Prankster Jailbreaks Apple Store Display iPhone

Stoobalou writes "A prankster has snuck into his local Apple temple of consumerism and footled with one of the display models." Is it wrong of me to think that it would be awesome if everybody did this to every phone? I mean, it's legal now!

Comments

"it's legal now!"

[The MAZZTer]

Even if you do it to a phone you don't own, without permission from the owner?

Re:"it's legal now!"

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, because information wants to be free or something

Re:"it's legal now!"

[odies]

What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone. The "jailbreak" is a PDF exploit that roots your whole phone. I would be a little bit worried if someone could completely take over my phone if I just visited a random website. Apple products don't have exploits or malware, huh? Of course Apple just keeps telling their users they are secure. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Re:"it's legal now!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Destruction? He was improving it!

Re:"it's legal now!"

[TheKidWho]

That's because those phones route their data through the carrier. RIM's phones route it through RIM's internal servers.

Nothing is stopping you from sending out encrypted data on the iPhone/Android/Nokia phones.

Re:"it's legal now!"

[mdwh2]

What is even more fun is that Apple users praise this as something that allows them to jailbreak their phone.

Indeed. On a related note, I'm reminded of two standard arguments:

* "There's no viruses/malware on the Iphone. That only applies to people who have jailbroken their phones. They deserve what they get."

* "What do you mean I can't do [insert basic task] on an Iphone? Of course it can, you just have to jailbreak it." (Apple, it Just Works - you Just have to jailbreak it to get it to Work.)

Re:"it's legal now!"

[Mongoose Disciple]

No one (sane) claims apple products don't have exploits or malware...

I think you just called a few dozen people who post here crazy. :)

Re:"it's legal now!"

[Mongoose Disciple]

Perhaps, but they have voided the warranty. Presumably the store staff are no longer allowed to work with that phone.

I picture an Island of Lost Toys somewhere on the Apple campus, filled with forlorn iPhones with voided warranties that no Apple Genius (tm) will touch. Denied the love and approving gaze of their turtlenecked creator, they are cast out and set to wander east of Eden, with Apple store employees with flaming swords turning every way to keep them from the Apple Store of Life.

Re:"it's legal now!"

[SleazyRidr]

That sounds about right.

Re:"it's legal now!"

[ciroknight]

It is likely that Apple uses Adobe's Open Source Media Framework to develop their plugins.

In this case, you're completely wrong. Apple has its own complete PDF stack which is used from its display server (Quartz, which is itself derived from Display PDF) up; the advantage is that you can dump a PDF from basically anywhere (what's on screen if it isn't 3D, offscreen widgets, etc) and print that exactly to your documentation, etc. It would make less than no sense for Apple to license Adobe's code, since it would be a complete duplication of something already in their software stack.

yes, its wrong

[bsDaemon]

Hey, Taco... I think there might be kind of a difference between jailbreaking a phone you've paid for, and jailbreaking the display model at the store which is still Apple's property in a fairly straight forward way. I'm no fancy, big city lawyer, but it seems to me that might have some bearing on just how legal it is to do it.

Re:yes, its wrong

[a.deity]

Back in the old days of 2.x jailbreaking (another one where a visit to a website would do it), there would always be a few display models running Cydia every morning. It was just a pain in the ass, and no one at the retail level was greatly angered or even cared too much; we'd just restore them when we saw them. To anyone on their way to an Apple Store to do this: you're not making a subversive statement, you're just taking 5 minutes out of a Specialist's day, one who probably jailbroke their phone a long time ago.

It's not awesome

[mccalli]

The cutsie word 'jailbreak' seems to be catching on, but if this were any other os I think the phrase 'gaping remote code execution security hole' might be more appropriate.

I use an iPhone and I thank people who do these exploits for bringing them to attention. If the means of jailbreak is "connect via USB then faff" I can live with it. If it's "go to this website and get an instant remote execution exploit from people you don't know" then I become rather more concerned.

