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Toyota Yields To Apple Over Jailbroken Phones
zakkie writes "Toyota has caved to pressure from Apple and pulled custom themes for jailbroken iPhones. According to ModMyi.com founder Kyle Matthews, a representative of Toyota's ad agency said that Toyota gave in to Apple's request in order to 'maintain their good relationship with Apple', and amounted to a direct attack by Apple on jailbroken iPhones."
Manager B: And why do we make this custom theme for a jailbroken iPhone?
Manager A: To promote our Scion line of cars which embrace the idea of user customization.
Manager B: And what did it cost us to make it?
Manager A: Less than producing a single magazine ad.
Manager B: And how exactly do we benefit from this?
Manager A: Market research has shown that the demographic who is interested in jailbreaking their iPhone are prime advertising targets for the Scion as they share similar interests.
Manager B: So what I want to know is: Who signed off on this nonsense and how can we stop it right now?
Manager A: You did. You're call on whether it's worth fighting with Apple over.
As a non-denizen of Steve J's reality distortion field, I have to ask:
Is the control freakiness so great that you cannot even install custom themes on your own iPhone?
You have to jailbreak the phone in order to install a custom theme?
By the way, has anyone been able to get OpenMoko to run on an iPhone, Android (like HTC or whatever), or a Palm Pre?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
While it IS an interesting point that Jobs & Wozniak got their start making/using blueboxes (which was sort of similar to jailbreaking Ma Bell - except it really WAS out-and-out theft), it's a step too far to say that Apple is trying to jail (or even more ludicrously, torture) people trying to jailbreak their phones. Suffice it to say that the Apple walled garden has concertina wire on top (which we all knew already) and leave it at that.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Apple isn't putting anyone in jail. What they did...and did rightly was to tell Toyota to stop encouraging people to jailbreak thier phones and violating thier terms of use. And quite frankly since hackers in Russia are busy trying to squelch Livejournal to squelch out one of the few unified areas of actual free public discussion and dissent, I've long put aside any myths regarding hackers as misunderstood champions of freedom.
Apple on their way to making Jobs rich: took blueboxing mainstream, promoting easy theft of services.
Apple now that Jobs is fabulously wealthy: stealing right of first sale from their own customers and discouraging customers from taking back functionality of their legally-owned product.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Let us not forget that Toyota has become pretty hostile to real hot rodders and today's TRD products are a complete joke. Gone are the days of actively supporting the hot rodding and motorcrossing community with real performance parts for hot cars like the MR-2 (mechanicallt supercharged and later turbocharged) and Supra (Sequential twin turbocharged) sportscars.
Their idea of modding today is to sell body cladding and spoilers, and TRD decals. They have wholly embraced the ricer market segment, and actively discourage people from making real performance improvements. Should it really surprise anyone that Toyota would respect Apple's egomaniacal control over already-purchased iPhones?
I own my iPhones. Even if I dump AT&T today, I will maintain ownership of my iPhones. I am not renting nor leasing them, nor are they a work for hire under contract. They are commodity goods sold off the shelf, so therefore the first sale doctrine applies - along with bypassing DRM for the purpose of interoperability. Courts have upheld jailbreaking as a legal activity so why is Apple still fighting it? I am a jailbreaker, and yet I still buy apps from the app store, and even occasionally buy tracks through iTunes rather than dig out certain CDs to re-rip them.
Why do I jailbreak? So I can tweak the GUI. So I can run SBSettings, and so I can ssh to my iPhone and custom-build nagios so I can control servers from anywhere - and ssh into a box on the road when absolutely required. I don't use it for anything nefarious like "stealing"[sic] software or anything like that. So I can tweak settings a lot more than the default settings applet allows. So I can turn off phone or data separately with ease, and so I can have individual apps override screen brightness for individual apps rather than a single global setting Apple seems to think should apply to everyone for all situations - oh, and so I can disable rotation support quickly (for TomTom GPS for example - legally purchased through the app store well after I jailbroke my phone, by the way!) rather than distracting myself drilling down through a bunch of menus to disable it while driving.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Yet another example of how the idea of a 'free' market is an illusion with the way things currently work. I wonder how far a suit for tortious interference by all the users of jail-broken iPhones would get? Probably not very far, or perhaps they would get coupons to the Apple App store.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
It was the Equire article that took blueboxing mainstream, I remember reading it when it came out, and there had been no public hint of the blueboxing underground before that. Made Captain Crunch a cult hero overnight.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
jobs and woz got their start doing blueboxes ... now jobs tries to fucking put kids in jail for doing the same thing.
