sense given you don't have to overpay.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well, they banned P2P due to AT&T network limitations, so its only logical they would kill this off too, for the same reason.
I don't see anything really sinister here. Irritating perhaps, but not sinister. And tossing in the DRM buzzword is a real stretch.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The service you purchased on your phone contract says otherwise, and that's the problem.
There are many European countries selling 3G based "broadband Internet", with dedicated devices (not phones, just simple USB HSDPA modems that take a SIM card).
In those countries, the basestations should be more than capable of handling hogs (either by allowing the traffic, or by throttling abusers so they don't mess up everybody else's connections).
As for tethering... That's the main reason I gave away my iPhone 3G (I work for a mobile operator, got one at launch day, and gave it away to the person in my team that pulled the longest straw. Yes, literally.). Every phone I've had for the last 4 years has allowed me unrestricted bluetooth connectivity to the internet, starting with GPRS and now with HSDPA), and it is something I use *a lot*. I don't have to take my phone out of the pocket, I just fire up the laptop, push a button, and I'm done.
Windows Mobile smart phones have tethering capability built in. It's the Internet Sharing application.
It was rather amusing at the airport the other day. I had my laptop tethered to my WM smart phone via Bluetooth. Along comes some iPhone geek, laptop in bag, who rants about how he has an iPhone so he doesn't have to use the airport's overpriced WiFi.
I told him that I was using the AT&T 3G network on my laptop via my phone. That I didn't have to use a bitty screen for the net when I had a perfectly good laptop (remember, he did too; he just couldn't use his on the Internet without using the airport WiFi).
Then came the knife-twist: "Oh, you can't do that on Apple."
Where do I think I am? In general I'm on the road or at military bases and/or ranges. I use my work phone for work, and my iphone for myself. It's worked pretty well for me so far. Yet even though I try to stick to specific hotels, I never know if they will have wireless that is worth anything, and very often it wouldn't support a VPN with any stability. So I rely on my phones capability to tether to my laptops to do the things I would like to do. I use my iPhone a lot, and I use my computer a lot. The combined use of both generally amounts to approximately 1-2 gigs per month when I am on the road. (I use a lot more, but that's what my home networks are for). Attempting to use a hotel's wireless connection is quite often more frustrating than just going down to the local bar and seeing if I can spot anyone I know to hang out with. The sad thing is, I generally get better service from Dunkin Donuts than I do from the local hotel. (businessmen with infected computers downloading porn /acting as zombies maybe?)
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
How do you know this; 1. AT&T had to ban this to protect the network. 2. Presumably, someone at Apple OK'd this software without checking the AT&T T&Cs. 3. AT&T can't decided what is available in the App Store. Enough of your uber speculation. You fail to recognize that the simple fact that it was there means that it will most likely be back. for all you know the dev took it down due to some flaw. The first time it came down was because it just didn't work... Stop with the whole Iphones are lame thing. The Iphone is the by far has best phone interface on the market. You cant argue that. If you have not seen it don't even atempt to. If you have you can't say that Nokia or Motorola or RIM is better. Why? Cuz they all suck. As far as ATT goes with the tethering thing. This app we are talking about is a SOCKS PROXY ATT will never know you are using it for tethering unless they actually start sniffing your packets and doing look ups on destinations. Example... Ah lookie there packets going to wow servers must be tethered... Less whaa whaa more thinking
Just an official reply from Nullriver.... We're not quite sure why Apple took down the application yet, we've received no communication from Apple thus far. NetShare did not violate any of the Developer or AppStore agreements. We're hoping we'll get some feedback from Apple tomorrow. Sorry to all the folks that couldn't get it in time. We'll do our best to try to get the application back onto the AppStore if at all possible. At the very least, I would hope Apple will allow it in countries where the provider does permit tethering. We'll keep everyone posted. Thanks!
First of all... the iPhone IS special. What it is doing in this app and in the link I'll provide below for jailbroken phones is not something lots of phones can do, if any others.
Second of all, this app was NOT a tethering app. AS you say, tethering is done by either BlueTooth or USB cable. What this app did is create an access point by sharing the cellular network over wifi. You don't "tether" your laptop to a wireless router, do you? Now that we're clear on that, I guess we have to live with everyone calling it tethering.
iPhone 3G as a wifi access point
The Admin and the Engineer
Frank Lloyd Wright never did anything unique, from a functionality perspective. But he's still hailed as an amazing architect because he focused on design; making things look good, feel good and accessible. It's fine to say, "The iPhone doesn't do anything unique" - even 'true'. But the way it allows you to do all of those non-unique things is way, way better. You say it yourself; the iPhone has fewer buttons/keys. Perfect! The threshold of use is lower - and that is, actually, a good thing.
