Verizon iPhone Is Now Jailbreakable

An anonymous reader writes "The Chronic Dev Team have rolled out Greenpoison RC5_4 aka Greenpois0n RC5 b4 for both the Mac and Windows platform, which brings untethered jailbreak for the Verizon iPhone." Since 500k iPhones were sold on the first day it'll be interesting to see how Verizon throttles users.

Comments

Remember, not illegal!

[Skarecrow77]

Go for it guys! Jailbreak your iphone all you want, completely legal! Ruled as such by the Library of Congress! ... why doing the exact same thing to the black sony box setting next to my tv isn't legal, I'll never understand.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Microlith]

IIRC, the exception was limited to mobile phones.

Which is stupid anyway, such lock down shouldn't be permitted.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Skarecrow77]

Exactly my point. What differentiates the mobile phone in my pocket from the console on my desktop.

Both are essentially custom-designed personal computers. I install and run programs on each. Each has a microprocessor, storage, ram, etc. Hell they both have usb connectivity and run linux (my mobile phone being android).

Is the difference that the phone has a screen built in, is portable, and has built-in wi-fi connectivity??Pretty random way to differentiate, but let's say that for some strange reason that is the case, wouldn't that criteria mean that my PSP is fair game to jailbreak?

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[denis-The-menace]

... why doing the exact same thing to the black sony box setting next to my tv isn't legal, I'll never understand.

Because the MAFIAA pays waaayyy better.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

Remember, in this country, you are supposed to be grateful that you are allowed to hack your iPhone, and just accept that you cannot do the same to your PS3. You are only supposed to use your computer in the manner dictated to you by its manufacturer, with a handful of excepts granted by the government. The business of the United States is, after all, business.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[natehoy]

Just to play devil's advocate here, why should lock-down not be permitted?

No, really. There are plenty of devices that you can buy that are not locked down. Most of the Nokia line offers non-locked-down phones. There are a decent handful of Android devices. Blackberries are generally available in an unlocked flavor.

Yes, they are more expensive, but that's because you aren't being subsidized by a damned phone company when you get it. It's your phone, and all the features belong to you. The phone company can't turn off your GPS like Verizon likes to. They can't turn off the WiFi like AT&T likes to. You put their SIM in the phone and you use it for what you want to use it for, and pay accordingly.

AT&T seems to welcome unlocked GSM phones (admittedly, their discount for using an unlocked unsubsidized phone is nonexistent, and they'll still force you on a data plan for certain phones whether locked or unlocked). From what I've heard, Sprint not only loves 'em, they offer a discount. There aren't as many unlocked phones available for Verizon, since they are LTE and the rest of the world is pretty much GSM, but it's not like there aren't offerings for unlocked phones.

It's only the fact that we USAians are so used to having our phones subsidized that we've forgotten there is a whole universe of unlocked phones out there that we can use, if we want to get off the mobile carrier teat and buy them ourselves.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[goombah99]

What is the point?
It's one thing to jailbreak your phone so you can unclock the carrier and another to allow arbitrary app deployment. In my case I unlock my at&T iphone to use tmobile (AT&T does not allow iphones in my zipcode if they use more than 1/2 their minutes here). But I find the jailbreaking a Giant pain in the ass since it means I can't easily update my phone to the latest OS. The process of doing it is so fragile and so poorly documented that one takes a risk every time of bricking it or ending up with a base band you can't change to the carrier you want. (and please don't argue that it's easy to do, I've done it many times. it's always a bit crazy and takes hours of time to make sure you have the right pieces for your phone model and iOS and baseband.)

I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking. What is the point? oh sure there are a few convincing reasons for developers to do it. But ordinary people? who cares? For those folks that say it's about "freedom" then Isn't knowing you could leave the prison any time you want as good as taking the gate off it's hinges? it's much safer to leave the gates in place to avoid intruders.

In the case of verizon then, why unlock? what can you do with an unlocked verizon phone? maybe sell it to some other country that uses CDMA? SO unlocking is as pointless as jailbreaking.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[natehoy]

The mobile phone is heavily subsidized by the carrier that issued it to you. Stop supporting this model and buy a phone of your own, not one that the carrier is basically leasing to you.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

Nobody said that lock-down should not be permitted; go ahead, let them lock down the phones, and game consoles, and tablets, and desktops, and any other system. The real question is, why should we not be allowed to disable their restriction systems and use the computers we buy in any manner we see fit? If these companies want to subsidize phones, that is their problem; why should consumers have to worry about getting sued when they free their phone from some arbitrary restriction system?

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

The carrier is not leasing the phone, they are selling it. They might be selling it at a discount, which makes sense since it is crippled (would you buy a car that was sabotaged to only travel at 30MPH for the same price as a car that was not sabotaged?), but they are still selling it. My phone is my property, not anyone else'.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[SuricouRaven]

"I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking."

Emulators. Apple strictly prohibits any app from running or emulating, or executing in any way, code that hasn't been Apple approved. A lot of people like their retro gaming. Jailbreak a mobile and you can run emulators on it. A NES or SNES in your pocket. Or a gameboy - it's smaller than the original. Aside from that... pirate apps, various wireless network utilities Apple prohibits due to their potential hacking uses, and the big one: Tethering.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking

How about to keep features that are arbitrarily taken away? I used to use my phone as a dialup modem, low bandwidth but enough to fetch some email, which is all I really want. My phone broke; my new phone is programmed to always say "CARRIER ERROR" when I try to use the modem feature. I am not paying less, and when I demanded an explanation, I was told that only people deploying telemetry devices or doing government work were allowed to use their phones in that manner, and that I should just sign up for mobile broadband.

There is no technical reason for this restriction; jailbreaking can remove it. Why would I not jailbreak? The phone still has a built-in modem, the network still supports it, and the carrier is still going to get paid (since I use minutes just like I would for a voice call).

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[elrous0]

Because Sony has more lobbying money to bribe Congress?

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody said that lock-down should not be permitted

GGP did:

Which is stupid anyway, such lock down shouldn't be permitted.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[olsmeister]

I can really only come up with 2 good reasons. One is that they are concerned people might brick their electronics, or screw them up so badly that companies will get barraged with people looking for assistance. The second, and more likely, is that they are concerned people will expose functionality that they would otherwise have been able to charge money for.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[goombah99]

Tethering has been moot since AT&T went away from unlimited data plans. And moreover they are going to allow tethering shortly since Verizon does.

Most people can live without pirate-ware utilities. And as for NES and such, do you really need to run that on your phone? Just get a gameboy or something. Is it possible this is actually in demand by more than a few people? or is it simply the novelty of running linux on your netgear router or toaster that excites people, who then forget about it after achieving the challenge.

I'm not complaining. I just don't get it? surely this is a tiny number of poeple, all of them could live without it, and the cost in time,effort, and risk (to the device and their security) is not even cost effective?

What I'd like for my AT&T phone is something that unlocks it but does NOT jail break it. (I tried using a rebel sim and it nearly broke my sim slot before I tossed the POS). I want something that does not install any software besides causing the unlock and does not interferre with updating the phone. I want a relible phone. I just want it on T-mobile. I would think I'm in the majority of people who use jailbreaks.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[mlts]

Depends on how means locked down:

SIM unlocked devices can be purchased with some ease. It is tough with iPhones, since one probably would have to make a drive to Canada and physically get an unlocked one there. Android devices tend to be easier.

Unlocked as in fully rootable and ROM-able. Good luck. The only Android phone on the market in the past six months that has this ability is the Nexus S. Other phones, the ROM cookers have to go to great pains to make sure their stuff works with the signed kernel, work around the eFuse crap, and so on.

The perfect example of this is the Droid Pro. This would be the perfect unlocked phone because it groks CDMA and GSM. However, even unlocked, the versions sold in the US will not get on T-Mobile or AT&T, supposedly due to baseband booby-traps (nobody has been able to do this.) If the Droid Pro didn't have the eFuse crap, signed kernels, and other nasty things, it would be an ideal phone for a lot of people.

Unlocked has a lot of meanings. What would be ideal is a phone SIM unlocked and able to have custom ROMs flashed to it with a fastboot oem-unlock.

However, the only devices that will be able to do this will be Google's. It is somewhat ironic that the only true free (as in being able to do what you want with them) Android devices are sold from Google.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[alen]

iphone jailbreakers didn't re-engineer the apple digital cert or codes. they just found a way to install their own software via apple's security holes

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[goombah99]

What I'd like for my AT&T phone is something that unlocks it but does NOT jail break it. (I tried using a rebel sim and it nearly broke my sim slot before I tossed the POS). I want something that does not install any software besides causing the unlock and does not interferre with updating the phone. I want a relible phone. I just want it on T-mobile. I would think I'm in the majority of people who use jailbreaks.

