Viruses don't install themselves either, they need to be run by the user. Worms are the autonomous ones. Riiiiiight. In what world is this definition relevant?
word games and bullshit aside, the fact remains that this thing needs several steps of human interaction and cooperation to get going, and Windows has hundreds of self-installing problems per month. Call 'em whatever you want but this ain't what the windows people have to deal with. It's a program that claims to be one thing and is something else that you have to download from a porn site and run as root.
I probably shouldn't have used quotes, because I didn't mean to insinuate that they stated that exactly. Apple hosts the ads that they show on their site, and one is named "Viruses". I can't watch it at work, since I don't have Quicktime, but its probably the ad I remember that panned PCs for being more susceptible to viruses.
This doesn't fit _any_ reasonable definition of a computer virus. It doesn't install itself; it needs you to use root access to install and run it. It's not something you can get from visiting the wrong website, or from just not disabling some port that's left open by default install of the OS, it's something the user has to manually do, as root, on a system.
And i quote "850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac."
Yes, it admits it's possible, it doesn't however, admit there are any. Wow, that's an astonishingly blatant use of creative quoting without context. Lets read the whole paragraph, unedited, shall we?
By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, 850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac. While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack, Mac OS X has helped the Mac keep its clean bill of health with a superior UNIX foundation and security features that go above and beyond the norm for PCs. When you get a Mac, only your enthusiasm is contagious.
A bit different than your out of context snippet this way, isn't it.
How do the facts then agree with your claim that "it doesn't however, admit there are any."? Says right there "While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack,". Sheesh. It's almost like you figured nobody would check your claim to see how blantantly you misrepresented it.
Apple has used the "Macs don't have malware" angle in their own advertising. I don't suppose you can provide a cite for that, can you? Also, I notice you use quotation marks, so that's an exact quote then is it? Or, is it perhaps your biased interpretation of something you want it to say so you can disagree?
Looks like the Mac fanbois are abusing the moderating system again.
And the terminology is semantics. Mac users have been exclaiming that there Macs are immune or resistant to malware for years now and saying that Macs are better than Windows because Macs don't get infected. Actually, the only people claiming that Macs are immune to malware, are people like you claiming others are doing so specifically so you can say these mythical people are wrong. This is a case of a program not being what it claims to be, and using social engineering to get someone to install something, make it executable, authenticate as root, and run it. No different than a year or three ago when someone came out with a fake Office for OSX package they shared on the P2P networks which was really a shell script that removed files. Not a virus - this doesn't install itself.
A "virus" with an install procedure which includes "and then become root and run it" isn't going to have legs.
I can do without my iPod for 3 days, or a week even. If I were to get attached to my iPhone, how do I do without my phone, mobile browser/contact manager/steve-idolization tool for even just 3 days? They sent me a loaner at no charge when my iPhone needed warranty repair. Paperclip to swap the SIM cards and done. Oddly enough, they've thought that whole thing through.
Where's the SEARCH in the Address book? Where's the replaceable battery? Where's the GPS? Where's the 3G high-speed? Where's the decent audio jack?
Replaceable battery?? In an Apple product?? Come on, how are they supposed to get you to buy a new one every couple of years? Worked for iPod.
Actually, it works quite well for the iPod, yes. My 4th generation iPod's batter was getting a bit tired. I could have bought a battery online from one of dozens of vendors that a simple google for "ipod battery" will get you, but I decided to send it to Apple. 3 days later, and for $59.00 I think it was, I had what looked like a brand new iPod back - probably the same one I sent in, but the case and battery had been replaced. Other sellers, if you're not afraid of hand tools, can sell 'em to you cheaper.
Apple has, of course, announce a similar program for the iPhone. "not replacable" doesn't apply, even a little, to either the iPods or the iPhones.
For the record, my Treo didn't have an easily replacable battery either - and it was locked only to Verizon, no unlocking option. By the time the battery life on that wasn't acceptable, it was time for a new phone anyway.
It's funny what people choose to complain about. (What's wrong with the audio jack, grandparent poster? It's not thicker than the phone itself, is that it? How _could_ it be?)
Just like the idiot from Mattell decided to apologize to China because they're trying to poison our kids with lead paint on toys over and over, obviously somehow this is our fault. We clearly need to apologize to them for this as well. After all, it can't possibly be their fault, can it?