Jobs is just trying to recreate the conditions that his generation's hackers evolved in. There has to be some risk involved. If there were no risk then jailbreaking is about as much of a hack as putting LEDs in a tower case and installing a transparent side panel.
:-)
Then again, given how wild of an exaggeration your "put kids in jail" comment is jailbreaking does seems closer to case mod 'ing than bluebox'ing. The actual risk to some "kid" jailbreaking his phone is more like having to explain to dad/mom that he bricked his phone.
You have to jailbreak an iPhone to put a custom theme on it? That seems pretty restrictive. Seems like a basic customization that you should be able to do on any smartphone.
Read, at the EFF site, all the docs about Apple trying to get the Library of Congress to not allow jailbreaking. They wanted the full force of law brought down on those who jail broke. That includes prison time.
I'm beginning to lose faith and have actually started considering an Android phone ( but to find something that is comparable that isn't locked down as bad by the carrier. )
I still have every aple device i ever owned, from my first apple ][, and I'm really getting tired of this. Its my "box", let me use it as i want. If you don't want to support/warrant me, fine..
I'm also worried about the long term future of the computer side of things, if it will end up in a similar locked down state.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
>> Why do I jailbreak?
I don't have to justify it. It's simple. Because I refuse to be anybody's bitch. I own the fucking device. Steve Jobs, Apple, appholes can go fuck themselves.
As someone who has worked on the digital end of a tremendous number of campaigns for some very (very) large clients, please understand that oftentimes the larger company is not aware of what is going on. Campaigns are pulled quite often for even smaller, sillier, brand infringments. The only reason anyone cares about this one is that Apple's walled garden is a hot button topic.
Go look at chimerafun's post above yours. This is really a non issue. Some 20 something marketing zombie thought it would be cool. Their 30 year old marketing manager droid didn't think it through completely. Since it was likely really low budget, it just got done, then slapped down.
Nobody else cares.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What makes you think it's illegal to "interfere with a contract between others"? ...
My Business Law textbook.
... That's how business runs! Let's say you have a contract to buy 10,000 widgets from me for $100 each, and some bozo comes along and offers them to you for $2 each. He's sure as hell encouraging you to hire a lawyer to find a way to weasel out of the contract with me. Are you saying that's it's illegal for that bozo to undercut me? Why would you even make something like this up? ...
"Competition is the essence of business. Successful corporation compete aggressively, and the law permits and expects them to. But there are times when healthy competition becomes illegal interference. This is called tortious interference with business relations. It can take one of two closely related forms - interference with a contract or interference with a prospective advantage."
Business Law, Samuelson and Beatty, Thompson Higher Education, 2007, p.143
"There is nothing wrong with two companies bidding against each other to buy a parcel of land, and nothing wrong with one corporation doing everything possible to convince the seller to ignore all competitors. But once a company has signed a contract to buy the land, it is improper to induce the seller to break the deal."
ibid, p. 144.
.. YANAL. Don't pretend to be one.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Incidentally the reason we non-lawyers take a class in business law is so that we are aware of things like "interference with a contract" and try to avoid getting our own ass sued. Also to know enough to sign purchasing agreements that can be terminated at any time so that we are not locked into one deal should a better deal come along.
I think then perhaps you should stop using "hacker" as a blanket term and accept that many people mean different things by it. Obviously, lifehacker.com doesn't use the word the same way foxnews.com does. Just mentally replace it with "technically-capable and imaginative person with a disinterest in authoritarianism" and your problems will go away.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Why would they provide that? It is not even remotely in Apple's interest, or those of its carrier partners, to make it easy to jailbreak an iPhone.
Exactly. Thousands of more eyes on a Scion that would have never seen it before, and all for free. Same goes for Cydia. A win for everyone (selling crap). I've got a jailbroken phone, and wall or no wall, everyone wants to sell me something. It's almost like phones are becoming the new advertising sections of the Sunday Papers of Olde...
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
I'd agree that blueboxes are a step above jailbreaking in that you are actually using infrastructure instead of just your own device; I wouldn't call it theft in the case of "Ma Bell" though. The infrastructure was paid for by the people, should they not be allowed to use it without paying a corporation with no investment again?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14