It seems like this should be possible. Many companies will provide an unlock for the phone that is permenant (once you pay it off). This is done via Itunes and some magic code. Why can't someone crack that code right in iTunes? That way the phone is not altered and can be updated.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

Interestingly, your first reason seems to be the one they talk about publicly -- they are trying to protect consumers from themselves -- and the second seems to be the only actual reason, at least judging from my experience (as I said elsewhere, I saw my cell phones' modem capabilities disabled a while back, for no apparent technical reason, and was told that I should pay for a mobile broadband plan as a replacement). Frankly, if it was just a case of the carriers pulling these sorts of underhanded tactics, I would not care; but we should have the right to hack our devices and defeat these sorts of restrictions.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple,

The DMCA statute requires the Librarian of the Copyright Office to do a periodic review of requested exceptions to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Someone (I think the EFF) submitted a request for a jail-breaking exceptions for mobile phones using rationale that would not necessarily apply to game consoles, and the request was granted.

The exception could expire in a few years, so don't blow it by using the jailbreak for money laundering, terrorism, child porn, or drug trafic.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Fusen]

I love that sort of attitude, "I don't need it so you shouldn't need it either".
Here's just a few reasons to jailbreak;
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3563/photomnk.png
The iPhone lacks so many features or seemingly obvious functions that without the tweaks that jailbreaking provides, I'd probably swap phones.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Iphtashu Fitz]

There are plenty of reasons to jailbreak. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of apps available through Cydia that Apple doesn't allow on their App Store for one reason or another. Many of those apps are simply not in line with the way Steve Jobs and his employees think your phone should be allowed to operate.

Case in point - an app called iBlacklist that lets you set up filters for incoming phone calls and test messages. If you block an incoming phone call you can choose to have it go straight to voicemail, get a busy signal, simply pick up & hang up, etc. Very handy if you ever get harassing phone calls from people you don't want to hear from (like sales & marketing people, etc)

Then there's RemindYou, which is an app that displays your upcoming calendar events on the screen every time you pick up your phone. Very handy for people who live by their Outlook or iCal schedules.

Nettalk adds Apple's network file sharing protocol to your iPhone, making it much easier to transfer files to/from the phone instead of having to rely on iTunes. It effectively turns your iPhone into a large thumb drive.

Those are just a couple examples of apps that many people want and find extremely useful, but Steve Jobs and Apple say you can't have. So by jailbreaking your phone you can tell Apple to bugger off and install these apps anyway.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[gstoddart]

Jailbreak your iphone all you want, completely legal! Ruled as such by the Library of Congress!

Not to dispute what you say, I'm sure it's true ... but, really, the Library of Congress?

How is it that they have any authority on this issue? I'm totally confused by this.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, LOL. I suppose you don't know that infinispell is a keystroke logger and Trojan password stealer? oopsie, I hope you don't access your paypal account on your phone!

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[magusxxx]

You are only supposed to use your computer in the manner dictated to you by its manufacturer

So that's why I got a cease and desist from TI when I turned my calculator upside down and spelt BOOBS.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Amouth]

i would say having a random number generator spit out the same (not so random) value each time in each unit for the seed for the keys.. qualifies as a "security hole"

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[astrokid]

I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I would jb for two major reasons.

• 1. BiteSMS - Ability to send/receive SMS within another application. Not having iOS exit my current application in order to just read an incoming messages makes me wonder why this isn't a part of the core OS yet.
• 2. 3G Unrestrictor - It is nice to be able to download or use various applications without having to be near a WiFi spot.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Lumpy]

Big red letters on the front of the manual. "YOU BRICK IT WARRANTY IS VOID!"

solves the first problem.

Second problem? stop selling hardware crippled that needs to be unlocked with a secret "unlock code" to pump profits. Be honest and sell your $690.00 item for $690.00

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[morgauxo]

Other people posted already an answer to why one would want to jailbreak. As to the hassle of jailbreaking - that is why I like Android. Since it is based on an OSS project you can always go around the carrier/handset manufacturer to get updates. I have a nice easy to use App installed on mine that lets me choose between a number of 3rd party roms. It alerts me when there are updates available and almost entirely automates the process. I just have to click install and then answer yes, I do want it to perform a backup first. You can never get that from an Apple product. It's either their updates plain and unmodified or a painful hack with fears of bricking.

I guess some of these newer Android phones have been giving people issues with the fuse bits and all. I wouldn't know much about that, my Motorola Droid (first version) was easy to root and is still easy. With overclocking I don't miss much from the newer phones. Actually, they are underclocked from the factory so pushing it up to a more up to date speed isn't that big of an overclock.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[matt_gaia]

Simple... If you jailbreak your iPhone, the main reason you would probably want to do so is to change carriers, which would be perfectly legal. If you want to jailbreak your PS3, chances are, you're in the 99.999% of owners that would want to jailbreak it for mods (e.g. the Call of Duty debacle formerly known as their multi-player) or piracy (obviously illegal). You can be as idealistic as you want to think that people would want to use a jailbreak for homebrew, but get real...It's going to be abused for piracy.

Yeah, Sony's acting like a bunch of douchebags for the way that they're going after jailbreakers, but they are trying to protect their IP. Had they not shot themselves in the foot (PR-wise) and perma-banned any psn account and/or console with CFW, they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Copyright Office is responsible for the list of fair use exemptions to the DMCA and the LoC oversees the Copyright Office. Of note, the ruling is only valid for 3 years so this will expire in July 2013 (not sure exactly what day) if no further actions are taken.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love that sort of attitude, "I don't need it so you shouldn't need it either".

Here is what the parent actually wrote:

I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking. What is the point?

Parent does not express the atitude you claim he did. Are you stupid?

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[morgauxo]

AT&T is limited now? What's the limit? All the carriers have limits and always have, they just don't publish them. The limits are set to only hit the heaviest 5% or less of users who are mostly just heavy bittorrent movie downloaders. If all you can see someone using tethering for is high bandwidth stuff like bittorent then I can see why having a limit would kill it's usefulness. Depending what you do tethering can be a very useful feature if you have work that needs to be done without requiring more than a few hundred megabytes a month. It can also be nice sometimes if you just want to see a site on a screen bigger than the palm of your hand.

As for Verizon allowing tethering... They charge just as much money to 'allow' you to tether as they charge for the dataplan itself. You have to buy this in addition to the dataplan and you are still under the same 5GB cap that the dataplan is on w/o the tethering. To tether with Verizon's blessing you are paying twice for the same bandwidth! That's BS, just root/jailbreak the phone and use your bandwidth however you want to. You already paid for it once!

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's just a few reasons to jailbreak;
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3563/photomnk.png

I have read that the ispell app is reported to phone home and thus may be a backdoor. On some forums people claim they removed the app but still saw it was running something in the background that was accessing the web. Claim is you have to re-install the OS from scratch to rid yourself of it. Never used it myself.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you buy the Verizon Tether option you also get more data too. You are paying more for the simple reason that tethers use more data as a rule. And they give you more for that reason.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[CannonballHead]

I think it was actually the "Copyright Office" but they apparently work with the LoC a lot... Wired link....

Every three years, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office entertain proposed exemptions to the DMCA, passed in 1998.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

The antidote to dishonesty is not more dishonesty.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[joocemann]

It's like selling a badass car with a plastic block under the gas pedal as a governorl that you could very easily remove and then actually use the badassdedness of the car... I don't know a single person who, after knowing how easy it is to remove the plastic block, would not get MORE VALUE from their car....

Matter of fact, I know many people, lets call them 'enthusiasts', who would notice the ease of modification and deliberately buy the governed car knowing that it would be a badass car with the simple removal of the plastic block.

In the competitive world of 'low price' and 'best value', these companies are quite clearly asking for it.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Runaway1956]

The only serious comment I can make is, "Who the hell cares if it's legal?" As so many others have pointed out - when I buy it, it's mine. I WILL do as I please with my own property, licenses be damned. It might actually cause me to feel a little bit of pride if the American public finally stood up, and told Corporate America that "We aren't honoring ANY licensing schemes! We'll use what we buy in any manner we dream of, and we don't NEED your permission!" I'd pay to see a video of Bill Gates reading such a manifesto to his board of directors, LOL

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

US Copyright Office determines exceptions to the DMCA, which is what you run afoul of by jailbreaking.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[joocemann]

Depends on how means locked down:

Wtf are you, a lawyer? White is white. Black is black. Words have meaning and only a lawyer can manipulate them to mean what they don't actually mean while everyone else has similar interpretations of the language we speak.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[joocemann]

by Congress, I think you mean judges.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Port1080]

"Tethering has been moot since AT&T went away from unlimited data plans. And moreover they are going to allow tethering shortly since Verizon does."

