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iPad Jailbroken
A day after the release of Apple's tablet computer, a hacker claims to have gained root access to the iPad. "A well-known hacker of the iPhone, who previously defeated Apple's restrictions on developers, has claimed in a video to have hacked the iPad. Just a day after release, the hacker, who goes by 'MuscleNerd' online, said that he has gained root access to the iPad..."
If you'd get a normal tablet or computer, you wouldn't need to jailbreak it. Apple is moving us towards closed computer environments. If Microsoft did this everyone would be angry about it, but now that it's Apple its all fine and classy.
Jailbroken or not, the iPad is still locked into Apple. There are much better alternatives to the iPad which will allow you freedom over your own device.
why do we care?
People who buy this device are buying into the environment created for the device by Apple. As such, someone gaining root access to the device that Apple will analyze and patch, and you *still* won't be able to use the app store for... seems like a waste.
So, I ask again... why do we care?
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i would be even less surprised if some of the jailbreakers had insider information to help them unlock the apple devices. as well thought out as apple's info-release schedules are (sanctioned leaks on upcoming products?) it totally makes sense for them to have two versions of the ipad on the market:
1, typical user experience, customer buys it and it does what it says it will
2, enhanced user experience, customer buys it and hacks it to do something else
in either case, a customer buys it, and in the relatively small second subset, the group who would normally curse the company out and hold off from buying the device because it's 'crippled' actually gives apple money.
of course it was quickly broken, it's part of the dance.
"In MY impression there is a preponderance of Apple-hating commenters here on Slashdot."
I think you'll find that about 20% of posters hate Apple, 20% would defend Apple if they were killing babies, and the rest don't care. Since you're an unabashed fan of Apple, I think you've adopted a bunker-like mentality that makes you feel that unless you're very complimentary to Apple that you hate them and you need to speak up to defend the honor of poor beleaguered Apple.
Apple is good at marketing to the hipster market. Each hipster has a large supply of money they can spend, but didn't actually work for. It mainly comes from each hipster's parents and/or trust funds.
Now, Apple has gotten a lot of money from these hipsters in the past, and will likely get more in the future. This makes it look like their ideas are "good" to the executives at competing manufacturers, even when they're very fucked ideas (you know, like closed platforms).
After seeing Apple's success, HP, Dell, Google, Microsoft and others will try to emulate it by producing their own shitty tablets built upon closed platforms with shitty "app stores" and all of that crap. So now when you go to buy a computer, you'll get stuck dealing with all this nonsense.
You won't be able to buy an open tablet, all thanks to Apple and their success tricking their competitors into thinking that closed-platforms are the way to go.
It's probably good for browsing porn. I hate always having to boot a full OS for just to browse porn. It looks super portable too, so I'd be able to browse porn from just about anywhere. It has a fairly big screen, which would be good for browsing porn. And good battery life so I could browse porn for long periods of time. The touch screen is nice, so I'd be able to touch the porn I'm browsing. It has good Internets connections, so I'd be able to browse lots of porn fast. I don't think it's good for much else. I think I'm sold.
The Kindle is an e-book reader, not a tablet PC.
The iPad is an overgrown iPod Touch, not a tablet PC. For one thing, "PC" in Apple marketing language usually refers to Lenovo-compatible hardware running an operating system made by Microsoft.
Running software not designed for it is not the real issue here. The issue is what is a stake and how appropriate the lockdown is.
apple tends to argue for "speed bump" DRM. basically make something difficult enough or a sufficient game of cat and mouse on the one hand (the speed bump) and and offer an express lane you can pay for. So for example, itunes. you can break the audio files if you want to. they impose some speed bumps to make it not worth your effort. then they offer enhanced value for staying in the itunes eco-system: the seemless updates to the ipod, cover art access, organization of the meta data, safe store, etc... All things you could do on your own but would most people would prefer it to happen magically rather farting around with bit torrent or sending your credit card to some russian mafia website.