In short, you're right but you're missing the point of why the iPhone is doing well. The battery is not the issue - that's sort of like saying that when the hammer has no haft, it's useless. Of course it is. But why worry about that first? Is it functional? Is it easy to use? I don't have a problem charging my phone's battery. Do you? The elevation of small quibbles is not a reasonable way to objectively determine the worth of something.
[Ego]out
In both your examples, your evil companies have invested shit-tons of money into creating the economic pool you want to swim in. You are surprised that they want to impose rules to earn profits on their investment?
Without AT&T, you wouldn't have AT&T's phone service, and without AT&T's investment in the iPhone, you probably wouldn't have $199 access to an OS X-based smartphone that costs $700.
Without the RIAA, you wouldn't have artists getting million dollar contract advances to create albums, nor any rock and roll lifestyle to inspire artists to make music. That's a bad thing if all you like is folk hippie music, but most people like commercial lala popular music, hence the name Pop.
I'm not saying that AT&T and the RIAA aren't greedy assholes, I'm only saying that your outrage is rather naive and silly. "Just restricts the consumer"? You do realize that the purpose of companies is to make profits, right? They don't exist to titillate you at affordable prices.
Warning: Google Maps Walking directions are in Beta
Probably 80% of what I'd really want tethering for is SSH access. I'd much rather use a real keyboard and big screen for that, but if Apple insists on forcing us to use far more bandwidth to do things the silly way...
That said, I'd pretty much decided to buy two iPhones today (one for me, one for gf). But this bitch move on Apple's part (AT&T is known to be pure evil, so you can't blame them, because they have no choice) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Guess I'll hold out for Android after all.
This reads like an apology for Apple. Apple and AT&T should both go to hell for stifling innovation.
Give me my android phone. I'll wait as long as it takes.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
What, you want Apple to fight your fight for you? This is just another example of a telecom company wanting to call something "unlimited" when they really have no intention of making it in any way unlimited. Insist on fair advertising and pricing.
Violence is the tool of the idiot who didn't take his/her time to read the contract, or ask a rep/the internet if that's too much work.
Don't forget that the people also spend money, and in the economic pool, outweigh the amount invested by those big companies. And as such, as the masses voice their naive and silly opinions, they have the right to do it. At the end of the day, these large companies don't have anything without the end users who play the biggest role in the economic marketplace.
-Alex. http://bit.ly/1iVPtfA
Government force should be met with force if necessary. But contracts entered into voluntarily are the basis of civilization. You're advocating a return to the day when contracts couldn't be enforced, which would destroy the availability of the very services you hope to steal. Your position is not only irrational and immoral, but short-sighted.
AT&T can't decided what is available in the App Store. At best, they can only make requests.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract
Stop making excuses for Apple. Even if they have some sort of agreement with AT&T that prevents AT&T customers from tethering, the iTunes store is internationalized to the point that they could easily offer the tethering app to less restrictive countries and not to AT&T customers.
Could you please elaborate, paying particular attention to exactly what details you know about how Apple's DRM works with respect to internationalization?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
actually if you provide the 'last mile' in the USA, YOU are responsible for CALEA. Look it up, it's a damn scary law. If the first hop to the Internet is through you, it falls on your shoulders. This includes neighborhood wifi projects, the local coffee shop that offers free wifi, etc. Forget if it's infeasible and expensive, forget that some wifi gear is impossible to do what they ask (Meraki, I'm looking at you), it's the law and you're responsibility. Not the ISP you're connecting to, but YOU. What's this mean?
Big Brother exists and is able to tap everyone's intenet at the snap of a finger.
I love my N95. Not only does it do everything the iPhone does (except have a touchscreen, which I don't want), tethering is a cinch via bluetooth or USB. I can install any application I want on it. Applications can actually run in the background. And it looks like Symbian might actually become an open-source OS.
Plus, it had 3G support from the start. And wifi. And VOIP. And a built-in GPS receiver. etc. etc.
Wow. I sound like an ad. I'm really just a satisfied customer.
The iPhone is designed to be used as a Treo or iPaq running any software you can create for it, unrestricted. it's not a "pocket mac" or even the new Newton. It may become that, eventually, but if you're buying one expecting it to be anything but a really good cellphone with Internet access, you're buying the wrong product.
And on top of that...
As long as it's got unlimited cellular data services for a fixed rate, you're not going to get an unlocked unrestricted iPhone. That's an obvious tradeoff... if you're getting unlimited cellular data service, you're going to be limited on how you can use it, and tethering your cellphone to a general purpose computer is way beyond anything they can afford to allow.
We've gone from one King George to another. Escaping laws like this is the reason this country was founded!