My understanding is that in the iPhone context, 'unlocking' refers to the enabling of third party SIM functionality, whereas 'jailbreaking' refers to enabling the ability to run third party applications. I could be entirely wrong, but I was under the impression that these were two separate issues.
You've got it exactly right. The problem, I think from Apple's perspective, is that the process to open up the firmware to add third party apps, also allows the changes to the part of the cellphone which allows you to switch carriers. It's Unix, and the security model is that if you have root, you have root.
From a access control mechanism standpoint, they _could_ allow open access to the/Applications directory while keeping the rest of the system locked up. That would differentiate the people who want to just install third party apps from people who are trying to change carriers.
Apple almost certainly have an agreement with AT&T (and O2, and T-Mobile) to prevent SIM unlocking. It's less likely that they have such an agreement to prevent jailbreaking, although it's still possible as jailbreaking would allow users to run VoIP and native IM clients, which are a direct threat to the business models of the mobile networks.
Right. They have to make a reasonable effort to honor the contractual agreements that they have. And yes, there are third party native VOIP and IM applications available with a "tap here to install" interface, today. I haven't tried the VOIP, but the IM apps work just fine. I'm not sure how that costs anyone money though.
...first they cut off the xxx-tld and now - now they open up one for special interests? i demand.midget Sorry, not at this time, but check back shortly.
Not really a need, but a *.asia will look just fine in my host file.
Exactly. I'm fully in support of this, based on the source of most of the crap that gets sent to my mailbox. Of course this won't make the existing problem go away but, at least anyone using.asia I know that I can safely and programatically ignore.
They could then look at the twirled test image and come up with a mapping of twirled pixels to untwirled pixels. This information could be used to "untwirl" the original image by grabbing the pixels at the twirled coordinates and moving them back to where the mapping says they probably originated.
It probably helps a LOT that in several of the images, there's a strong line visible in the background. Measure the twirl of that, you've got your benchmark right there. Center of the twirl is probably easy enough to locate too. So there's your twist, and where to apply it.
It's a good thing so many criminals are dumb. It's the smart ones that you have to worry more about.
Too bad they didn't choose to name this species after a particularly vocal anti-science crusader. I don't have any in particular in mind, but, seems like nothing would be quite so annoying as that.
My iPhone was heavily modded with pretty much every third party app I could find. Updated using the normal mechanism through iTunes, and I have a perfectly functional, and perfectly stock, iPhone running firmware version 1.1.1 now. I'll probably go back to 1.0.2 until the unlocking apps work with 1.1.1, but, despite the FUD, it hasn't bricked the phone, and everything works just fine.
Basically, a firmware upgrade is a "load from cold" of the OS on the box - you're telling it to go fetch a new boot image, load it, and run it. If you're only making software changes, and replace the software with the new version - of course those changes will be gone.
It's just a matter of days until the unjailing software works again. Unlocking relied on a buffer overflow which has been patched, so I suppose people who want to do that will have to find another buffer overflow to exploit. Which will be patched and worked around, lather-rinse-repeat.
I get 4 bars of signal with AT&T, in my _basement_. Verizon, at my house, I was lucky to get a call that wouldn't drop in a few minutes.
Well, I get 4 bars of signal with T-mobile, in my _basement_. AT&T and others, at my house, I was lucky to get a call that wouldn't drop in a few minutes. OK, you've missed that point, let me clarify. For me, where I live, AT&T is not only acceptable, but preferable. I've had T-mobile map my location (they have a nice tool for showing what signal strength to expect at any given location), and, the T-mobile rep was "Um, yeah, not so much for you." Any carrier at all who Apple had chosen to work with, would have had vocal detractors. Sprint? Are you INSANE? I don't like their logo! And blah blah blah for whichever other ones. I'm just pointing out that, for me, AT&T is a better provider than Verizon, which is who I had my service through for my Treo which is now retired.
I don't have dozens of third-party apps installed on my iPhone?