AT&T has allowed tethering for a while now, actually, but only USB tethering. The Verizon iPhone will allow you to create an ad-hoc hotspot and do wireless tethering, and supposedly AT&T will be adding this feature as well when iOS 3.2 comes out (this is something you've been able to do on jailbroken iPhones for quite a while now, though). The big advantage to jailbreaking in either case is cost - both Verizon and AT&T charge you about $20 a month to enable tethering (plus data charges). MyWi (the jailbreak app that allows tethering) costs $20 up front, but that's it - AT&T has no way of knowing that you're tethering (the app obfuscates it and makes it look like normal phone data traffic), so there is no monthly charge beyond your normal data plan rate. Now, yes, you're not going to use it as your main ISP or anything due to the data caps, but there have been plenty of times when I'm on the road or in a place that doesn't have free wifi, where it's been nice to be able to tether my laptop to my phone and do some basic web browsing, deal with e-mails, etc.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Runaway1956]

Alright, Devil's Advocate - I say that nothing should be "locked down" because it's a deceptive practice. Both you and I have our geek sides, and we can look at a phone, computer, console, or other electronic device, and satisfy ourselves that we are, or we are not, getting value for our money. But, what about the REST of the world? That 92% or more who don't have a geeky bone in their bodies? They see the claims of (fill in the blank) but fail to see how restrictive all the REST of that contract really is. I want the phone companies to put those phones up for sale, with the real prices on them. Doesn't matter if the phone costs 40 bucks, 400 bucks, or 4000 bucks - put the real price tag on them. I don't much care if the phone company finances the phones - just send out an ITEMIZED bill each month, showing that x amount was applied to the outstanding purchase price, and the rest was applied to whatever services. When the phone is paid off, you see it, you know it, because your monthly bill drops by 25, 50, or 100 dollars - depending on your purchase price and financing agreement. As is, the largest part of the American population is being deceived, and they aren't smart enough to figure it out.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[natehoy]

The real question is, why should we not be allowed to disable their restriction systems and use the computers we buy in any manner we see fit?

It's a condition of the subsidy.

If you choose to have someone else pay for all or part of your telephone, how is it suddenly patently unfair that you have to live by the terms you agreed to when you accepted the subsidy? You had the choice of buying your own phone without the subsidy and the restrictions.

I'm sympathetic to your point of view, but you did accept a discount in return for your vendor-locked phone. The restrictions are part of the package you seem to have agreed to.

That's why my wife's phone is an unlocked one. Sure, it cost us more money up front, but we don't need a data plan for her smartphone (it's got WiFi, and she just uses data only when she's at home). We don't need a navigation plan for her GPS (it's got a GPS and mapping software with downloadable maps, so she doesn't need data to navigate). We only need a voice + SMS plan from AT&T, so that's what we bought. They hand us a SIM, we install the SIM in the phone, we turn off data from that SIM on the phone and tell AT&T to block data from their end, we place a test call, and we sign a month-to-month voice/SMS contract, shake the hand of the AT&T salescritter, and walk out the door with a working phone.

If AT&T pisses us off, we go to someone else and get their SIM installed in my wife's phone instead.

Sure, the phone cost us $250 and we could have gotten it for free. But we get to use ALL of the phone, not just the features that AT&T wants us to use. AT&T is merely providing voice for the phone. There's a second SIM slot so I could go out and buy a pay-per-use data plan if my wife really wanted one.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[BobMcD]

Matter of fact, I know many people, lets call them 'enthusiasts', who would notice the ease of modification and deliberately buy the governed car knowing that it would be a badass car with the simple removal of the plastic block.

Take firearms, for example. There's quite a market for illegal modifications, such as firing pin mods, that grant considerably more value to modern weapons. They also make them suddenly illegal. Further, flaunting your defiance of the law in this way encourages new, tougher laws. So many, if not most, gun enthusiasts use legal versions of the firearms they want. In public, anyway.

And don't forget that there's an Amendment that says you get to keep your guns. Not so much for the iPhone.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[BobMcD]

Depends on how means locked down:

Wtf are you, a lawyer? White is white. Black is black. Words have meaning and only a lawyer can manipulate them to mean what they don't actually mean while everyone else has similar interpretations of the language we speak.

The concept you're missing is called 'nuance'. Look it up.

And if 'black is black' then what is Tiger Woods? Think about it.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[MachineShedFred]

The Librarian of Congress didn't say it's ok for you to do it to your PS3, that's why.

The DMCA is an excellent law, after all.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Tiger_Storms]

It's because how Sony state this "I AM THE LAW!"

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember , Illegal !!

It's not your phone till the contracts paid in full. Till then it's technically Verizon's phone. And It's very illegal to Jailbreak a phone you don't own. The exception also doesn't actually apply to Jailbreaking but only to unlocking.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[betterunixthanunix]

I take a view that is a little less sympathetic to the phone companies. I purchased my phone at a discount, because it was sabotaged: certain features had been disabled. I can fix these problems, much in the same way that I could replace broken parts in a car that I might buy at a discount (since it is broken). Nobody would take you seriously if you bought cars, then tuned down the engines so they cannot accelerate beyond 30MPH, and then sold the cars at a loss; why should we feel sympathy for cell phone companies that are trying to do the same thing with their phones?

If the carriers could not turn a profit by selling discounted phones except when the DMCA is in force, then the carriers have a broken, misguided business model. Likewise with gaming console manufacturers, or printer manufacturers, or any of the other businesses that have capitalized on the DMCA.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[flappinbooger]

Big red letters on the front of the manual. "YOU BRICK IT WARRANTY IS VOID!"

solves the first problem.

Second problem? stop selling hardware crippled that needs to be unlocked with a secret "unlock code" to pump profits. Be honest and sell your $690.00 item for $690.00

How many people would swarm to buy the iphone 4 (I need an iphone 4 with lots of the Gee Bees and the Why Fies!) if the price wasn't subsidized? And how many of the mindless iphone drones jailbreak it? Yeah it is really a powerful device but what percentage are truly using its potential and how many are using it as a facebook posting appendage?

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because you are holding it wrong.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[natehoy]

I take a view that the phone company that happens to be offering my wife's service at the moment is a transitory relationship, and I don't take on contractual obligations I have no intention of fulfilling.

We buy the phone and only buy a SIM and monthly access from them. If one of them pisses her off, they get their SIM back and we move her to a different carrier. The convenience store is full of them. At the moment, AT&T is treating us pretty fairly (they take the correct amount off my credit card every month, and in return my phone's voice circuit works when I want to make a call).

I no longer take advantage of their subsidies because I don't want the hassle of having to bypass their lockdown bullshit or buy extra services from them, legal or no my time isn't worth saving the money on a phone and dealing with having to unlock features I wanted from the get-go. My wife wants a phone with a set of features. We shop on Amazon and find her a phone, then choose a carrier that supports that phone. Done.

Actually, my wife and her parents started out with subsidized phones. My wife then decided that the Blackberry data plan was too expensive, and wanted to switch to a different phone with WiFi. AT&T wouldn't play ball. So we bought her the Nokia and took the data plan off her contract. AT&T lost the entire data contract rather than a portion of it, and my wife ended up with a pretty smart smartphone for $250 that isn't carrier-dependent.

Later, AT&T changed their tower configuration so my wife's parents' phones refused to work. AT&T acknowledged the problem and tried to force them to re-up for 2 additional years in return for free crappy replacement phones.

I mail-ordered them each an inexpensive $40 dumb phone that had more features than their old AT&T ones did (and didn't have the prominent "MediaNet" button right next to the hang-up button that costs a buck when you hit it accidentally) and told them to put their existing SIM chips in them. The new phones work better than the old ones, and they're thrilled that they have phones they can actually back up over USB and get their photos and stuff out of without paying for MMS messages or emails to do so.

The contracts are all up this summer, then they'll go month-to-month plans, and we'll replace phones as they want new phones rather than when AT&T tells them they can have new ones. And the features on the adverts will actually be present in the phones (Verizon Blackberry GPS lockdown, I'm looking at you) and work without extra cost (AT&T Wifi needing a data plan, I'm looking at you).

Still, those restrictions are part of the subsidy and the subsidy is part of your contract, so if you want to try and bypass them don't be surprised if the carrier decides they no longer want your phone to play on their network, and they'd be within their rights to impose an ETF on you and terminate service, or demand that you put their firmware back on in order to use their service.

Honestly, why knowingly put yourself in such a contract when you know the first thing you're going to want to do is violate the terms of it? If you don't like the contract, don't sign the damned thing. Buy a phone that actually meets your needs, rather than one where you are in an antagonistic relationship with the people you bought it from.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, he doesn't mean locked SIMs. I paid full retail for my T-mobile phone. It still comes with a locked SIM, but I don't care about that. T-mobile would unlock it for me. He means locked OS. By default, these phones do not come with root access, and they do not come with unlocked boot loaders. Even if you pay full retail price, you have to go through the rooting process, and unlocking the bootloader.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

LTE is the 4G standard, and ATT, T-Mobile, and Verizon are all goign to be using it. The current networks run on GSM for ATT and T-Mobile and CDMA for Sprint and VZW. CDMA phones do not get unlocked because they are activated based on the ESN number on the phone itself, not a SIM card. GSM phones can be unlocked for use on other carriers that support GSM.