This is like if Buy-N-Large (neé Wal-mart) had a (landline or cellphone) phone subsidiary, and you started talking about a competitor's store over the phone ... and they broke into the line and disconnected you.
Apparently, as it stands now, phone lines are open - but phone software is not. And I think that's lame.
My old (cheap) Nokia phone can sync calendars with iCal, sync contacts with Address Book, and be used as a modem, all via Bluetooth. The iPhone needs a cable to do any of these
That's untrue. My iPhone syncs to my Mac automatically over the net whenever I make a change to my calendar or address book. That's a big win compared to my old Treo, which required a cable to sync and didn't sync reliably ...
(and can't do the third one even with a cable).
That's true if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone, or if you weren't lucky enough to get a copy of netshare before it got removed.
You missed superscript 110, which states clearly that neither AT&T nor its shareholders, subsidiaries, or partners, are to be held responsible in the event of mass armed uprisings.
Can Squid run as a SOCKS proxy? (Not "can Squid access the Internet through a SOCKS proxy?", but "*can* Squid *itself* run as a SOCKS proxy?") If not, then NetShare isn't particularly like Squid with a GUI wrapper, as NetShare is a SOCKS proxy (and, as far as I know, doesn't cache Web pages, as Squid does).
Not at all, just the day where twenty-page "contracts" didn't come sealed in a box that you buy. If anyone actually approached consumers with a contract long enough to be read in the venue they marketed their product (ie, two-paragraph contract for something meant to be purchased in a retail-ish setting like a cell-phone.) people wouldn't consider them outrageous.
But no, people have the idea that anything they write down on paper is going to be binding just because they hand it to you, with no consideration for letting you read it in its entirety, or before the sale.
Sorry, but that's not behavior I respect. I could "not respect" it by quietly going home and being upset, or I could usefully not respect it by treating it as I would treat a phone I bought from someone I did respect. I follow common-sense guidelines, or rules for the benefit of everyone, but not rules for their sole benefit.
For instance, ISP rules about no servers. Yeah, uh huh. What's a server? Any protocol that happens to answer a port, regardless of the majority of the dataflow. And they forbid servers, not bandwidth hogging. So should I honestly follow along and not run SSH despite it not really being the problem and max-out my downloads on legit Linux ISOs, or should I try to play by the spirit of cooperation and not do anything (regardless of the rules) that would destroy the service for my neighbors such as using all the bandwidth?
If I lived by the rules of "no servers" anything else would be fine. Instead if I examine the situation and deal fairly with those involved, no method of harm is "okay" just because it wasn't mentioned.
So, in other words, you're a schmuck if you follow an abusive contract. Many people who enter offer contracts do so abusively and there's no reason to pander to that and not get a phone, or such. Just follow the reasonable rules, discard the rest. Until courts catch up with the idea that there are some things you can't contract for (not illegal, just unrelated to the apparent deal - misleading) people just need to act this way.
It was the software companies all individually including the EULAs in the box than convinced people shrink-wrap licenses are binding. Now we just need everyone individually ignoring provisions of contracts they didn't get a chance to negotiate to set the assumption that such contracts aren't binding.
The world would be a far better place if people acted based on the harm their actions would cause, NOT based on the rules that would be violated.
This is why we need open WIFI, for plausible deniability. Might be illegal, but it's a lot less "illegal" than the routers that do log and just happens to show something they find really offensive - like if you pinged Cuba or something.
With one or two exceptions, the quickest way for a government employee to deserve death is to demand you keep their actions secret. We all just need a reason to install pools or lye in our basements...
Global Politics in 30 seconds
This pretty much sums up how we feel about all you other bastards.
Or you could be aware that they're going to hand you a twenty page contract and set aside enough time to read it when you go to the shop and not just spend the majority of the time fiddling around with the phones they have on display.
I don't see how them saying "you are not allowed to share the data access that you receive on this phone with another device unless you pay us extra" is unrelated to the issue at hand. They're selling you services to use on the cellphone.
I'm aware that there's a twenty page contract, but I'm also aware as a programmer that few people, including programmers, could take a twenty page document full of conditions and exceptions and properly parse it, being sure of not making any mistakes and of catching all restrictions. Especially standing in a store, without a day or two to make notes.
It simply is not reasonable to present people with a contract like that for things that don't warrant getting a lawyer. Thinking these contracts should be binding is like expecting you to hire a lawyer and do battle with Sony corp over your defective Walkman, as opposed to going to small-claims court where the rules are different and engaging them in a more level way.
We might as well practice law in Latin for all the good it does to hand a densely worded and intentionally confusing document, especially at a time that contracts usually aren't required - what looks to be a simple purchase at retail.
So no, even if I believed that these contracts would stand up to the type of challenge I would wage if I had the time/money, I still would not follow them because they are abusive.
