Slashdot Mirror
In Defense of Jailbreaking
Keith found a nice manifesto saying "There's a trend that's been disturbing me lately. When the topic of modding or jailbreaking comes up — say, in the wake of the iPad announcement, or Sony's restrictive PS3 update — there is an outcry. Who am I to tell Apple what's best for their devices?"
"Who am I to tell Apple what's best for their devices?"
Who are Apple to tell me what I can and can't run? Precicely why I'll be buying a Lenovo Ideapad U1 (have been waiting for a device "like" the iPad for almost as long as my flying car, FINALLY somebody listened to the idea of simply having a detachable screen).
Is that manufacturers are allowed to right EULA's that violate the basic rights of citizens. I'm all for reading the EULA and for receiving consequences upon it's violation, because that's fair. But what I'm confused on is why companies are allowed to write EULA's that specify exactly what can and cannot be done with it period.
Take away service? Ok,that's fair. You don't know what I put on this device, so I can understand if you don't want to support it.
Discontinue updates? I get that, for the same reason as above.
Void warranty? I get that too, since I could easily be an idiot who broke it and that's not your responsibility.
But the one I don't get is why companies are allowed to write EULA's that basically allow them to retain ownership of a device after it's been "purchased." For all legal purposes, this item belongs to the consumer. If it's stolen, it's returned to the consumer, not Apple. Why then, is Apple allowed to make this claim to ownership?
Again, I'm very much in favor of realizing and accepting consequences under the law...but I really think the law is flawed here. The rules for EULA's needs to be visited and rewritten such that purchases of technology amount to more than borrowing your big brother's gameboy.
It's murky, but I know that EFF was asking for an exemption from the DMCA for jailbreaking phones. They are also sort of worried that they won't be able to do the same for the iPad until 2011. If you search for 'DMCA exemption jailbreaking' , you can choose your source.
Let's end the Apple myth. I see all these planted and biased reviews, and I can't take it. They're just garbage and they're feeding the Apple image, which frankly isn't true. I recently used an IPhone, AND an Android phone. Both phones for a month (not 2 days like most reviewers). Let me precede that both are pretty darn good. But the IPhone isn't better. Here are my findings as to what is better about each over the other:
IPhone
1. Appearance of "smoothness." Notice I said "appearance." They're both just as quick, it's just that the IPhone has better visual animations in the interim to distract you to make you think that's its immediate. It's really not as quick as you think between actions.
2. Touch screen works the way you think. This feature isn't better, only different. Once you get used to either phone, it doesn't matter. With the IPhone, when you press something, adjusts to where you really think you're pointing, whereas in Android, it's where your finger actually rests and makes contact with the capacitive screen.
Android
1. Probably the most amazing and useful feature ever in a phone--auto synchronization between Gmail, Google calendar, contacts, and photos. Yes blah blah Mobile Me. Well Google is free--Apple is $100/yr. And please, the functionality and features of Gmail and Google calendar absolutely crap on the lame excuse of the Apple offerings. Don't even try to argue this one.
2. Free turn-by-turn GPS. Killer feature here. Saves you like $15/mo for navigation. That's big. And I could never justify 15/mo when I could navigate myself with Mapquest. Well now that I use it, it's amazing, and I still can't justify the 15/mo for it, but I can justify getting an Android phone over Apple for it.
3. Free tethering. This feature is huge. You're paying for a data plan either way, but at least with Android you don't need to shell out another 60 per month for a wireless cell service just because Apple says "Because I say so."
4. Higher resolution. Makes text to much more readable and the difference in image quality is like night and day between the two.
5. The ability to use it as a mass storage device, with a removable Micro SD card. Droid has 16gb worth to store.
6. User-replaceable battery. No $60 rip-off price and driving to an Apple store to get a new battery installed. And tell me this, one day your IPhone will freeze. Not if, but when (all software does). Do you want to be out a few days just to gain use of your phone when it won't restart via software? When with Android, all you have to do is pull the battery out? This one is a scary demerit for Apple.
7. I can install what I want. I'm not told I can't use tethering. Killer features then the IPhone doesn't have: tethering and VoIP (and I mean on a cell network, NOT over wifi--wifi is useless if you're out of your house, and NO I'm not going to travel to Starbucks to use VoIP, no matter how plentiful they are).
8. Finally, the last game changer and killer feature Android has over the competition: voice to text translation, in all fields (especially text messages). I've never seen a voice-to-text program since the early 90s that actually worked well. I can't believe it, but Google's does. I barely even use the keyboard when sending texts anymore.
And to address all the "b-b-but !", no, Jailbreaking is NOT a solution. It just isn't. The average person doesn't know how to do it, the average person technically inclined who actually has a job can't be bothered, and I'm not voiding my warranty or preventing myself from getting updates for it.
As you can see, the baseline of each phone is pretty equal. But the only features that the IPhone excels at are weak. Androids superior features are pretty much game changers. I only hope that at least some people read this to know how the products REALLY compare.
Go ahead now, mod me down into oblivion.