And just a side note, VZW has unlocked the GSM portion of the Blackberry Storm if you had one with a current plan for more than 6 months. I had 2 unlocked so that I can use the GSM network if / when I travel to a GSM network in another country.

Also, the debate about being able to unlock a device does not reside in whether or not the vendor can lock, but more in who owns the device? If it belongs to you, then you should damn well be able to do whatever you want with it, up to and including unlocking, burning, or shooting. It's not the vendor's business what you do with YOUR property. Once you purchase it, then the product no longer "belongs" to them. The reason jailbreaking consoles is a big deal is because game vendors think the same way the *AA do, pirated games == lost sales. What they don't realize is that most of the people that pirate games / movies either do it because they have no interest in buying anyway or want to see if it's worth their money.

Suggestion for a good business model for these companies:

Let everybody watch / play it for FREE once. Those that really like it, and would purchase anyway, are more likely to spend their money to support the product. The only CDs I've purchased in the last year belong to a guy that offered to tell me where I can download them from a torrent site because he knows that it's more important to get his name out there than to sell the CD. I can support him because I've heard his music and like it so am willing to spend the money. His offer to tell me where to pirate it just earned him even more respect by me and more willingness to part with my money.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[idontgno]

Arguably, restrictions on the capabilities of firearms are intended to keep law enforcement and other branches of lawful state power ahead in the literal arms race.

I don't know of any comparable state power or public safety rationale for prohibiting modification of personally-owned electronic communication or entertainment devices, although some apologists might raise half-hearted "unlicensed over-power radio transmitters" arguments.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[idontgno]

Well, my Desire CDMA is fully unlocked, rooted, S-OFF'ed, and running Cyanogenmod 7. I don't doubt that the unlockers behind Unrevoked were wizards and worked very hard to come up with the jailbreaks necessary, but from a user perspective? Turn on USB debugging, plug the phone into my laptop, and run two programs. Rooted and fully-write-enabled. After that, the world's my oyster and Bob's my uncle.

Well, I guess I haven't tried carrier-unlocking the thing. So far, my carrier hasn't pissed me off. I guess a freedom I haven't used is still a valuable freedom, but practically speaking it hasn't hurt me yet. We shall see.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[BobMcD]

Again, though:

A) There is a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT protecting firearms. No such protection exists for electronics devices. One would expect stricter controls on those devices, should the desire to pass such laws exist.

B) All power is granted to the government through the consent of the governed. They could mandate we all wear purple beards made of play-dough, and theoretically we'd either do it or be imprisoned/killed.

In short, the logic backing your position doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

And by "bribe" I assume you have actual evidence that someone offered a bribe.

Of course if you had that evidence you wouldn't be posting innuendo here, you'd be testifying in DC.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Daniel Phillips]

why doing the exact same thing to the black sony box setting next to my tv isn't legal, I'll never understand.

Big media is above the law. Apparently.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Archangel Michael]

Fine, sell me a phone, at a discount, tie me to a service plan for 2 years. When the contract is over, I want either an option for a discount for my service plan, or a new phone at subsidized prices. I don't want to pay the same monthly service price as the guy who has a subsidized phone, unless I am buying a subsidized phone.

Why is that so friggin hard for the Cell Companies to figure out?

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Microlith]

It's a condition of the subsidy.

Go explain that to Motorola and every other Android vendor that don't make rooting trivial for those who buy their devices unlocked. The companies in question impose lock down regardless of how you buy it.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Graff]

Nettalk adds Apple's network file sharing protocol to your iPhone, making it much easier to transfer files to/from the phone instead of having to rely on iTunes. It effectively turns your iPhone into a large thumb drive.

There's apps in the app store that do this, it's not prohibited. For example, try Air Sharing.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't turn off the WiFi like AT&T likes to.

Um, what?!? Never happened. And I've had AT&T turn off my phone 1/2 dozen times since my 1st gen iPhone. I know it's popular to hate on AT&T these days but don't make shit up.

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Hamoohead]

Just to play devil's advocate here, why should lock-down not be permitted?

Jailbreak != unlock

Re:Remember, not illegal!

[Mana Mana]

> if we want to get off the mobile carrier teat and buy them ourselves.

Wait a minute, you just argued persuasively that carriers make it nearly impossible. So, which is it?

Can you hear me ....bzzz.... CARRIER LOST

[astern]

Did you hear it? It's as if a million voices just cried out... ...they can't hear you now.

Seriously, I hope VZ is ready for the massive crush of weight these iPhones bring in data use. Backhaul upgrade much?

Re:Can you hear me ....bzzz.... CARRIER LOST

[cob666]

Did you hear it? It's as if a million voices just cried out... ...they can't hear you now.

With very few exceptions, everybody I know that is getting a Verizon iPhone already has some type of smart phone. I'm sure there will be a few rough patches for the next couple of weeks but Verizon has a much more robust infrastructure than AT&T does.

Re:Can you hear me ....bzzz.... CARRIER LOST

[natehoy]

We'll see, the iPhone doesn't tend to pull "mobile" sites like most other phones do, it pulls the entire real site and renders it down to a smaller screen. Blackberries, for example, tend to load preview versions of images by going through BES or BIS, and this is a lot more gentle on mobile bandwidth. I use my Blackberry 83xx (EDGE) all the time, and I have yet to break an average of about 1-2 megabytes per day. Now, admittedly, I don't use a lot of streaming media (would suck over EDGE anyway), but I use Google Maps, corporate and personal email, Gmail, Facebook, and a decent amount of web browsing. And I have yet to break 40 megabytes in a whole month. My phone does not have WiFi, so every bit it gets comes through the mobile network.

Email is done via IMAP and seems to pull entire emails down, not just the first few kilobytes with a "view more" option like the Blackberry's built in email solution.

The iPhone is, in terms of data usage, a pretty inefficient phone. That's not to say it's a bad phone, in fact it looks pretty cool, but its data usage is more computer-like and less phone-like than many other smartphones. There was also some mention about it turning the radio on and off aggressively, which gave it more frequencies on the tower than it really should have had (but saved battery life). I don't know if that problem has been fixed, or even if it was just some bad rumor, but if true that would have a negative effect on any network it operated on.

Having said all that, in at least one way I agree. Verizon is limiting the iPhone to its 3G network, which does not allow simultaneous voice and data (similar to AT&T's 2G EDGE network, but with faster data). If you make a call, your data connection will be interrupted for the duration. If you send or receive SMS/MMS, your data connection will also be interrupted (though for a very short duration).

Contrast this to AT&T where you can be talking on the phone and surfing the web at the same time, something the iPhone happens to be really good at (and if my Blackberry supported it and 3G speeds, I'd probably be gobbling up a lot more monthly bandwidth than I do today, even with all the BES/BIS compression that goes on).

That means the potential impact to Verizon's network is cut nearly in half, because the VeriPhone can only do one thing at a time, whereas the ATTiPhone can do both at the same time. A single phone will have a much lower impact to a given tower on Verizon, because it can't do as much at the same time.

I still think Verizon is going to see some significant hits once the AT&T iPhone defectors start hitting them in droves. Which is great, because I'm on AT&T. The Verizon network is welcome to 'em. :)

I'm still waiting for the reports from early VeriPhone adopters. Verizon caught a LOT of flack in the 8000-series days (a few years ago) when they announced that they were locking down the GPS radios in all 8000-series Blackberries unless you bought their TeleNav service, and even then you could ONLY use the GPS for their TeleNav service and nothing else (that was a very large part of the reason I went AT&T with my 8300, because a smartphone without a GPS is like a bicycle without pedals). I hope Apple has a lot more clout and won't allow Verizon to pull that on their iPhone customers, because that would be a real shame.

Sales figures

[Anonymous Coward]

> 500k iPhones were sold on the first day

And? About 1.4 billion mobile phones were sold in 2010. That's about 4.4 million each and every boring day.

So Verizon and Apple managed to grab 12% market share on their peak day of sales. Not so impressive.

Re:Sales figures

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Verizon stopped taking pre-orders in less than a day because they couldn't handle the volume. How can you claim this is a peak day of sales when it's just pre-orders? The phone isn't even available in retail stores yet, it won't be until Thursday. Just wait and see what the sales figures are after then, and in the days/weeks to follow.

Oh yeah, and the 1.4 billion number you mentioned is world-wide. Last I checked, Verizon isn't a global phone provider. If there had been 1.4 billion phones sold just in the USA then every man, woman, and child in the country would have 4.5 mobile phones. Try comparing the sales figures to just US sales and it's just a little bit more impressive.

Re:Sales figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you comparing US sales (500k/day) vs Worldwide sales (1.4billion/year) ???

Re:Sales figures

[bonch]

Hey, look, another anonymous Apple basher shows up in an Apple article. It's cute how you use a worldwide sales figure.