It's an exploit, same as any other. It should be patched as fast as possible and such an action wouldn't be evil, it would be the correct response to a remote execution hole.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:It's not awesome

[elrous0]

Exploit or not, that is still a pretty funny video. I love the fact that the guy spent all that time in the store without a single employee asking if he could help him with something. I guess Apple has an OS security problem *and* a customer service problem.

Re:It's not awesome

[elewton]

Maybe it's because I'm Irish, but it annoys the piss out of me when staff bother me without my beckon. It's especially annoying when I'm reading a menu outside a restaurant and they use a greeter. That always moves me right on.

He was obviously occupied, and needed no help. If he wanted to talk to a member of staff, he had only to look up.

Nothing personal, just an off-topic rant.

You could also...

[Trip6]

...paint the outside of a display phone with honey, and then the next person to pick it up would have honey all over their hands. That would be funny too!

Re:You could also...

[Pollardito]

It seems like caramel would be more appropriate

Wrong?

[whisper_jeff]

Is it wrong of me to think that it would be awesome if everybody did this to every phone? I mean, it's legal now!

Wrong? Probably. Infantile? Absolutely. Legal? Absolutely not. It's called vandalism which is still illegal.

Re:Wrong?

[rotide]

Modifying something without the owners consent is vandalism. I can modify your car with a brick or with a new engine. You may dislike both of those options as your old engine got you 40mpg while the new one is so much more awesome (your opinion) at 500hp and 15mpg (yay for car analogies!).

Same thing is happening here. Apple wants things a certain way and it makes no difference what your (or anybodies besides Apple's) opinion is about what is being done to the phone. No matter how much "better" _you_ think it is, it is theirs and they don't want you mucking with it in that way. I'm no Apple fan, far from it, but even I can see this isn't something you want to make a habit out of as the police will eventually make their presence known when Apple catches on.

(I know you're trying to be funny and not entirely serious, but I thought it still needed to be said).

Re:Go to the original source, Slashdot

[Idbar]

How in hell is now reddig (or digg, or whatever "aggregation service" - even Slashdot - for that matter) an "original source"?

Re:cute

[dirk]

I'm sure Apple and AT&T are horribly upset that you have given them your money for products you find are inferior.

I just don't understand why everyone keeps buying iPhones and iPads if they don't do what they want. By purchasing them, you are basically telling Apple and AT&T that you are happy with their products and service. If they don't do what you want, don't purchase them and purchase something that does. I don't like how Apple handles the app store, so instead of giving them money and rewarding them for their bad job, I purchased an Android phone.

Re:Did that, done that, been there.

[Cruciform]

The Tandy TRS-80 had a speech cartridge, and for some stupid reason Radio Shack would leave those plugged into the display models.
I'd go up to them, type in every swear word I could think of multiple times, scroll them off the screen, and then go "browse" somewhere nearby.
Another kid would see the computer, get excited, run up and type "HELLO" and get a nice long, loud, string of cursing.
They'd get thrown out of the store, professing their innocence, to the delight of my evil 8 or 9 year old mind.

Children are assholes. Never forget that.

Re:Poor User Experience, the bane of open source.

[geogob]

There is a lot of stuff of questionable quality available but a few very useful tools or modifications not available otherwise. Add to that the carrier unlock possibility, I think you strongly under evaluate the importance of this procedure. You may also want to be more restrictive on the modification you install. If you start installing all the available modifications that look interesting on any OS, you will have stability issues.

If you want to play outside of Apple's "Eden", you'll have to treat and understand your device as a computer running a Unix based OS... not a cellphone on which you install apps.

Also, Cydia is mostly a graphical front end for the Debian package manager with a repository browser. You can install your packages yourself using command line. You can also add your own sources to Cydia. Not sure I understand where the problem lies regarding the jailbreak process installing Cydia. What other mechanism do you expect to install packages once the device is jailbroken?

And blaming your poor user experience on open source or open devices, that's just wrong.