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What Apple Can Learn From BlackBerry Not To Do (informationweek.com)
dkatana writes: There is no shortage of news about the fight between Apple and the Justice Department to unlock the iPhone of a suspect in the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist case. Apple can take a page from the fight BlackBerry had back in 2010 with some governments in the Middle East and Asia. At that time -- afraid to lose a lucrative business -- RIM [gave] in and allowed those governments to access its secure BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) service. The rest is history. If Apple complies with the Justice Department request, according to Craig Federighi, senior VP of software engineering at Apple, "[This software -- which law enforcement has conceded it wants to apply to many iPhones --] would become a weakness that hackers and criminals could use to wreak havoc on the privacy and personal safety of us all."
Not really.
I worked at BB during all this.
BB got done in because iPhone was hot and shiny, but the feature set was laughable. It didn't even have copy paste! Unfortunately, Apple is good at convincing the first set of users to say the first generation product is great even though it's shit (first Gen iPad was shit too, didn't even have a camera). Then Apple fixes most of the screwups in the next generation model (copy and paste was added to OS 3) and because first gen Apple users said their shit product was actually great (because they bought it as a fashion/lifestyle statement, they pretty much have to) the users that buy for features come out of the woodwork.
It was this second generation of product that was really the issue. BB employees were right to laugh at the first gen iPhone, it was a total piece of crap. Problem is, Apple isn't dumb and they fixed the major issues. BB didn't see that coming, and should have. And instead we release the Storm, because hey, compared with the first gen iPhone, it's just as shitty.
Everything after that was a bad game of catchup until BB 10. By that point users ignored BB and were happy with an inferior product (BB 10 had features you simply couldn't get from other phone OSes and still can't get, and it even ran Android apps). Which is the second wave of other bad phones managing to outpace BB by quickly improving and already having a base set of users.
Honestly, it sucks, because now I'm stuck with a shitty Android phone, and BB has basically torn the BB 10 dev team to shreds. Not to mention that John Chen has decided that security is a bad idea. It's disappointing because at this point I feel I've had to take a step backwards from BB 10 to android because BB is toast. I suppose in 5 years Android might get some of the features BB 10 had.
TL;DR: BB doesn't react fast enough to customer needs, BB isn't willing to put out a shitty initial product and hope users like it, then fix it later.
Exactly. Unfortunately /. is publishing a lot of faked news about the Apple vs DOJ case which are only an opportunity for Apple groupies to show off. Some of them seems to believe /. is the platform of choice to raise an army against the DOJ. I'm just tired of that shit. So, if this f... legal procedure can reach an end asap, I will be glad to return to business as usual on /.
Achille Talon
Hop!
You just suggested that Apple have mislead the public when they implied that currently their systems are secure because if their systems could be compromised right now they would know about it given their intimate knowledge or their code and information technology in general. i.e. They know what is possible more than you ever could, and they have said nothing to suggest that the FBI request is redundant.
i.e. In seeking to support Apple you have actually condemned them as probable collaborators.
You are right about one thing, no system is entirely secure, but that does not prove any given system has been compromised, yet.
I get the fact that you guys don't want Apple to open up its platform to the government, but this story is downright dishonest.
One particular dishonesty is that Apple creating a modified iOS "would become a weakness that hackers and criminals could use to wreak havoc"
That is PR spin. The FBI, hackers, criminals, etc do NOT need Apple to create the software. All are perfectly capable of tampering with binaries as people have been doing for decades. The ONLY thing that stops such efforts is that the firmware is expecting the software to be digitally signed. The only thing the FBI really needs from Apple is to sign the FBI's tampered iOS binaries. That's it. Having Apple modify iOS is just a convenience, not a requirement.
However *** IF *** the court forces Apple to comply then Apple should make the modified iOS. This way they can lock this modified iOS to the one device in question. The FBI, hackers and criminals could not tamper with this lock down either. This modified iOS is just as tamperproof as original iOS due to the digital signature. With this lock down the FBI would need a new court order for each new device.
The only scenario that leads to havoc is if Apple does not do the code and lets the FBI tamper with the binaries, then there will be no lock down to a particular device. Once signed by Apple this FBI version of iOS could run on anything. This is why Apple must do the software, *** IF *** the court is going to force them to comply.
This is a great example of a negative / negative decision.
"The reason Blackberry went under has absolutely nothing to do with it opening up the platform to the government"
Indeed. In fact, one can clearly point to the *exact second* where BB died.
You've all seen the 2007 iPhone "are you getting it" moment, right? Well when Lazaridis showed that to Balsillie the day after the intro, Balsillie somehow managed to utterly fail to understand that the technology was better. When Lazaridis pointed out they had a real browser, Balsillie's takeaway was that Apple had a better deal with AT&T. It was entirely viewed through the lens of carrier incentives. And that was something he knew about, and geared up to come up with better license deals. That they also needed a better phone never crossed his mind.
A few days later he was quoted in the Canadian press saying something along the lines of "Apple doesn't know phones". I knew they were dead.