I love how you claim it's a peak day of sales when this was just the first day of pre-orders for existing Verizon customers, and they ran out and had to stop taking orders by the end of the day. The phone becomes available to retail customers as well as those wanting to switch carriers later this week.

Over half a million sold blows away Verizon's previous one-day record of 100k for the DROID back in 2009.

Re:Sales figures

[mjpaci]

That means that on a single day Verizon sold 13% -- a single phone on a single carrier in a single country. Pretty good if you ask me.

Re:Sales figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to say it (I'm not the same AC btw) but the iPhone is overrated. I really think > 500k people jumped the shark. But I guess that is what "follow-the-crowd" does to you.

Re:Sales figures

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Sorry to say it (I'm not the same AC btw) but the iPhone is overrated. I really think > 500k people jumped the shark. But I guess that is what "follow-the-crowd" does to you.

You're a snob, making judgements about people based on the products they buy. What's ironic is that the sort of affectation that relegates a huge group of people to "follow-the-crowd" just based on the purchase of a phone is itself just a form of group-think.

"When all was said and done I was just another, goddamn, trendy ass POSER." - Stevo, SLC Punk!

Re:Sales figures

[Anonymous Coward]

12% on one carrier, with only one brand, on one day. Very impressive actually.

Re:Sales figures

[Stenchwarrior]

I don't know...I think $100,000,000 in one day is fairly impressive. Maybe I just thrill easily...

Re:Sales figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes we should all be individuals and all by android.

That's what contracts are for.

[denis-The-menace]

That's what contracts are for.
If the phone is subsidized by the phone company and you lose/trash your (theirs, really) phone, you are still on the hook for the 3 year contract, regardless of what you do. The lock-down is moot.

Re:That's what contracts are for.

[commodore64_love]

(0) For those who haven't heard, Verizon is punishing high-bandwidth users. The top 5% shall be limited to dialup speeds for two months. See here - http://slashdot.org/submission/1462912/Verizon-Imposes-Limit-on-top-5#comments

(1) My provider VirginMobile may have given me my phone for free (cost of $40 minus $40 sale price), nevertheless it is still MY phone and will be my phone even after I quit the company. (Just as I kept my Cingular phone after I quit them.)

(2) Contracts are not as binding as you may believe. If the carrier changes the term of the contract, such as raising the price or imposing a 5GB datacap, you have ~60 days to reject the new contract and be released from further payments.

(3) The phone argument does not apply to the PS3, which is neither leased nor subsidized by Sony. It is Your property just as surely as your house or car or TV is your property. There's no reason why we can't jailbreak consoles.

Re:That's what contracts are for.

[Richard_at_work]

I'm on the side of being able to do what you want with the device, but to play devils advocate to your post means I have to suggest that no, contracts do not make lock-downs a moot point - its been well established that there are plenty of people here on Slashdot that don't care one iota for hte limits the contract places on your usage.

Take tethering for example - data usage patterns varies wildly depending on whether you are using the data on the device itself, or via a connected PC (it really does, I logged my own usage of both for a week and was surprised). The problem is, there are a lot of vocal posters who take the stance of "well, I paid for 'data', I should be able to use it any which way I damn well please" and a contract isn't going to stop them refusing to pay the tethering charge... Should the phone company just charge the higher rate for the more intensive usage patterns to everyone?

Re:That's what contracts are for.

[Theaetetus]

(3) The phone argument does not apply to the PS3, which is neither leased nor subsidized by Sony. It is Your property just as surely as your house or car or TV is your property. There's no reason why we can't jailbreak consoles.

Yes, and Sony is well within their rights to deny access to their PSN servers to anyone who jailbreaks a console. Hooray for personal freedom!

No more "Low" data plans on Verizon??

[Anonymous Coward]

Apears that Verizon has pulled the 200MB data plan priced at $15/Month from the choice of data options.

Can anyone confirm this? Only the unlimited or 2GB options?

Re:No more "Low" data plans on Verizon??

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the phone. Smart phones have to have an unlimited plan. Even if it were an option 200MB on a smart phone is for suckers. You're going to pay way more than the unlimited plan in overages.

Feature phones have a $10 per 75 MB plan, fixed rate based on what you consume.

Read your contract

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know the wording Verizon uses in their contracts, could someone affected look that up?

Even if there's an expection that allows for people (in the US) to jailbreak their phones, it doesn't remove any contractual obligations to not use the data plan with other devices.

is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[alen]

because i had mine jailbroken for a few months last year and got tired of it. don't care about pirated apps or the themes. don't want to pay $10 for sbs settings or tethering apps either. and i don't tether so i don't care about it

with the iphone 3g and before ios4 there was multi-tasking. but now is there any feature i'm missing because i'm not jailbroken?

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[tripleevenfall]

You're missing memory leaks, program crashes, diminished battery life and a slew of mostly unremarkable apps.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[Anonymous Coward]

So Apple's validation process catches any apps that ever crash, hang, or have memory leaks? Wow. I didn't realize they'd solved the Halting Problem. Did they publish something about this?

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[tixxit]

Switching carriers is one of the big, legitimate, value adds to jail breaking your phone. Tethering is also another good value add. I pay for xGB of data, so why should my carrier care how I use it up? Tethering was a Godsend during my last vacation (2.5 week road trip). My wife or I would upload photos, download music, and whatnot while the other drove. My phone (an Android) actually allowed tethering when I got it (and during the vacation). The feature was actually removed after a recent update from my carrier...

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[Conception]

There is value but if you don't use the items that have value, then for you, no.

I just use a few things in jailbreak... If these sound interesting, then there is value for you.

1) Replacement SMS app - Let's you do things like reply from the SMS notification instead of having to unlock your phone, open the messaging app, and then send on.
2) Tethering and Hot Spotting - Let me and others use my phone as a mobile access point.
3) Auto3g - Disables 3g when the phone is locked so it uses far less battery power. Doubles battery life for me.
4) Lockscreen replacement - Makes my lock screen have calendar information. It also does stuff like remind me if I haven't acknowledged an event and sets quiet hours for SMS and stuff like that.
5) Application Backups - If you have to restore your phone, all your saved games and information on the phone is gone.
6) SMS export - Let's me archive and delete my SMS messages.
7) Unlock - Useful when traveling abroad.
8) Notification Replacement - Gives me Growl (the program) like notifications.
9) SBSettings - Which is free, is just nice to be able to turn certain things off and on with a quick swipe. Also, fixes the status bar to have things like the date.

If there is no value in these things for you, then no, don't jailbreak your phone.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[Anonymous Coward]

what? sbsettings is free and you can enable tethering via forum instructions if you dont want to pay $2

the ability to put more than 12 apps in a folder.
the ability to lower power consumption when creating a wireless AP.
unrestrict wifi only apps
browse and manipulate the filesystem
install apps apple denied/removed from their appstore
create your own voice commands to launch any app you choose
5 icons on the dock
close folders automatically after executing an app within
have your lock screen display weather, current emails, texts, missed calls, voicemails, and calendar events
display status icons in the upper right to remind you of unread texts, mail etc
vastly improve the severely lacking multitasking bar
this is just some of the things i do. others out there do much much more.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[lieden]

I use it primarily for tethering, which is important to me. Also to use Skype on 3G, but not often. I've added some of the themes and UI tweaks, app monitors etc, but only since I figured that if I was going to deal with jailbreaking the phone, I may as well get the most out of it. I could drop those in a second. However, you're correct, there are often more hassles than advantages to jailbreaking, especially with the current v of iOS. It used to be more useful, but now unless there's a dealbreaker for you (tethering and Wifi->3G in my case) than I honestly wouldn't recommend it.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[nblender]

There are a few cydia apps that I have installed and they are mostly unremarkable... The one I use _all_ the time was Wififofum... Such a thing used to be on the itunes app store but it disappeared and nothing took it's place. Wififofum is a wifi scanner and connection manager that lets you connect to access points that are quieter than what Apple's wifi manager will report... Sometimes it's the quiet ones that are open access points... Since I choose not to pay for a data plan, I rely on occasionally getting Wifi access... I can quite often get connected using Wififofum where I wouldn't be able to if I just used Apple's connection manager.

There's another one called Wifipass which is good if you want to tell a friend the Wifi password of some restaurant that you happened to get last time you were there from a friendly waitress... It prints out all of your wifi passwords.

I also use the synergy client but I can do without that.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[jo_ham]

All those are excellent enhancements, but number 5 is already part of the iPhone's base features.

If you restore your phone (or even get a totally new one) you can restore it to exactly the way it was - SMS messages, contact data and other info, are all restored from backup when you sync your phone.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that jailbreaking is free, quick, and painless, just how much of a pay off do you need.

You are the original tough crowd!

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll throw in #10 there... "Wifi Analyzer" is a nice app. Shows channels and signal strengths much better than any of the free (and possibly paid) apps that Apple will approve. I'm not sure if it's because it's a hacking tool, or because it shows such technical information or what.