Not the five people _I know_ who have got the shiny brick to show off. Now who is wrong? So, here you are confusing third party apps, with unlocking. I'm also somewhat skeptical, to be honest, that you know 5 people with bricked iPhones - I'd be surprised if there are 5 total, let alone in your circle of friends. Or you're intentionally distorting the issue. There are two distinct classes of iPhone mods. 1, installing third party apps. Apple isn't harmed in any way by this. Jobs doesn't give a damn if I play blackjack as a native app on my iPhone. The other class of mods is to unLOCK the phone (as distinct from unJAIL), allowing users to decide who their cellular carrier will be. Apple needs to pretend they don't want you to do that, and to go through a token effort to make it not trivial. Sorry, but, the real world is like that. Contracts and lawyers and all that, you see. But, if they really wanted to prevent it from happening, they could. They haven't, and they won't. It's "Suuuuuure, AT&T, we'll do our best" and a wink to the modders.
May be there were too many "fuck"s in GP's post, but sheer blind faith in a corporate hell-bent on sucking last penny out of its customer definitely is not _my_ criteria for selection of technology. Go and play with N95 for fuck sake and then talk about technology. Just having a touch-screen does not make something better than anything under the sun.
I'm pretty certain at this point that I'm wasting my time responding to you. But - I've played with an N95. The workflow of the default apps on the iPhone is far superior. It's well designed, and it's a unix box that fits in my pocket. The default apps are great, the third-party apps are getting better every day, and people who do things it's not designed to do, won't be supported by Apple for things Apple didn't release. I'm not sure why people get their undies in a bundle that Apple warns them that if they do something unsupported, that Apple won't, you know, support it.
Now go back and create some more lame defenses for Apple and Steve Wonder Jobs. Yawn. Do you want to discuss facts, or just sling insults?
The worst is when people fucking defend apple no matter what. They go and sleep with the worst service provider in the country,
I get 4 bars of signal with AT&T, in my _basement_. Verizon, at my house, I was lucky to get a call that wouldn't drop in a few minutes.
they completely lockdown the device with no hope for the third party softwares on the brick, Really? Then AppTap installer doesn't exist? I don't have dozens of third-party apps installed on my iPhone? Oh, do tell, AC, how is it I could have hallucinated all of this? Could it be that you're, you know, either lying or ignorant? Either way, you're wrong.
Personally, I am glad I have not bought any apple device. Fair enough. Apparently your semi-literate rant is fueled with both ignorance and hatred - a combination which rarely leads to effective selection of technology by criteria which actually matter.
You hack YOUR phone, and Apple says you can't do that. That's why this has a MS feel to it. Um, no, you hack your phone, and a re-install of the upgraded OS reverts it to an un-hacked state. Nothing surprising, evil, or permission-ish about it.
Apple doesn't care if you want to play Tetris on your iPhone. They _do_ have to pretend to care that you want to go with a carrier other than who they have a contract with (AT&T). So if you did something to change who you go through as a carrier, and since Apple didn't write the hack, they don't promise how it'll act going forward.
What else could they do? They have to keep their business partners happy for legal reasons, and how in the world could they support a third-party hack they didn't write? I don't think it's reasonable to think that they should have to do a full regression testing of every version of every unlocking hack out there. In fact, I'd prefer they don't. I'd rather they spend their time working on features for the mainstream, and let those who unlock their phone do so with the understanding that they unlock hack may not work after you upgrade the software.
As an undergrad, a fellow student told me about a certain kind of old heavy duty line-printer for mainframe batch processing. It had a hammer for every single character position and a curculating belt with the entire printable character set repeated. A hammer would fire whenever a character coincided with the hammer in the right position. These aren't _that_ old, I was supporting these printers back in production as recently as 1989.
The entire open source community should be upset over this decision. Now everyone will be wondering what information their open source application might send home. Maybe you could wait to see if it's actually true because, it looks like it might not be. THEN you can get upset and base decisions on it.
No, they should not have to scour the web for these modifications however they also should not push out an update that will knowingly cause Unnecessary Damage It's amazing how people are condemning Apple for something that hasn't happen, won't happen, and arguably, can't happen. Since the whole thing is based on speculation and handwaving, how exactly is this non-problem Apple's fault? Can't people wait until something actually happens (and it won't) before getting all up in arms about how evil Apple is for something that hasn't and won't happen?
Considering how authoritative and absolute this post is, I'm going to have to assume (only for discussion purposes) that daveschroeder is an Apple employee who is *very* highly in "the know" about their corporate politics. Because if not, then this is just an Apple fanboi rant trying to save some face from what is a corporation knowingly reducing functionality of a device to (questionably) boost their own profits.