As for Apple's ability to control what I do with my data, I do not believe they have the right to tell me I cannot tunnel games over an SSH connection to my phone, or web pages, or a packet whose ultimate destination might be someone else. They provide bandwidth, I use it. They can set limits on amounts, but not on the purpose of the data transmission. (Which would be like saying I can only use the iPhone for certain calls.)
Obviously nobody listens to a rule that says you can't take calls for your friends on your phone - they simply pay the airtime and use the device. Similarly, nobody would accept a rule saying you can call only affiliated pizza places. A limit on who you can forward data to is just a ridiculous.
Yeah, and people should honestly be expected to hear about, go find, read, and understand twenty pages of densely worded legalese, just to BUY a cellphone that's sold at retail, in a fashion that usually implies there won't be contracts.
Douche.
Yes. It's a SOCKS proxy; you point other machines, such as your notebook, at it as a SOCKS proxy, and network requests that go through whatever code paths can be switched to a SOCKS proxy get sent to the phone's proxy app, and it forwards them to the Internet over the cellphone connection.
There is a fine line between voluntarily entering into a contract with a 3rd party on equal negotiation footing and agreeing to ridiculous contractual options because everyone who offers this service requires it. For example, air travel is theoretically optional, but a basic necessity of modern living. You can then either opt out of modern living, or you can wear the contractually-obliged shock collar in order to fly.
Certain bits of modern contracts are quite frankly immortal, and should not be enforced by the government. As a further example, non-competes can be a way of ensuring that your employees don't simply run to another company with your hard-earned knowledge. But they're also a way of ensuring that certain employees can never work in their field again, and cannot realistically get another job afterwards. This can be held over the employee to prevent them from leaving due to underpay, abuse, or failure to live up to bonus or other compensatory promises. And they're always entered into while the employee is hungry.
The ______ Agenda
I should add to this that there are several pre-paid legal plans, with which you can sue these fuckers.
So, you don't need a several-thousand-dollar retainer in order to obtain legal satisfaction; $27/mo from PPL, or $18/mo from ARAG (through your employer, not sure how much they charge otherwise), and you have the ability to fight back without hurting your bank account.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The fact that AT&T or the RIAA or Apple may have invested a lot of money is not only not my concern, it's not my business. You seem to be implying that because they have invested money that they have some sort of moral right to do as they please.
Well, I don't recognize their authority to do anything other than offer something for sale. Once it's sold to me, I will do with it as I please.
And yes, if they want to cut me off, that's their business too.
What I object to is that the government becomes the agent of enforcement of profits. That's bullshit. And because the government has essentially conspired against it's own citizens and with business entities that buy sponsorship of corrupt laws, then it's hard to recognize them as valid laws.
Son, we're at that point. We're at that point.
What's amusing is that windows systems have several "servers" running by default (135, 139, 445 etc), some of which are difficult to turn off... They could use this as an excuse to disconnect most users.
Then there's routers which open something like telnet or http so you can manage them.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Yes, i'l be sure to read the terms and conditions on the website using my psychic powers next time i'm trying to sign up for a service providing internet connectivity...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
How is ssh on the iphone? Doesn't the on-screen keyboard get in the way of a decent (or even minimal 80x25) terminal screen?
Agreed. However, the way to communicate your complaints is to not buy their products or services. Not to whine about it on Slashdot.
Because, at the end of the day, these large companies don't have anything without the end users. And if they have no end users, they may consider changing their prices and policies.
If you buy an iPhone knowing that it cannot be tethered and then whine because it cannot be tethered, you bought the wrong product. Because I must use a car analogy, it's like buying a two-seater sports car and then complaining that there is no way for three people to sit in the car. If having a third seat was so important, you should have bought a car that seats three.
If you're going to be paying $199 plus $70 a month for two years--say, $1900 total--it may be worthwhile to make sure that the device does what you want it to do. Not blame Apple and AT&T for your poor decision.
I didn't address what you're saying, so it's not necessarily relevant to my point. The post I was replying to made a broad statement about contracts in general, not to certain potentially untenable provisions in contracts. It's a fool's game to try to argue (especially on here) which contract terms are reasonable and which are not, so I won't do that. But when somebody is foolish enough to broadly advocate that "the masses" violate contracts, well, that's so stupid that it's worth a brief rebuttal.
Man, why do I have to choose between friend or foe?
Why can't I just mark people "dumbass", and get little dunce caps over their posts so I can read them for my own amusement?
