From The Front End - ZDNet Edition
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Thursday 17 July 2008, 3:11 PM
The App store spells death to Jailbreaking the iPhone
Add to this the fact that most of the apps on via AppTapp on a jailbroken phone are free and it makes jailbreaking your new iPhone 3G very tempting. Some have already managed it as seen in this video:
So what are we waiting for - lets unlock our phones and get lots of free App goodness. BUT WAIT Jailbreaking was tollerated before and some of the jailbreak app developers have been welcomed on to the App store... however, before Apple had no competing service to rival the jailbreak apps and now they do. They will not want users to be able to choose between a free jailbreak app when they are trying to sell a similar App for $9.99 in the App Store.
So what will Apple do. Expect a lot tighter policing of iPhones. Regular updates closing loopholes that hackers have used to jailbreak, and even bricking of phones that it detects have been tampered with. While not illegal it will be a lot riskier jailbreaking your phone this time round.
PreviousComments on this post
Hey David
Only apple would hold this control so tightly.
I have seen a good use of AIM to send text messages
http://db.tidbits.com/article/9690
And yes how annoying is it to have two computers and an iphone with different libraries, apparently you have to create two same playlist of both computers and sync them !!
Utz
2 playlists is one thing but you would have to have both systems have identical everything, that means video, music, photos etc. as it won't let you take music from one system and video from another.
The most annoying is when I am at work and I see a video I want to buy from the Apple Store and can't just buy it an sync it because I'd have to wipe all my music pics and videos just to get that 1 video. And before I signed up to mobile me I think it even wiped your synced contacts - madness.
MobileMe - what a mess - my contacts are all different on my three machines. It supposed to work now, I am told to build the core database on line but its not the simplicity one expects from apple. Answer get one Mac, one Phone ??
or have a phone for each computer!
I have no real world knowledge of the i phone, but...would it not be possible to divorce the i phone from apple, meaning of course no more updates, but surely alternative ones would become available.
As for the unloclocking of the i phone being perfectly legal, then apple could be charged with vandalism for everyone that they brick.
Recking someones property is still illegal, is it not?
Oh it s just occured to me. There is probably some nasty clause that
states the i phone still belongs to apple...
regards rog
apparently it isn't illegal to jailbreak your iphone - it is your property but it is illegal to teach others how to do it - go figure.
Apple provide a warranty so if used as intended and something goes wrong they must repair or replace. If however, something goes wrong as a result of you using non-apple approved software even if caused by an Apple update they are under no obligation to assist you. Unless you could prove the update intentially harmed your phone.
What is illegal is some apps maybe direct pirate copies of app store apps or infringe copyright or IP.
Ok....I m puzzled as to why the i phone is restricted to one operator....maybe it s a way of saving the webs bandwidth from overload.....it s obvious that apple are some way ahead, but it s only a matter of time before others catchup, that means competition big time. In time these devices will have enough capacity to also act as mobile servers, oh wait a moment, if we could get to the stage of self servicing or virtually maintainance free storage, then we could get on with embedding servers in lamposts etc to take much of the burden of central servers.....
This is pretty much what 4 on demand does with your computer,with its kontinki K service. It steals your bandwith and uses your machine as a server to other host computers, and unless it s manually stopped it puts it self into startup and nicks your bandwidth even when your not browsing!!
How unfair is that to jo puplic.....
Apple are trying to release iPhone with only 1 operator per country so they have greater leverage. If you want our phone you have to give us what we want. This includes adding network features to support things like visual voicemail, conference calling and edge and giving up part of the call revenue to Apple. Benefits to the consumer in that the operators were forced to have all the features the phone is capable of - other manufacturers have had features in their phones that just weren't used in some countries as the operators couldn't be bothered to support it. It is also bad for the consumer as to make up for the investment required to add features and give revenue to Apple translates into higher charges for the handsets, more expensive tariffs and longer contracts.
As to your comments about 4 OD. P2P is the common place and makes many services possible that otherwise would make it impossible to provide as a free service. By getting you to pass on data you are already downloading/streaming to another user rather than have every user get every byte of data from the source server means greater speed for the user and lower bandwidth costs to the host. Running while you are not using the 4OD service seems a little unfair but it may not be using your system as a server at this time. I have not used 4OD before but I imagine it is a mainly a streaming service. P2P streaming is the sizzle at the moment as recently commented on by Sebnem Oeztunali when discussing the BBC iPlayer on BBC backstage email list. If it is a streaming service you do not store a large amount of data on your system at any one time and so I imagine there is nothing for you to be hosting or sharing when you are not streaming a video. This is unless they put data on your system to host when you are not viewing video which sound supremely dodgy but is probably covered in the terms you agree to when installing 4OD. It's for the dodgy side effects of installing apps like Sky Anytime, 4OD and Realplayer that I don't use video services that require their own invasive proprietary software.
Ok, the apple thing makes sense now.
As for 4 OD, I remember that when it came to the uninstalation, it went kicking and screaming, and tried to leave the k service behind!
When 4 OD was on my rig, the BBC i player would ask permission to run the k service.
Now i ve noticed that channel 4 offer a simplified streaming service now, without having to use OD software or any login info, a much better idea
sky anytime actually stopped my apache server from running properly. It used ports needed by apache/MySQL and couldn't be configured differently.
Looks like there are more cracks for Apple firmware making it as easy as doing a restore - I'll still wait and see if ppl get bricked.
Thats just pure cheek!
Sometimes I get the impression that after the hard slog in their infancy, having to always be nice and put the customer first, that some of these huge corps know and even enjoy treating customers with contempt. When you are a small customer driven outfit, you have to pander to some very childish whims, you see the worst of people and as you expand the rot sets in. The ads may be great,
and the firm can appear nice, but in the real world......well we know the rest.
I don't see as treating customers with contempt. I see it as a combination of ignorance, incompetence and arrogance.
It is evident with a lot of big corps especially when entering a new area they have no experience in. They make mistakes because they do not have the experience or they outsource tasks to companies that offer a good price but are not very good or they look at their user base and cater only to what they see as the majority.
For example some of the online TV players came out with players that would only work on Windows XP with Internet Explorer. So alienated users that preferred another browser, used Vista, mac, Linux. Ironically the tech savvy who would be the main users of the service would not be Windows XP IE users.
Hi David...
Was just in the middle of a reply and the hard drive on my test rig failed!! I was expecting it after six years though. So now i m up and running again with a bigger drive. Great fun it was to, it s a laptop, and whilst I could get get a new drive for it, i couldn t get a toolkit to undo the microscopic star screws. So there I was with kitchen knives and a pair of nail scissors, battling away. Got there inthe end though.
I get your point about the corps. I think they are a nuisance!!
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