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[tripleevenfall]

Your sense of nuance reminds me of the punchcard days... :)

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[tlon]

But not your angry birds save game data. :(

Re:is there any value in JB'ing your iphone?

[atamido]

What applications do you use for all of these features? I've got a number of useful programs, but it's difficult to find what's good when the repositories have so many poorly labeled thousands of programs, many of which aren't compatible with the latest iOS.

How does one stop supporting this model?

[tepples]

Stop supporting this model

All three major video game consoles use this razors and blades business model of selling the console near or below cost and making a profit on a tightly controlled software developer licensing program enforced with a digital imprimatur. Replacing the video game console with a home theater PC doesn't work because PC game publishers tend not to include multiplayer modes designed for a home theater PC, in turn because there are not enough other people who own a home theater PC.

and buy a phone of your own

How can one do this in an area where T-Mobile has poor signal? T-Mobile has "Even More Plus" plans available in-store or over the phone, and its MVNO Simple Mobile offers a similar plan, but the other three major U.S. carriers don't give a discount for bringing your own phone.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[maxume]

Wah wah wah wah.

To not support the video game lock in, you probably have to give up having video games. This is achievable.

For the cell phones, you can just buy a carrier-locked phone from a carrier that actually sells cheap phones without a contract. There are quite a few cell companies in the U.S. offering quite reasonable contract free services these days, and the argument that a $40 phone is an onerous condition for switching a service that probably costs $200 a year (and might cost $600) is a little silly.

I'm a bit surprised, you usually remember to confine your whining to smart phones, where the discounted phone+contract is still a better option that trying to bring your own phone.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop Lying.

Nintendo Wii has NEVER been sold that way. it always has made a profit without game sales. Please educate yourself on the facts before you spout them in a public forum.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2006/09/7752.ars for only ONE article pointing to it. There are many more out there.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[commodore64_love]

>>>How does one stop supporting this model?

Simple. Buy your "subsidized" Sony, nintendo, or microsoft console at $50 below actual cost, but make sure not tot buy any of their games at full price. Only buy them if they are less than $20 (which is actually a loss for the company).
.

>>>the other three major U.S. carriers don't give a discount for bringing your own phone.

And why would they? The service cost is the service cost, so why would it be any less just because you use your own phone?

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[Skarecrow77]

I completely believe this. After all, all the development money was sunk into the project back when it was called the gamecube, what with the wii essentially being the miniaturized and clock speed boosted equivalent of two gamecubes duct taped together. i.e. profitable hardware.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[Dog-Cow]

You are an asshole and an idiot. No "subsidized" phone is actually subsidized. Instead, the carrier rolls the monthly payment for your phone into your monthly bill. The problem is that this payment isn't itemized as-such. Therefore, when you bring your own phone, they conveniently ignore that some of the monthly fee is for the phone they aren't giving you.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[tepples]

you usually remember to confine your whining to smart phones

I thought the article had done that for me. This is an article about iPhone, and by extension iPhone's close substitutes (mostly phones running Android or Windows Phone 7) and other devices following a lockdown model similar to that of iPhone (namely all video game consoles), not "disposable" feature phones on carriers such as TracFone. The only exception that I've noticed is Samsung Intercept, an Android powered phone that Virgin Mobile USA recently started carrying.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[asdf7890]

but the other three major U.S. carriers don't give a discount for bringing your own phone.

I don't know what the market is like over there (I'm in the UK), but I've bought my own phones separate from my carrier for some time (after finding out I *had* to buy new DRMed MP3s instead of being able to use my own for tones or just for playing as music because Vodafone had locked the ability to play unprotected MP3s).

It is true that you can often get the same deal with phone as you can get without when it comes to contract renegotiation time (effectively meaning you get no cost benefit from having bought the phone elsewhere, though you do still have the not-locked-down-artificially-by-your-carrier benefit). What I do then is get the highest value phone that I can get for free on the plan I would be signing up to anyway. I then either flog that phone on eBay (or for less to a friend or family member if one is looking for a cheap upgrade) or designate it my spare phone and flog the one that is currently designated "spare".

The only slight problem I have with this is that I know with a fair degree of certainty that last time I sold a contract upgrade phone as "brand new, box unopened, probably locked to network" is was immediately sold on by the buyer as "brand new, box unopened" (no mention of operator locks, or operators at all) for an extra £20 so someone somewhere got a little ripped off if they weren't on the right network (though I shouldn't really be bothered - it isn't like I knew beforehand or was otherwise at all responsible and that sort of dishonest selling goes on day in day out whether I sell honestly or don't sell at all).

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[maxume]

Virgin Mobile is also offering an Android phone from LG for $150.

I expect most of the prepaid carriers will have at least a small selection of cheap Android phones by the end of the year. Hopefully the price erosion for unlimited voice service continues (presently $50 across quite a few carriers, at $30, I expect a lot of people start to pay more attention to how much they are spending on devices).

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[tepples]

after finding out I *had* to buy new DRMed MP3s instead of being able to use my own

Call the carrier and tell the rep that you're in a band, you want to use one of your band's songs as a ringtone (like the guy in the commercial for a U.S. credit monitoring service), and you'd like to know how to sign your band's songs to put them on the phone. It doesn't even have to be a lie; you can "be in a band" to illustrate a point by writing a poem, setting it to some century-old tune, and recording your voice in Audacity over a CC-BY licensed loop from Newgrounds Audio Portal or somewhere.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

So after you're finished with your two year contract, does your bill somehow get smaller? Mine sure didn't, nor did it when I switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and brought my own phone.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[AvitarX]

Except for Tmobile, that offers a $20/month discount in a no-contract plan.

This is particularly surprising to me, as the contract is not only to cover the cost of the phone, but also to guarantee future revenue, and diffuse the cost of customer acquisition over a period of time.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[commodore64_love]

>>>How does one stop supporting this model?

Simple. Buy your "subsidized" Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft console at $50 below actual cost, but make sure not to buy any of their games at full price. Only buy them if they are less than $20 (which is actually a loss for the company).

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[Golddess]

Only buy them if they are less than $20 (which is actually a loss for the company).

I'm curious why you think that. Once a company has earned back what it spent on development, isn't is all gravy from that point on, whether you're selling for $200 or $0.02? Obviously there are still manufacturing and shipping costs of the physical disc to account for, but are they really so high that it costs more than $20 per physical disc to go from manufacturing the disc up through delivery to my local Gamestop/Bestbuy/wherever?

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[idontgno]

So, your contention is that if I don't actually buy their phone, they're going to secretly charge me for it anyway?

Do you actually have a citation or actual evidence of this? Besides the voices in your head, I mean. And the secret message traffic among the members of the Trilateral Commission that you intercepted. Maybe at least a Wikipedia entry? That would be somewhat more credible than your bald assertion.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[DarwinSurvivor]

BWAHAHA. You actually think they are going to remove a non-itemized cost from you bill just because they aren't paying their end of it anymore? Remember, these are the same asshats that are demanding UBB be put in place or they'll "go out of business".

It's because of suckers like you that it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find plans that DON'T have the cost of the phone (whether you get one from them or not) built into the plan.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[asdf7890]

I only *had* to *officially... There was a flaw in the DRM system that was quickly exploited so there were a number of utilities to sign tracks so that they would be recognised. But that was the last time I every regularly used an operator provided phone (aside from my "spare" phone sometimes being one I've obtained that way).

But I shouldn't have to work to use advertised features of the device.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[commodore64_love]

>>>You are an asshole and an idiot.

Hmmm. It's like I traveled back in time to middle school. My..... what highly-enlightened arguments you have my dear. "You are an asshole and an idiot" is such a profound level of logical ingenuity, that I must hereby defer to you as the "winner" of this debate. Bravo my young middle school friend.

BTW my IQ is much, much higher than the 'idiot' level of 20. Oh and thanks for modding me down as (-1 Troll) to boot. That's just swell. Censorship is so much fun - it reminds me of the old days when the communist governments used jamming to drown-out Radio America, so the eastern europeans could not hear rock-n-roll.

Re:How does one stop supporting this model?

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship is so much fun

How many time do I have to prove to you that you are nothing but a troll?

Despite how my posts appear, I do not actually enjoy modding you into oblivion. We share the same views on things. The reason I downmod you is because I'm trying to smack some sense into you. You are doing more harm than good to the mutual positions we both believe in with your trollish behavior!

BTW my IQ is much, much higher than the 'idiot' level of 20.

Y'know, "idiot" and "high IQ" are not mutually exclusive. But given your constant flaunting of your "high IQ", it doesn't surprise me that you cannot accept this.

I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Imported, from the UK to Germany. When the purchase of an iPhone here would mean tying our souls to T-Mobile for two years, I adamantly refused. I really can't understand how folks put up with that bullshit: "OK, you can buy the phone cheap, but you will be locked into a contract for years, which will offset the discount on your phone." And if I buy something, I don't want to have to jailbreak it. I paid for it, it's my phone! What's up next? Buy a GM car, but only be able to tank it at GM gas (petrol) stations?