I also need more mod options, like
-1 Straw Man
-1 Missed the Point
-1 Changed the Subject
-1 Read About it On the Internet
+1 Overheard From Coworker
+2 Has Touched the Technology He/She is Talking About
+3 Implemented it
+5 Created it
and of course here, I'd use one of these
-1 Disagrees For Sake of Disagreeing
-1 Empty Arguments and Defenseless Claims
=0 Writes Long Posts That Only Amount to "I Disagree", Garnering Way Too Many +1 "Me Too" Mods
Please forgive me for not replying directly to any these empty points. Oh hell, I'll just pick one at random...
Do you think the Iphone would be getting even a fraction of media coverage it gets, if it wasn't produced by Apple?
Do you have ANY idea what this product would look like if it weren't produced by Apple? I'll tell you! It would look exactly like all the claimed "iPhone killers" that were already on the market or coming to the market.
Are any of them popular enough to warrant any media coverage at all? Now, be honest, which came first? iPhone popularity, or media coverage?
Are you really sure the answer you were looking for could be obtained with that question?
If a different country decided to overthrow the government of Iraq, would the UN support them the same?
Now, THAT's how you start a pointless argument, buddy.
My iPhone is the fourth smartphone I've had. I spent enough time with its predecessors to know all the tricks - and there were plenty of those to learn - to use most of their features. Address book, calendar, camera, games, etc. - at one point I even synced the phone with my laptop regularly.
The trouble was doing all this stuff felt about as good as having a root canal. Sure, there was a keyboard shortcut feature that made a few things easier. But over time almost everything fell into disuse because it was just too painful to operate.
The iPhone has changed my habits completely. Everything that was hard to do is now easy. The only thing I didn't like was having to use a cable to sync it. (But unlike its predecessors the sync always worked flawlessly.) Even that is now a nonissue with MobileMe.
I thought maybe it was just me being too picky. But then...
My wife, whose interest in matters technical is fairly limited, has also had a smartphone for quite a while. (Actually a much nicer one than mine.) But after browsing the manual she never did anything with it - she said it was too much trouble.
Last week she got an iPhone. She hasn't had a moment's difficulty operating it. And she's using the phone's capabilities for the first time. For example, her addressbook is already full of entries, entries she typed into Address Book on her computer and synced to her phone with no help from anyone.
Usability really does matter. And while the iPhone is a long way from perfect, it represents a substantial advance.
That is no longer true. They do care what you are doing, and who you are doing with, and how much you did it. You contract will stipulate rather clearly what you can and cant do.
And if they don't like it, they throttle/delete/report you.
This isn't the 90's anymore bucko.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh yeah? Well I believe that 2+2=5, and if you believe otherwise, then you're a whiny bitch. Behold my powers of rhetoric!
Seriously though, the whole business strategy as we know it is not geared towards sharing connections. There's nothing wrong with a business that doesn't require you to sign away your right to share your connection, but it will invariably cost more as people actually take them up on the offer, and their raw sales go down. As it stands, people actually sharing their connections when they're not supposed to just ends up with all the paying customers paying slightly more to hedge losses.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
you can send SMS (txt messages in NZ speak) from the iPhone address book, go to a contact and tap the option to send them a message :)
---
So does that mean you aren't allowed to download a file on your iPhone that you intend to move to another device to use? It sounds like a stupid and vague restriction to me.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
When somebody is foolish enough to broadly advocate that "the masses" understand 20 page contracts, well, that's pretty stupid too.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
nonono... I meant to send SMS to a contact from your MAC/OSX from the machine's address book :)
You just need a paired nokia (or other supported phone - not iphone), and just type a message that gets sent through your phone :)
WoW with more than 120ms lag wouldn't be THAT much fun
Speaking as an Australian playing on an "Oceanic" server, any time we have less than 400ms lag it's a miracle. However WoW does handle the latency quite well, especially compared to what you'd have to put up with in FPSs, etc.
Would you kindly point out where I said that? And when you find that I didn't say what you're alleging, will you please apologize?
No it isn't.
No, AT&T is quite good at not providing stuff to read until after you sign.
Besides, who gives a crap about a contract. The U.S. law system is only for big powers.
And there is a significant difference between what is legal and what is moral. Right now, a lot of immoral stuff is legal. And a lot of moral stuff is illegal. Just look at how RIAA treats artists and consumers.
Well, that and laws, although you could think of a law as simply a contract between all of the citizens with each other, to which all of them are bound, or at least should be bound if things are to remain civilized.
Not that some of these contract holders are held to the same standard of the law as their customers. Some have obtained immunity for certain illegal actions - I doubt most people can get that though we are all supposed to be equal under the law. To riddle the concept of the law even more, they even obtained it retroactively for past illegal actions. It's like you were fined for drinking alcohol during Prohibition and then, after Prohibition was repealed, it's like getting restitution for your fine. Basically, magic like this is not going to happen for you, it's clear our representatives are being especially helpful to some but not others.