Some day, when/if you grow up, you'll learn that not all people who correct wrong information, are doing it for financial gain. Sometimes people do it because it's the right thing to do. A few seconds of investigation would show you that Dave doesn't hide his contact information, that he's at the University of Wisconsin, and provides his email address, right with every post he makes on Slashdot. Now, I suppose it's possible that Apple pays him to defend them on slashdot, but, if that's true, I'd love to get in on that deal. The more logical and likely answer is that he knows what he's talking about, is passionate and well spoken about the topic, and points out factual and logical errors when people make wrong statements about apple either through ignorance or malice.
Oh, and by the way? When you use the word "fanboi" it pretty much shoots any credibility your post might have. Just so you know.
Of course, this will devolve into disinformation where people believe that even the third party application hacks also might void the warranty or "damage" the phone, or that Apple is purposely "damaging" phones that are unlocked, and then villainously not honoring the warranties just to "stick it" to them, when in reality it's nothing of the sort...so I expect it to be a big bad press brouhaha when the first people get their phones bricked.
That would be so Apple, and you know it. Really? When specifically has Apple ever done anything like that? When my iPhone's multitouch panel died in an area, I sent back my modded phone, no problem, they replaced it free without complaint. So, my direct personal experience is at odds with your apparent claim.
Apple knows that the best course is to protect their exclusive contract, not to leave the phones as-is, and certainly not to shrug off people hacking their iPhones. Apple isn't doing this because they dislike their customers; they are doing it because they don't respect their customers.
No, Apple is "doing this" (I assume you mean, discouraging unlocking of iPhones) so AT&T doesn't have any reason to claim Apple is violating a contractual agreement. Could Apple make sure nobody can unlock the phones? Probably, yes. Have they done so? Nope. Just like every other time they've changed something to make some mega-corp happy, they make it so joe-user has to go out of their way, and that way Apple is covered. Want to copy a CD? Can't do it with drag & drop, sorry. Download a tool to do it? Well, it's not Apple's fault, they didn't give you the tool. Want to get around the DRM? You need to use a tool that isn't from Apple to do it. Want to unlock your iPhone? Same story. They can't just give you a way to do it, or they'd be in trouble with AT&T's lawyers. But, if they put up a token effort to keep people from doing it, and someone smart bypasses that (my bet is at 2 hours after the release being the time to workaround), well, (shrug) we tried, AT&T, I guess they're just too smart.
They also happen to be thwarting attempts to sync iPods with software other than iTunes -- I suppose this is also a completely normal, acceptable practice, to prevent people who use Amarok or Rhythmbox from syncing up their iPod? I don't disagree that a recent update broke that function. I don't think we agree on why the change was made though. And, how long did it stay broken? If Apple really wanted to lock people out, I'm pretty sure they could have. The fact that they haven't tells me something.
Maybe they didn't tell their developers to find a way to cause hacked iPhones to stop functioning. But I doubt that when one of their developers said at a meeting, "...and this update will cause unlocked iPhones to stop functioning..." they thought anything other than, "Good!" Yup, "Good"...followed by a chuckle, and a thought of "That'll keep AT&T off our ass, and the mods community will have it licked in an hour or three".
"by waiting two months, could have paid $200 less for the exact same deal"
An they could also now unlock it, meaning that they don't need a 2 year AT&T contract. The early adopters paid more in price and freedom. Well, they gave me $100 back, _and_, I'm saving 20 bucks a month and getting better coverage with AT&T than I did with Verizon. The usability of this thing is much better than my Palm based Treo that I replaced with it. So...better coverage, more usable, a full Unix system I can do whatever I want with, and cheaper per month... I'm not seeing the downside.
Slashdot Mirror
Riiiiiight. In what world is this definition relevant?
word games and bullshit aside, the fact remains that this thing needs several steps of human interaction and cooperation to get going, and Windows has hundreds of self-installing problems per month. Call 'em whatever you want but this ain't what the windows people have to deal with. It's a program that claims to be one thing and is something else that you have to download from a porn site and run as root.
This doesn't fit _any_ reasonable definition of a computer virus. It doesn't install itself; it needs you to use root access to install and run it. It's not something you can get from visiting the wrong website, or from just not disabling some port that's left open by default install of the OS, it's something the user has to manually do, as root, on a system.