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[Anonymous Coward]

Imported, from the UK to Germany. When the purchase of an iPhone here would mean tying our souls to T-Mobile for two years, I adamantly refused. I really can't understand how folks put up with that bullshit: "OK, you can buy the phone cheap, but you will be locked into a contract for years, which will offset the discount on your phone." And if I buy something, I don't want to have to jailbreak it. I paid for it, it's my phone! What's up next? Buy a GM car, but only be able to tank it at GM gas (petrol) stations?

Were you able to get a cheaper plan to use that phone with? We put up with it because basically I can buy an unsubsidized phone and pay a certain amount for the plan to use it or buy the subsidized phone and pay the same amount on the plan to use it. The only thing the phone company is getting is a guarantee that I'm not leaving them for another provider within two years...at least not without paying them some money to get out of the contract. Generally, I don't go about switching mobile providers every month, so that arrangement doesn't bother me.

And no, pay as you go plans don't come out cheaper when you include data services, which is the entire point of a smartphone.

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[lieden]

Obviously if you pay full price for the phone, that should be the case. But as much as I despise most phone carriers, it's a little unfair for criticizing them for wanting to recoup the money they spent subsidizing your phone. Which way you go is a choice, but do you honestly expect them to subsidize the phone without anything in return? Also, I've had a few times in the past where I was relocating/traveling internationally. I called AT&T and they unlocked the phone... granted haven't tried with my iPhone.

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[jo_ham]

But you didn't "pay for it" - you got it at a discount, with Tmobile eating the cost. If you bought the phone outright from the start, then yes. And after the contract ends, then yes. Obviously you pay more overall with the contract since you get service (phone service) included in that, and interest on the initial discount since you could just walk off with the phone and never pay the contract.

So, you paid for *part* of it, it's *partly* your phone.

You already brought up the car analogy, but if you buy a car on hire-purchase, it does not belong to you fully until you have paid it off, and you are limited in the things you can do to it that will affect its resale value (like modifying it). If you bought it outright, you can do what the hell you like to it.

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Were you able to get a cheaper plan to use that phone with?

My employer pays for my chip and the fees. Can you get any cheaper than that? My girlfriend has a cheap rate, with unlimited data, and she is self-employed, so she gets it all back as a business expense anyway. And if she sees that another carrier is cheaper, she can switch, and still keep her number. Since she had experience with abysmal support for T-Mobile, she had no interest in being forced to give them her business anymore.

And no, pay as you go plans don't come out cheaper when you include data services, which is the entire point of a smartphone.

Well, I guess that depends on where you live, doesn't it? If you live in a densely populated country, where you can get coverage anywhere, from anyone, and there is ferocious competition from a lot of carriers., you'll get a good rate. Things can be cheaper than if your only choice is between between a couple of semi-monopoly carriers.

I think Americans (and I am one, by the way) have been brainwashed into thinking that phones locked to a carrier is somehow good for them. Something to do with fluoride in the water. On the other hand, the Deutsche Telekom (the folks behind T-Mobile here in Germany brainwashed folks by convincing them that they needed ISDN in order to have caller ID on their telephones. A friend of ours here told me that, and I answered her that lots of folks in the US have caller ID on normal, analog lines. An ISDN subscription costs more than a simple analogue one. The moral of the story? Phone companies are out to screw you, and sell you something you don't need, at a price that you can't afford.

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[PolygamousRanchKid]

But as much as I despise most phone carriers, it's a little unfair for criticizing them for wanting to recoup the money they spent subsidizing your phone.

So when your contract expires, do they unlock it . . . or does it remain locked to force you renew with them? It reminds me of films in the 70's where the dealers give out free heroin to get folks "hooked."

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[lieden]

Good point. I've been able to do so, but again, not tried with an iPhone. It's possible they could be more controlling for iPhones.

Re:I bought my girlfriend's iPhone unlocked

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, it's a little more complicated than that. While there ARE actually two GSM providers that run on standard frequencies, all 3G technologies run on incompatible areas of spectrum. Not to mention that the largest and third largest providers are CDMA (no SIM card) and refuse to activate otherwise compatible handsets from the competing carrier. So, if you have a GSM/WCDMA(3GSM) phone, you are free to take it to the other GSM carrier, and be stuck with only EDGE speeds.

So, the Verizon iPhone is CDMA, so it won't work with T-Mobile or AT&T (the two GSM carriers), and the other CDMA carrier (Sprint) refuses to activate any handset other than Sprint-approved ones. The AT&T iPhone (GSM) isn't compatible with Verizon (CDMA), and if you Jailbreak/unlock it to run on T-Mobile, you get slow 2G speed. So it's a win-win for everyone, except of course the consumer.

Free speech; no CSIM on Sprint

[tepples]

why should lock-down not be permitted?

If all devices in the relevant market are locked down, which is the case in the market for set-top video game players, and all makers of devices in the relevant market decline to allow someone to develop and market software for their devices, then any statutory or regulatory support for this lockdown would have free speech and antitrust implications. A video game is an audiovisual work, and audiovisual works are speech, so a government restriction on circumvention that is necessary to publish speech likely violates constitutional guarantees of free speech. Even if not, it could also run afoul of the essential facilities doctrine.

[AT&T's] discount for using an unlocked unsubsidized phone is nonexistent

Darn right. I recently helped my aunt add her son to her family plan on AT&T, and the representative in the store acted surprised when I mentioned that T-Mobile offers a $20 per month discount on a voice and data plan (branded as Even More Plus) for bringing your own phone or buying a phone up front.

From what I've heard, Sprint not only loves [unlocked phones], they offer a discount [unlike AT&T].

Everything I've heard suggests that among major U.S. carriers, T-Mobile is the only one to offer a discount. Verizon and Sprint currently use CDMA2000, not GSM/UMTS, and as I understand it, they program the subscriber identity directly into the phone instead of using a CSIM card. Where have you heard that Sprint likewise offers a discount? Or are you referring to Virgin Mobile USA, a division of Sprint specializing in prepaid service?

Re:Free speech; no CSIM on Sprint

[natehoy]

I may have taken T-Mobile's discount you mentioned above and mis-attributed it to Sprint. Since we don't get service for either around here, I get them confused occasionally. :)

People who play games made by developers

[tepples]

I always wonder who these folks are that want to jailbreak for purposes other than unlocking. What is the point? oh sure there are a few convincing reasons for developers to do it. But ordinary people?

Ordinary people who want to play games made by developers who are too small to meet the console makers' minimum criteria might choose to jailbreak. See, for example, the story of Bob's Game. And in the case of iPhone and iPod touch, there are whole classes of applications that Apple will never accept into its App Store; to run those without jailbreaking, you have to buy a Mac and then pay $99 per year for a developer certificate.

Lack of D-pad and homebrew game paucity

[tepples]

Jailbreak a mobile and you can run emulators on it. A NES or SNES in your pocket.

For one thing, few smartphones have a D-pad and physical buttons designed for gaming. A multitouch surface doesn't cut it because without tactile feedback, it's hard to tell whether your thumb is properly aligned over the buttons. For another, there are very few good homebrew games for NES and fewer still for Super NES. It's easier for a programmer to write a native Android or iOS app than to write an NES game in assembly language, even though that doesn't stop some people. Or are you talking about making infringing copies of commercial video game ROMs?

Carrying two devices

[tepples]

And as for NES and such, do you really need to run that on your phone? Just get a gameboy or something.

For one thing, getting a Game Boy Advance SP would involve carrying two devices, and if I wanted to carry two devices, I'd buy a dumbphone and a PDA because dumbphone service is an order of magnitude cheaper. For another, not all NES games are ported to the Game Boy or GBA.

Caveat emptor; (I'd wait a while)

[Bearhouse]

FTA: "If you happen to own a Verizon iPhone and are willing to give it the jailbreak treatment using Greenpois0n RC5_4, we wish you best of luck for that and hope you could share your end result with us. Thanks in advance."

Methinks worth waiting for some keen bleeding edge early adopters to iron out the wrinkles before rushing off to brick your expensive new toy, fellow /.ers

Re:Caveat emptor; (I'd wait a while)

[anethema]

You cannot brick an iPhone through jailbreaking. It simply is not possible. Nothing permanent is written to the phone. A restore will fix essentially anything.

The only way to brick an iPhone now a days is to either smash it, or yank the cord during a baseband update flash. Anything else is (easily) recovered from by a restore from DFU or recovery mode.

Re:Caveat emptor; (I'd wait a while)

[anethema]

Er sorry to reply to my own post, but forgot to say I agree with you though on waiting until more reports come out though. While you cannot BRICK the iPhone, a buggy jailbreak can be annoying and/or frustrating to work with.