You're left wondering if these representatives who are supposed to represent equality and "one man one vote," understand the concept of laws and contracts as willing agreements.
We seem less and less well grounded in a stable foundation for civilized conduct, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if people stop taking laws or contracts too seriously... I mean, if our role-model representatives don't, they why should we? Aren't we immune too?
"I absolve you. I absolve you..."
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
But is assume you can use it as a modem without this software, or am i wrong?
It doesn't take a triple digit IQ to know the phone didn't have SSH and a terminal
I'm pretty sure that the parent was expecting to get the third-party app(s) without jailbreaking, and wasn't expecting that there wouldn't/couldn't be those tools (back when the apps had to be all Safari-based). At least give the guy a little credit.
Truly a good solution: bloodshed because you don't like your contract. Have you been President before?
Wow, are you really that out of touch? Were it not for my mom's trip to Louisiana with my dad on his business trip, she would have, as of now, never ever flown on an airplane in *cough*fiftysomething*cough* years.
As it stands, I've only flown on an airplane to Japan for study abroad, and one can hardly suggest that is a common activity amongst Americans.
Mr. Lawyer, meet Mr. Bullet. You can't talk a gun out of hitting you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think you'll find 3G bandwith is expensive because it very much is still a limited resource. Unlike, say text message handling, it's not just pure greed on the part of the operators.
The thing about making 3G bandwidth cheap and affordable to everyone (as it is rapidly becoming in Europe) is that very quickly a small number of jerks will start grossly over utilizing it (e.g. by using it to download movies or large amounts of data, even using it at home, just so it doesn't ). Hence, their get quota limits with 3G - essentially because people are greedy and unable to exercise reasonable self control.
These same very small number of idiots - who would use up all the available bandwidth with P2P software to download films and games they are too cheap to pay for - will then moan when quota and contention ratios take effect that providers are shafting them by not providing them with "the service they have paid for".
Providers (wired or wireless) can't win. It's either a rip off because it's "too expensive" (i.e. when people are asked to pay for what they are using) or because "they are not getting the service [they imagine] they are entitled to" (i.e. when there are quotas or contention ratios in effect).
I am somewhat skeptical about paying some small sum of money and getting anyone to describe the legal issues involved, let alone go to court in a useful fashion.
I just looked up pre-paid legal. It's an MLM and that's a pretty conclusive sign of crap. Further, they've got a ton of restrictions on what they'll look at, offer "discounts" from insanely high rates once you go over your number of free issues.
Some people went so far as to suggest that you (generic internet person who mentions pre-paid legal) might be involved, and perhaps criminally liable for pushing an MLM if you are involved in it.
But as they say, sometimes a lawyer's name on a letter can cause the other party to back off. If you had a harassing landlord it might be worth $50 for questionable legal advice if it ended up solving the problem anyways.
Not a troll, but just my experience. My experience is that Apple's OS is no more stable than Windows OS. My Apple laptop crashed more often than the Wright Bros. After a year of trying ("I *want* to believe!"), I gave up and went back to Windows. Sure it has its problems, but it never dumps me as much as my Apple did. P.O.S. Maybe things have gotten better in the last couple of years, but I'm not going to gamble thousands of dollars just to find out that they haven't.
Internet access is not a utility, it's not reasonable to expect everyone to have internet access.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
That'd get you arrested and Tasered (in that order, probably) as the terr'st that you obviously are. Reading anything, rather than taking the word of retail androids, is a Thought Crime. More importantly, it could infect other customers with the meme that "Maybe there's something I should check about this product". It's this second anti-competitive aspect that would get the Taser applied, to stop you from voicing more heretical thoughts such as "I haven't done anything wrong!"
Sheeple, go back to your grass and graze. There's nothing to see here apart from a truck labelled 'Slaughterhouse 5'.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Pretty good. MobileTerminal had two really nasty bugs that were recently squashed:
A) Turning the phone landscape used to render a useless keyboard - one where some of the keyboard keys rendered off screen. Fixed.
B) A nasty auto-correct bug that made entering some passwords next to impossible. Fixed.
At this point I could get an automated email or txt message from my server farm, be anywhere in the city (at a movie; at a show; whatever) and login to fix it. I *really* like that.
The thing about making 3G bandwidth cheap and affordable to everyone (as it is rapidly becoming in Europe) is that very quickly a small number of jerks will start grossly over utilizing it (e.g. by using it to download movies or large amounts of data, even using it at home, just so it doesn't ). Hence, their get quota limits with 3G
But AT&T is not imposing a quota, or propsing to bill by the gigabyte. I would be pretty surprised if anyone here except a few anonymous cowards would object such measures. Rather, AT&T/Apple have crippled the device by disabling a feature that many users highly value.
who would use up all the available bandwidth with P2P software to download films and games they are too cheap to pay for
It's pretty important to make sure those damn poor people don't have access to good entertainment, eh?