And i quote "850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac."
Yes, it admits it's possible, it doesn't however, admit there are any.
Wow, that's an astonishingly blatant use of creative quoting without context. Lets read the whole paragraph, unedited, shall we?
By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, 850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac. While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack, Mac OS X has helped the Mac keep its clean bill of health with a superior UNIX foundation and security features that go above and beyond the norm for PCs. When you get a Mac, only your enthusiasm is contagious.
A bit different than your out of context snippet this way, isn't it.
How do the facts then agree with your claim that "it doesn't however, admit there are any."? Says right there "While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack,". Sheesh. It's almost like you figured nobody would check your claim to see how blantantly you misrepresented it.
I don't suppose you can provide a cite for that, can you? Also, I notice you use quotation marks, so that's an exact quote then is it? Or, is it perhaps your biased interpretation of something you want it to say so you can disagree?
Actually, the only people claiming that Macs are immune to malware, are people like you claiming others are doing so specifically so you can say these mythical people are wrong. This is a case of a program not being what it claims to be, and using social engineering to get someone to install something, make it executable, authenticate as root, and run it. No different than a year or three ago when someone came out with a fake Office for OSX package they shared on the P2P networks which was really a shell script that removed files. Not a virus - this doesn't install itself.
A "virus" with an install procedure which includes "and then become root and run it" isn't going to have legs.
Replaceable battery?? In an Apple product?? Come on, how are they supposed to get you to buy a new one every couple of years? Worked for iPod.
Actually, it works quite well for the iPod, yes. My 4th generation iPod's batter was getting a bit tired. I could have bought a battery online from one of dozens of vendors that a simple google for "ipod battery" will get you, but I decided to send it to Apple. 3 days later, and for $59.00 I think it was, I had what looked like a brand new iPod back - probably the same one I sent in, but the case and battery had been replaced. Other sellers, if you're not afraid of hand tools, can sell 'em to you cheaper.Apple has, of course, announce a similar program for the iPhone. "not replacable" doesn't apply, even a little, to either the iPods or the iPhones.
For the record, my Treo didn't have an easily replacable battery either - and it was locked only to Verizon, no unlocking option. By the time the battery life on that wasn't acceptable, it was time for a new phone anyway.
It's funny what people choose to complain about. (What's wrong with the audio jack, grandparent poster? It's not thicker than the phone itself, is that it? How _could_ it be?)
Just like the idiot from Mattell decided to apologize to China because they're trying to poison our kids with lead paint on toys over and over, obviously somehow this is our fault. We clearly need to apologize to them for this as well. After all, it can't possibly be their fault, can it?
My understanding is that in the iPhone context, 'unlocking' refers to the enabling of third party SIM functionality, whereas 'jailbreaking' refers to enabling the ability to run third party applications. I could be entirely wrong, but I was under the impression that these were two separate issues.
You've got it exactly right. The problem, I think from Apple's perspective, is that the process to open up the firmware to add third party apps, also allows the changes to the part of the cellphone which allows you to switch carriers. It's Unix, and the security model is that if you have root, you have root.
From a access control mechanism standpoint, they _could_ allow open access to the
Apple almost certainly have an agreement with AT&T (and O2, and T-Mobile) to prevent SIM unlocking. It's less likely that they have such an agreement to prevent jailbreaking, although it's still possible as jailbreaking would allow users to run VoIP and native IM clients, which are a direct threat to the business models of the mobile networks.
Right. They have to make a reasonable effort to honor the contractual agreements that they have. And yes, there are third party native VOIP and IM applications available with a "tap here to install" interface, today. I haven't tried the VOIP, but the IM apps work just fine. I'm not sure how that costs anyone money though.
...first they cut off the xxx-tld and now - now they open up one for special interests? i demandSorry, not at this time, but check back shortly.
Exactly. I'm fully in support of this, based on the source of most of the crap that gets sent to my mailbox. Of course this won't make the existing problem go away but, at least anyone using
It probably helps a LOT that in several of the images, there's a strong line visible in the background. Measure the twirl of that, you've got your benchmark right there. Center of the twirl is probably easy enough to locate too. So there's your twist, and where to apply it.
It's a good thing so many criminals are dumb. It's the smart ones that you have to worry more about.
Unfortunately, yes. But, should California ever decide to secede, I will be in full support of same.
