iPhone Owners Demand To See Apple Source Code

CWmike writes "iPhone owners charging Apple and AT&T with breaking antitrust laws asked a federal judge this week to force Apple to hand over the iPhone source code, court documents show. The lawsuit, which was filed in October 2007, accuses Apple and AT&T of violating antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act, by agreeing to a multi-year deal that locks US iPhone owners into using the mobile carrier. On Wednesday, the plaintiffs asked US District Court Judge James Ware to compel Apple to produce the source code for the iPhone 1.1.1 software, an update that Apple issued in September 2007. The update crippled iPhones that had been unlocked, or 'jailbroken,' so that they could be used with mobile providers other than AT&T. The iPhone 1.1.1 'bricked' those first-generation iPhones that had been hacked, rendering them useless and wiping all personal data from the device. The plaintiffs say that the source code is necessary to determine whether all iPhones were given the same 1.1.1 update, and whether it was designed to brick all or just some hacked iPhones."

Comments

Hahahahaha!

[njfuzzy]

So... Apple says "Don't Jailbreak your phone" and as one of the reason says "We don't QA test against that". Then people do it anyhow, and updates break their phone (as warned). And those people sue, believing that the bugs that Apple said they couldn't test against were intentional? Funny stuff.

Re:Wasted effort in the wrong place.

[kklein]

Yes. This is not really Apple's fault. Jobs famously called a meeting of wireless execs who were trying to "sell" him, "orifices." The way that he got things pushed through with the iPhone was by offering an exclusive. If it became illegal to have exclusives, this would be a boon to Apple, because then they could get out from under AT & T and sell to anyone on any carrier. It would be a boon to every handset manufacturer.

The issue here is not Apple or the iPhone or even AT & T; it's the US's ridiculous lack of regulations on this market (same thing in Japan, where I live, though). The carriers need to get the hell out of the handset market and just do their damned orifice jobs. They want to be retailers, but they are very obviously utility companies. This and net neutrality are basically the same thing: Utility companies aspiring to be retailers or content companies. They need to be smacked down as the knuckle-draggers they are.