Breaking it down even further.
Having the iPod be recognized as a USB mass storage device while still requiring custom software to load music onto it is a good design. The iPod works by reading a custom database that points to the actual music files on the device. The remaining space can be used for storage of files like a normal USB drive. I personally keep various utilities on mine including Floola.
I'm sure by looking at the box that you can see this it's not big enough to fit a normal CD in it. Also note that mini-CDs are not an option because most (if not all) slot loading Macintosh computers cannot use mini-CDs. I believe on the box it does say "Internet Connection Required" and you are posting to /. so this shouldn't be an issue.
Windows 98 is not supported. From the specification page: Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later For that matter, Windows XP running SP1 isn't even supported.
The iPod Shuffle manual (located with very minimal searching here (warning: PDF)) explains what those blinking LED messages mean. You have to READ the manual to know what the magic is.
I will admit that this post sounds defensive of Apple products, especially because I also admit to being a Mac and iPod owner. I personally have encountered many more jagged edges with Apple products than you have but I am not a "fanboy", I'm simply an educated user and I have done my research and found this solution better than the alternatives.
Your wife clearly did not even read the packaging, let alone perform any outside research before buying the product and now you are bitter for having to support it. Maybe you should just be happy that she didn't buy a Zune. Not only does the Zune have the same limitations that the iPod has but it halts writes to the device until handshaking is complete. I'm not trying to bash the device, just point out that problems exist elsewhere.
Perhaps the best solution is to educate yourself and your wife so that you know what you're getting into.
Why not put iTunes on the flash memory of the device itself, executable once the USB drive is mounted?
I figured the TCO would be less than buying from AT&T, and less small print.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Do they offer a terminal you can use to read them at the point of sale? If not, for someone buying in person they might as well be "prominently displayed" in a locked filing cabinet.
A contract is SUPPOSED to be a meeting of minds executed in good faith. Both parties lay their cards on the table and haggle until they come to an agreement. The written document is meant to fully reflect that agreement. That junk about the microscopic print on the back of page 27 under the staple being binding is just an overused comedic device from the '60s and '70s. So is the "iron clad" contract that forces one party to accept a ruinous transaction because a key piece of information was withheld during negotiation.
I don't have (or want) an iPhone, so I don't know what that buying "experience" is like, but I do know that in many places, they act quite annoyed when you insist on actually reading the contract before signing. Even moreso since they don't provide an appropriate place to actually do that. If you want to know what "deer in the headlights" looks like, strike a paragraph and ask them to initial it! Generally they will after a moment's hesitation. If they are not authorized to do that, it is THEIR duty as representatives of the company to say so.
The whole trend to "conditional sales" of everything and one-sided contracts needs to be stopped now. It is damaging to society and preys on the average person's lack of knowledge of the law.
For some it is if they would rather not make the transition from educated professional to ditch digger.
Let's see, without RIAA and AT&T, someone else would come along and do it.
Without customers, there would be no AT&T and no RIAA at all in any form.
Yes, the purpose of companies is to make money, but that doesn't mean they should make money for nothing at the expense of individual rights.
If you scratch the surface of most restrictive conditions on services, you'll find deceit behind them. If they were really intending to provide X service for Y price (as they claim), they'd be happy that you use as much of X as possible
If they find providing X for Y unprofitable, they should be honest and charge more or offer less. Instead, they make the fraudulent offer and then create all sorts of unjustifiable crazy conditions to constructively provide less than X for Y while avoiding prosecution for false advertising.
Outrage over constructive fraud is perfectly justifiable!
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.
As opposed to the fat slobs who sit around and complain about fat slobs complaining impotently but offer no suggestions whatsoever what they might do that would be effective?
OK, for full disclosure: I am a member. I used to sell PPL, but have not for several years. It does seem like an MLM, one reason I no longer sell (that and I found a job). The benefits I have received from the plan have far outweighed the $27/mo I have paid for the past 6 or so years. But then, perhaps I'm an edge case with so much debt (which is what they primarily helped with, and saved me several tens of thousands of dollars by helping negotiate with my creditors, well, not really them, but the collection agencies they contracted with).
There's definitely no criminal liability, even if I was still selling it (show me the law; it's generally on-line). When you say "some people" who are you referring to?
There are 5 "titles" of benefits. I won't go through them all, but the nice part is the fifth one is a 25% discount on the hourly rate for any services that aren't covered by the other four. So, even if your issue isn't covered, you're still saving a quarter of what you otherwise would have paid for the same attorney.