Re:Caveat emptor; (I'd wait a while)

[Cronock]

It shouldn't be possible, but that doesn't mean that it truly isn't possible. I'd hate to be the poor guy that finds out that it is. As always, only the brave/foolish should be trying it and everyone else should wait. Being safe is underrated, but I've bricked plenty of devices to say "I'm going to have you do it first".

Re:Caveat emptor; (I'd wait a while)

[Stenchwarrior]

Nothing buggy about this jailbreak so far. Granted, I'm on AT&T, but it's been working great.

Re:Caveat emptor; (I'd wait a while)

[anethema]

True but it isn't like other devices which write to bootrom etc and as long as everything goes well you're ok.

With the iPhone, you can yank the cord mid jailbreak, or at pretty much anytime during any firmware flash sequence as long as it isn't when the baseband is being written to. Like i said almost nothing you can do to well and truly BRICK an iPhone.

It's for this reason why its safe to try beta jailbreaks and other software. The only thing you are risking is more of your time to restory and try again.

Near cost, not below cost

[tepples]

selling the console near or below cost

Nintendo Wii has NEVER been sold that way. it always has made a profit without game sales.

I didn't say "below cost"; I said "near or below cost". As I understand it, Wii consoles are sold above cost but still near cost. A Wii with the certificate to install your own code costs roughly $2000 plus the lease for a dedicated office.

Re:Near cost, not below cost

[BobMcD]

I didn't say "below cost"; I said "near or below cost". As I understand it, Wii consoles are sold above cost but still near cost. A Wii with the certificate to install your own code costs roughly $2000 plus the lease for a dedicated office.

Your mother is either a cow or an elephant. I never said your mother was an elephant.

Except you did. That's what 'or' does as a junction. You didn't say "near or below or above" cost. You omitted 'above' and included only 'near' and 'below'. Anyway, the words you're looking for are more along the lines of:

I'm sorry, you're right. Never below, but certainly near the cost.

Just doing my part to make the dot a better place... Have a great day.

Re:Near cost, not below cost

[Dahan]

Your mother is either a cow or an elephant. I never said your mother was an elephant.

Except you did. That's what 'or' does as a junction.

Uh, what? "Or" is a disjunction--a union, if you will. By definition, Cost > 0 and epsilon > 0

Price < Cost OR Abs(Price - Cost) < epsilon
Which implies: Price < Cost + epsilon
It does not imply that Price < Cost.

Do you need a diagram?

Re:Near cost, not below cost

[Anachragnome]

"Do you need a diagram?"

Yes, please.

If you could, please include the cow and elephant as I am a bit confused as to how, exactly, they play a role in this.

Service cost plus phone subsidy

[tepples]

The service cost is the service cost

What the subscriber pays is the actual service cost plus the part of the hardware cost that the carrier has subsidized.

so why would it be any less just because you use your own phone?

If there were no subsidy, the carrier wouldn't have to recoup any subsidy as part of the service cost. Hence the cheaper "Even More Plus" plans from T-Mobile.

The risk on verizon...

[Skuld-Chan]

Is that your ESN will get banned and your phone is pretty much a pda unless your can get another cdma provider (sprint/us cellular/cricket etc) to activate the phone...

Re:The risk on verizon...

[tomz16]

Is that your ESN will get banned and your phone is pretty much a pda unless your can get another cdma provider (sprint/us cellular/cricket etc) to activate the phone...

Based on what?

This isn't the first phone that can be "jailbroken" or "hacked". People have been loading custom firmware onto windows mobile and android devices for a while now. AFAIK, verizon has never blacklisted any ESN for software modifications to the phone. In fact, as far as I know, the only phones with banned ESNs are those reported as stolen, unpaid, or damaged w/ insurance payout.

Furthermore, the exact same thing exists in GSM. A carrier can definitely blacklist an IMEI. (AFAIK no carrier in the US actually does this).

Re:The risk on verizon...

[Stenchwarrior]

Can't you spoof an ESN when you jailbreak?

Re:The risk on verizon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jailbreaking has been outed by the US Gov. as legal. I have a hard time believing Verizon would risk that level of PR. Sure, the typical, "It'll void your warranty" under their breath should be expected, but outright deliberate bricking or service throttling? I doubt it. ...But then again, it's Verizon. ...Of course, I could have used that ominous insult for any carrier.

Re:The risk on verizon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you could, Verizon still has to know whatever ESN you're using in order for your phone to get service from them.

Re:The risk on verizon...

[Skuld-Chan]

I have a friend who managed to get his rooted eris banned - simply because they claimed it was rooted (it was).

Yes

[Powercntrl]

Off the top of my head...

XBMC media center
ScummVM
DOSBox
MAME/Snes/Nes/Genesis Emulators
Lockinfo
3G Unrestrictor
Mobile terminal (root shell access)

But hey, if you don't mind that your device isn't actually "yours", then no, you don't need to jailbreak. I own an iPod Touch 4th gen and it'll be the last Apple product I ever buy if Apple finally beats the jailbreakers at some point in the future.

lock-down is permitted, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lockdown is permitted, even if it shouldn't be because of some of the abilities lockdown enables (remotely disabling a device is close enough to vandalism for my taste!)

On the other hand lockdown isn't PROTECTED. There's no foundation for device lockdown to be protected in copyright law, or even the DMCA so long as the breaking of this lockdown isn't done specifically for the breaking of a digital media protection scheme.

Also, please don't talk about cell carriers use of sims and unlocked phones, you clearly don't understand what you're talking about.

iPad firmware?

[angrytuna]

So, I'm a little unclear on this. The last I heard, the latest jailbreak code relied on using some iPad firmware that was a much higher version number than current built iterations of the iPhone codebase. The downsides of installing this, as spelled on on the dev team blog, revolved around revealing to Apple unequivocally that your phone was jailbroken (and violating TOS for warranty), as well as being unable to come back down from this jailbroken state due to newer version numbers still being lower than this iPad version. Is this no longer the case with the Greenpois0n update?

Re:iPad firmware?

[AndrewNeo]

That was for unlocking the GSM modem (allowing carriers other than AT&T), not jailbreaking (allowing other software).

Re:iPad firmware?

[Stenchwarrior]

And while JB will void the warranty, that only happens if you're dumb enough to take JB'd phone to the Genius Bar.

Wrong

[SuperKendall]

Remember, in this country, you are supposed to be grateful that you are allowed to hack your iPhone, and just accept that you cannot do the same to your PS3.

No, in this country we ignore stupid laws. When's the last time you saw most people going the speed limit? I would wager not one single person ever hesitated jailbreaking even when the legality was under question, just as I'm sure someone wanting to open the PS3 wouldn't hesitate to to so. After all, they can't even put Geohot in jail, so obviously nothing would happen to an individual modder.

Hurray for the spirit of individualism, alive and well.

The only prison you live in is the one you make for yourself.

Re:Wrong

[betterunixthanunix]

However, potentially legitimate businesses that might remove the restriction systems from game consoles and cell phones did not open, because of the law. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who would have difficulty running a jailbreak program, or who would be afraid to do so, and they would pay for the service of having their devices unlocked. Instead of allowing businesses to compete with each other (was that not the point of our capitalist system?), perhaps forcing consumers to decide between a warranty and an unlocked device, the US opted instead to cave in to the demands of large businesses at the expense of the interests of smaller businesses (I believe that unlocking devices would be a service provided by small businesses, although I might be mistaken).

Re:Cry Me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

"Whining" does not mean "caring more about something than I do". And yes, that absolutely IS what you meant.

Your Apple ID has been disabled.

[HTH NE1]

On a related topic, who has gotten a "Your Apple ID has been disabled." error on their iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or iTunes application lately? Were you buying a song, an app, installing a free update to an app? What seemed to be the trigger for you?

Note: this is not the "This Apple ID has been disabled for security reasons." error you get for mistyping your password too many times. This error cannot be fixed by updating your password. It also appears unrelated to jailbreaking: my iPod Touch 4th gen is unmodified.

By near I meant just slightly above

[tepples]

Your mother is either a cow or an elephant. I never said your mother was an elephant.

In fact, my mother is affiliated with the political party whose logo is a stylized elephant, but that's beside the point.

You didn't say "near or below or above" cost. You omitted 'above' and included only 'near' and 'below'.

By "near", I meant "above but not very much above". I apologize for failing to make this clearer. Please allow me to rephrase: "All three major video game consoles use this razors and blades business model of selling the console either below cost or just slightly above cost and making a profit on a tightly controlled software developer licensing program enforced with a digital imprimatur." This includes Wii.

Not the whole story

[Stenchwarrior]

And maybe TFA mentions this, but I wouldn't know cause I won't read the mother fucker, but the greenpois0n app breaks ALL iPhones, not just for Verizon. I sat here and did it just 5 minutes ago and it worked like a charm and I'm on AT&T.

Metro PCS anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well unlimited 3G is $ 40 / mth.

There are a few folks on craigslist that will put a new rom on your Verizon Droid, so you can use it on Metro PCS.

Can the same thing be done for the Verizon iPhone?