Too bad they didn't choose to name this species after a particularly vocal anti-science crusader. I don't have any in particular in mind, but, seems like nothing would be quite so annoying as that.
My iPhone was heavily modded with pretty much every third party app I could find. Updated using the normal mechanism through iTunes, and I have a perfectly functional, and perfectly stock, iPhone running firmware version 1.1.1 now. I'll probably go back to 1.0.2 until the unlocking apps work with 1.1.1, but, despite the FUD, it hasn't bricked the phone, and everything works just fine.
Basically, a firmware upgrade is a "load from cold" of the OS on the box - you're telling it to go fetch a new boot image, load it, and run it. If you're only making software changes, and replace the software with the new version - of course those changes will be gone.
It's just a matter of days until the unjailing software works again. Unlocking relied on a buffer overflow which has been patched, so I suppose people who want to do that will have to find another buffer overflow to exploit. Which will be patched and worked around, lather-rinse-repeat.
Well, I get 4 bars of signal with T-mobile, in my _basement_. AT&T and others, at my house, I was lucky to get a call that wouldn't drop in a few minutes.
OK, you've missed that point, let me clarify. For me, where I live, AT&T is not only acceptable, but preferable. I've had T-mobile map my location (they have a nice tool for showing what signal strength to expect at any given location), and, the T-mobile rep was "Um, yeah, not so much for you." Any carrier at all who Apple had chosen to work with, would have had vocal detractors. Sprint? Are you INSANE? I don't like their logo! And blah blah blah for whichever other ones. I'm just pointing out that, for me, AT&T is a better provider than Verizon, which is who I had my service through for my Treo which is now retired.
Not the five people _I know_ who have got the shiny brick to show off. Now who is wrong?
So, here you are confusing third party apps, with unlocking. I'm also somewhat skeptical, to be honest, that you know 5 people with bricked iPhones - I'd be surprised if there are 5 total, let alone in your circle of friends. Or you're intentionally distorting the issue. There are two distinct classes of iPhone mods. 1, installing third party apps. Apple isn't harmed in any way by this. Jobs doesn't give a damn if I play blackjack as a native app on my iPhone. The other class of mods is to unLOCK the phone (as distinct from unJAIL), allowing users to decide who their cellular carrier will be. Apple needs to pretend they don't want you to do that, and to go through a token effort to make it not trivial. Sorry, but, the real world is like that. Contracts and lawyers and all that, you see. But, if they really wanted to prevent it from happening, they could. They haven't, and they won't. It's "Suuuuuure, AT&T, we'll do our best" and a wink to the modders.
May be there were too many "fuck"s in GP's post, but sheer blind faith in a corporate hell-bent on sucking last penny out of its customer definitely is not _my_ criteria for selection of technology. Go and play with N95 for fuck sake and then talk about technology. Just having a touch-screen does not make something better than anything under the sun.
I'm pretty certain at this point that I'm wasting my time responding to you. But - I've played with an N95. The workflow of the default apps on the iPhone is far superior. It's well designed, and it's a unix box that fits in my pocket. The default apps are great, the third-party apps are getting better every day, and people who do things it's not designed to do, won't be supported by Apple for things Apple didn't release. I'm not sure why people get their undies in a bundle that Apple warns them that if they do something unsupported, that Apple won't, you know, support it.
Now go back and create some more lame defenses for Apple and Steve Wonder Jobs.
Yawn. Do you want to discuss facts, or just sling insults?
The worst is when people fucking defend apple no matter what. They go and sleep with the worst service provider in the country,
I get 4 bars of signal with AT&T, in my _basement_. Verizon, at my house, I was lucky to get a call that wouldn't drop in a few minutes.
they completely lockdown the device with no hope for the third party softwares on the brick,
Really? Then AppTap installer doesn't exist? I don't have dozens of third-party apps installed on my iPhone? Oh, do tell, AC, how is it I could have hallucinated all of this? Could it be that you're, you know, either lying or ignorant? Either way, you're wrong.
Personally, I am glad I have not bought any apple device.
Fair enough. Apparently your semi-literate rant is fueled with both ignorance and hatred - a combination which rarely leads to effective selection of technology by criteria which actually matter.
Um, no, you hack your phone, and a re-install of the upgraded OS reverts it to an un-hacked state. Nothing surprising, evil, or permission-ish about it.