Which isn't to say that you won't find a cheaper attorney, perhaps one who is better. It pays to do your homework, but said homework can be expensive when vetting attorneys. The advice that I have received is far from "questionable" as you stated.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
IANAL, but don't real contracts have more than just the purchaser signing them? Something like the other party signing too, having it witnessed, and a copy for both parties? Idea might be with one of these 'contracts' to say you want some time to read, sit down with a pen, and strike out paragraphs you don't like. Ever seen the sales types read them after?
The advice that I have received is far from "questionable" as you stated.
Did you get a second opinion from an unrelated lawyer? Or did it just work, so it must have been right?
a 25% discount on the hourly rate for any services
Yeah, a rate that is supposedly higher than the industry standard. And there appear to be a few lawsuits about the "prepaid" in their name and how everything involves extra fees that sales associates have been proven not to mention.
When you say "some people" who are you referring to?
It seems that nobody says it's any good unless they're selling it and many people say it's outright fraud, you can't cancel if you try and it's nearly a cult to boot.
Use google, there are many criticisms of it.
There's definitely no criminal liability, even if I was still selling it (show me the law; it's generally on-line). When you say "some people" who are you referring to?
Why don't you ask PPL for the law? Test the quality of your PPL team, ask what laws you could run into doing this sort of thing, especially if legal theories of them being an MLM are true, and what you could do to mitigate any risks.
See if you get a detailed answer, or some feel-good speech.
I'm not a lawyer but I'm guessing it'd be related to misrepresentation, or just the general illegal nature of most MLMs.
Off-topic on reply to NormalVisual: Brazilians are used to playing with over 300ms and still we've been the first to down Illidan @ Warsong Horde (Blood Faction).
I'm sorry, no, you're the one who suggested that talking is illegal. Why don't you back up your assertions?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I was asking you to test the system because you have an account, I do not.
I didn't say "talking is illegal", I said others suggested that the pushing of PPL by a someone with a vested interest in it could be illegal in light of the MLM nature, etc. Certainly a real lawyer could tell you when this would be illegal ("If you know something is an MLM and you...") as a hypothetical question.
But this is exactly what everyone said would happen. Rather than you actually being interested in hearing a question and trying to answer it you get rude.
Aren't you slightly curious as to what PPL says about the law surrounding themselves? Seems like the ultimate test for bias.
If anyone actually approached consumers with a contract long enough to be read in the venue they marketed their product...
Why do you think the lines were so long? You could have read (and re-read) the contract in most locations.
*glances at account history*
Well Mr Toll,
But AT&T is not imposing a quota, or propsing to bill by the gigabyte.
That's exactly what they do. The exception is the default data plan exclusively offered with the iPhone, but you can still use another SIM with different AT&T plan on the iPhone and do all the tethering you can afford.
It's pretty important to make sure those damn poor people don't have access to good entertainment, eh?
All the "poor people" who have laptops they want to tether their iPhones to so they can download large files while away from home? Honestly, that's not a definition of "poor" I'm familiar with.
I apologize if you consider my request rude. "Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary proof" and all that; you're claiming that my speech violated a criminal law, so, yes, your extraordinary claim does call for extraordinary proof, and I'm not going out of my way to find that proof; you can.
No, I'm not at all curious because I have no vested interest. I'm a satisfied customer. Next!
Oh, and I still have yet to hear from you where the "everyone" is. A link, please, if they're on-line. A ... newspaper article, if not?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Did you try a google search? "pre-paid legal review", etc. You shouldn't have trouble finding the negative comments.
As for my "claim", I think you need remedial reading comprehension class. I did not claim your actions were illegal, I said that some of the other people involved made the broad claim that someone in your position was likely to be committing some sort of crime by knowingly and fraudulently representing a MLM scam.
What part do you want proof of? That people bad-mouth PPL? That some claim PPL supporters are committing crimes by pushing a pyramid scheme? That some speech can be illegal?
As for your lack of interest, all I can say is that you must be a profoundly incurious person. I'm always looking for a way to test things, and one great way to test PPL would be to ask them of their flaws/legal gray areas. If they're honest they'll list a bunch of things, if they aren't honest they'll brush the question off.
If you called them up before getting into business hopefully they'd explain the relevant laws. Perhaps your business involves selling, so they should advise you of the limits of the claims you can legally make, etc. Even if your work is 100% legal, they should still advise you of the correct paperwork to remain that way.
Honestly, I'm curious. If they could answer that question fairly and are honest, then who cares about the MLM nature - just don't be a seller. But I don't want to sign up to check. If you'd be willing to use your month's time, or some of it, to approach them about this I'd love to hear what they say.
Just because the contract exists doesn't mean that it's reasonably written, or even reasonable at all.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.