Now for somethings like the iphone they have taken a much more agressive lockdown. I rationalize that by thinking about what they are protecting. You don't want crazy shit happening on a cell phone. so you make it hard to install anything not vetted by the mothership. Even the android market has this vetting. It's not that you can't do it. they just make it even harder. people will get much more enraged if their cell phones crash or the cell network itself starts malfunctioning.
SO that makes sense.
the Ipad is sort of in the middle regime so it's going to be more of a test of how apple wants to go. it's really more of a general purpose computer. some units don't have cell phones in them, and even those are not there primarily for voice but for data.
so you could see them going either way on this one. My suspiscion is they will try to maintain the lockdown. that's what they did with the ipod touch (which is not a cell phone).
The new rationale will be that this is an appliance not something you are supposed to mess with. protection for content owners will be seen as paramount over make-like access to the internals. Byt treating it as a appliance that protects content owners they will be able to more freely provide content without onerous access modalities. This will keep the device behaving more like an appliance than a computer.
COntrary to cory doctrow I see this as good. why? well it's not an either or situation, it's an all of the above. If I want true access to my computer then I should buy a computer that allows this. it's called a laptop. I can put linux on it. it's mine to mod. But I should expect that I'll also run into access restrictions from content owners. I might find that less user freindly. On the other hand if I want easy access then there's this appliance I can use for that. I can't modify it. that's the trade, but it's a trade that gives me a value I want.
you could wish for both in one device and if this were easy to provide then someone will do it.
but because both devices, laptop and appliance exist, I have not lost anything.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
For the love of God people! WTF is wrong with you guys? It is a freaking mass produced consumer product, not the elixir of youth or manna from heaven. It is also not the Dajjal (AntiChrist) either. Do you vehemently argue over the merits/evils of your washing machine or your sink's waste disposal unit? If people want to buy a severely crippled product, it is their own decision to make and money to spend. You do not lose anything if someone else buys it. Similarly, if people don't like a particular Apple/Microsoft/Boeing/Airbus/Sienar/Incom etc. product, then they are not committing heresy against the Holy name of the Immortal Omniscient God Emperor either. Get it into your heads people! There is no obligation on you to support or hate a freaking mass-production, soulless commercial entity.
Its just your prejudiced. Its NOT fine when Apple does it - and those who us with just a bit of IQ would NEVER buy an Apple product!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Jail-break or not, the DRM alone is enough reason for me to not to even consider Apple's iPad and iPhone. I want to be able to watch porn or whatever and install any software I want on my device. Apple can disagree, fine, but I don't need to buy their DRM-crippled crap.
Actually, a linux kernel has been booted on the iPhone before, I imagine it still would, the only reason you can't run rockbox is nobody's taken the time to port it, considering you need to write drivers for the screen, audio chipset, touchscreen, etc. and that would take time that people figure is better spent elsewhere. Part of jailbreaking requires running a new unsigned kernel (it has to be patched to disable signature checks on executables among other things) so you could just as easily boot /any/ kernel, not just a modified version of the darwin kernel it comes with.
Uh-huh. Try reading a book on the iPad -- at the beach.
Don't get me wrong, I think the iPad will be great. But it's not an e-reader. The problem with e-ink is that it's not a mature technology. Apple is playing it smart here - stay out of the e-ink business until you can have color, or at least monochrome at a speed that is acceptable, and without that annoying "screen flash" as pixels rearrange when you turn pages. Once you can do that I think Apple will jump in and we'll see iPads with eink options (or perhaps some other kind of e-ink display appliance, maybe even a usable web browser). Why should Apple release an e-ink device that is just as annoyingly slow as all the others out there, when they can wait until all the tech is in place and jump in at the last minute with a device that gets it right, and then take credit for having practically invented the e-reader, the way they did with the mp3 player and the smartphone?
Hello? Earth to AC: The 3G version of the iPad IS NOT OUT YET. Therefore he is using "free" Wifi.
Or did you want one where you could upload any unlicensed copy you found on some "abandonware" site out there instead of the licensed games?
I want one where I can use C64 freeware or even self-developed C64 apps. I want one that doesn't freeze on purpose when it hits BASIC's REPL.
Apple has a blanket ban on third-party applications that include programming capabilities (the read-evaluate-print loop that I mentioned).