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Apple Bans Jailbreakers From the App Store
Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Mills writes in the Examiner that Apple has been cutting off access to the iTunes App Store for iPhone hackers and jailbreakers. Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer who successfully hacked the iPhone OS 3.1.3 and unlocked the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices, discovered he'd been cut off and twittered: '"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons," that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry.' Another hacker, iH8Sn0w, who is behind the Sn0wbreeze tool, confirms that his account has also been deactivated even though iH8sn0w's exploit had only been revealed to Dev Team, the group responsible for the PwnageTool. 'It is kind of surprising that two people associated with jailbreaking have had this happen to them so soon after one another, but it's too early to say if this is a campaign that Apple is starting up,' writes Mills."
where do you come up with this? Jail breaking exists because there is a demand for features that apple refuses to provide. It's no different than rooting a google phone, and for the same reasons.
Easy examples: Flash, multitasking, tethering.
I'm an apple hater, someone who doesn't even have an iphone, and even I know this. Basically, there wouldn't be jailbreaking if apple was actually giving their customers what they want.
Or it would be an effective way to encourage people to go Android.....
It's the 80's all over again......
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
This obviously sucks for the people involved, but I can't help but feel this is actually superb news. Maybe this will finaly drive home that the ability to jailbreak your devices does not excuse manufactures for making locked-down closed devices. Far too often I've heard arguments of the form: "[DEVICES] are not locked down, because you can jailbreak them if you want to."
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I'll add my experience:
I've jailbroken my phone, and I have not placed a single app that was available on the appstore on my phone without purchasing it from the appstore.
I jailbroke my phone so I could get into the file system of the phone because I absolutely hate using iTunes to get files on and off my device. I also liked to be able to multitask and not have my preferred music player stop working because I wanted to look up something on the internet.
In fact, if I couldn't jailbreak my phone I wouldn't have purchased it in the first place since in its default state, it's a pretty crappy device for my needs.
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Christ almighty, it is 1986 all over again. "Yeah, Apple doesn't need all those people who just want to plug in any all video card. We aspire to a higher class of user." which, roughly translated meant "Okay, IBM and clone manufacturers, we seed 90%+ of market share to you to assure our purity."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't see any problem with it. I'm no Apple supporteer, but how is this different than MS banning hacked consoles from XBL or Blizzard banning cheaters from their servers.
If you want to use a service, you have to play by that service's rules. Don't like the rules, don't use the service.
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This is why I do not buy anything from Apple. I will not be forced into a little bubble like all of you cattle out there. I have missed nothing as the result. By the way, my phone dose multitasking and I am not banned from anything (except Apple).
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
They aren't turning off the device, they are removing your access to the iTunes store. Which is a service. Apple has a real and growing problem with people stealing the paid apps. It would be one thing if jail broken phones were just used for loading free software. But it's not.
If you want to use a service, you have to play by that service's rules. Don't like the rules, don't use the service.
XBL and Blizzard are services. If I hack I can cheat and degrade the experiences of others. The iPhone is a device. It's mine. No one else should care what I do with it.
But the App Store is a service. The device is yours but you play by their rules to use the services for it.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Here's a possible other side: Someone learned their login credentials, or at least the name, and tried too many times to log on as them. Poof, account locked for security reasons.
I'm usually not the first to come to Apple's defense (personally, I try hard to avoid their products exactly for the same reason I avoid Sony, I'm not a big fan of vendor lock-in), but I think we should first of all wait 'til it's verified that this is due to their jailbreaking.
Then there's still enough time to give them the verbal smackdown they (then) deserve.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Except they didn't ban the people. they banned the hardware from live, since it's untrustworthy. The people still have their gold status, and can sign in on another unhacked console, and use xbox live the way they always did.
Putting people on silver status would involve taking away a service they paid for. The fact that the device they were using is no longer considered kosher to use to access that service is a related, but seperatable issue. They still have all of the stuff they owned, and can use it on another console if they transfer the rights to that console. MS didn't steal money from them.
Personally, if I was going to mod an xbox, I'd have a second, unmodified one for normal usage nearby. Anyone who decided to take the risk also has the old owner onus applicable.
Here's a rather silly question - why did you buy it in the first place?
In its default state, I wouldn't have, and I didn't. I waited until it was possible to hack the device, then I purchased it once I saw that it wasn't a flakey hack and it was established that I wouldn't brick the device by breathing on it the wrong way. At that point, when I considered the total package (jailbroken iphone), it WAS what I wanted in a device since the alternatives (Verizon, Tmobile, Sprint) were not actually viable alternatives.
So in short, the unjailbroken iPhone was not something I wanted. The Jailbroken iPhone was.
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If Apple starts banning en-masse people who have jailbroken their iPhones then we can break out the torches and pitchforks. Until then it's a company saying "no more soup for you" to a couple of hackers who are looking to exploit the company's secure system.
So you're willing to protest when you get cut off but not when the guys whose software freed your phone get cut off? That's mighty neighborly of you.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007