Apple doesn't care if you want to play Tetris on your iPhone. They _do_ have to pretend to care that you want to go with a carrier other than who they have a contract with (AT&T). So if you did something to change who you go through as a carrier, and since Apple didn't write the hack, they don't promise how it'll act going forward.
What else could they do? They have to keep their business partners happy for legal reasons, and how in the world could they support a third-party hack they didn't write? I don't think it's reasonable to think that they should have to do a full regression testing of every version of every unlocking hack out there. In fact, I'd prefer they don't. I'd rather they spend their time working on features for the mainstream, and let those who unlock their phone do so with the understanding that they unlock hack may not work after you upgrade the software.
These aren't _that_ old, I was supporting these printers back in production as recently as 1989.
Oh crap, now I've made _myself_ feel old.
Maybe you could wait to see if it's actually true because, it looks like it might not be. THEN you can get upset and base decisions on it.
It's amazing how people are condemning Apple for something that hasn't happen, won't happen, and arguably, can't happen. Since the whole thing is based on speculation and handwaving, how exactly is this non-problem Apple's fault? Can't people wait until something actually happens (and it won't) before getting all up in arms about how evil Apple is for something that hasn't and won't happen?
Sheesh.
Some day, when/if you grow up, you'll learn that not all people who correct wrong information, are doing it for financial gain. Sometimes people do it because it's the right thing to do. A few seconds of investigation would show you that Dave doesn't hide his contact information, that he's at the University of Wisconsin, and provides his email address, right with every post he makes on Slashdot. Now, I suppose it's possible that Apple pays him to defend them on slashdot, but, if that's true, I'd love to get in on that deal. The more logical and likely answer is that he knows what he's talking about, is passionate and well spoken about the topic, and points out factual and logical errors when people make wrong statements about apple either through ignorance or malice.
Oh, and by the way? When you use the word "fanboi" it pretty much shoots any credibility your post might have. Just so you know.
Really? When specifically has Apple ever done anything like that? When my iPhone's multitouch panel died in an area, I sent back my modded phone, no problem, they replaced it free without complaint. So, my direct personal experience is at odds with your apparent claim.
No, Apple is "doing this" (I assume you mean, discouraging unlocking of iPhones) so AT&T doesn't have any reason to claim Apple is violating a contractual agreement. Could Apple make sure nobody can unlock the phones? Probably, yes. Have they done so? Nope. Just like every other time they've changed something to make some mega-corp happy, they make it so joe-user has to go out of their way, and that way Apple is covered. Want to copy a CD? Can't do it with drag & drop, sorry. Download a tool to do it? Well, it's not Apple's fault, they didn't give you the tool. Want to get around the DRM? You need to use a tool that isn't from Apple to do it. Want to unlock your iPhone? Same story. They can't just give you a way to do it, or they'd be in trouble with AT&T's lawyers. But, if they put up a token effort to keep people from doing it, and someone smart bypasses that (my bet is at 2 hours after the release being the time to workaround), well, (shrug) we tried, AT&T, I guess they're just too smart.
They also happen to be thwarting attempts to sync iPods with software other than iTunes -- I suppose this is also a completely normal, acceptable practice, to prevent people who use Amarok or Rhythmbox from syncing up their iPod?
I don't disagree that a recent update broke that function. I don't think we agree on why the change was made though. And, how long did it stay broken? If Apple really wanted to lock people out, I'm pretty sure they could have. The fact that they haven't tells me something.
Maybe they didn't tell their developers to find a way to cause hacked iPhones to stop functioning. But I doubt that when one of their developers said at a meeting, "...and this update will cause unlocked iPhones to stop functioning..." they thought anything other than, "Good!" Yup, "Good"...followed by a chuckle, and a thought of "That'll keep AT&T off our ass, and the mods community will have it licked in an hour or three".
An they could also now unlock it, meaning that they don't need a 2 year AT&T contract. The early adopters paid more in price and freedom.
Well, they gave me $100 back, _and_, I'm saving 20 bucks a month and getting better coverage with AT&T than I did with Verizon. The usability of this thing is much better than my Palm based Treo that I replaced with it. So...better coverage, more usable, a full Unix system I can do whatever I want with, and cheaper per month... I'm not seeing the downside.