Apple Modifies Boot ROM on Revised iPhone 3GS Models to Hinder Jailbreaking

[gadgetdad]

Can't Apple just allow customization and backgrounding capibilites?

Its a shame but at least my iPhone went up in value overnight! I guess I'm staying at 3.1.2 so not to forever lose my jailbreak.

 

[blackcrayon]

Whatever workaround that is being used to Jailbreak a phone, something some users do by choice, is a security hole. Otherwise it wouldn't work. Jailbreaking an iPhone isn't a feature of the device, it's a security flaw.

And yes, it does affect me if some genius who figured out how to circumvent the security of the iPhones boot ROM also figures out a way to use that exploit to bug my phone.

This is like saying that Apple shouldn't plug any security holes in any of its products and allow people to choose what virus, spyware, or trojans to contaminate their computers with.

I see what you're saying, but you realize at this point jailbreaking is a very deliberate process that requires connecting your phone via USB to your computer,downloading and running a special program, watching as it works on your phone, in some cases holding down buttons to put your phone in restore mode... Im pretty sure the "Security" apple is preventing against at this point is the "Security" against jailbreaking... Early on though there were some flaws that could be exploited right from the phone so it's probably a good thing those were fixed...

And Apple *does* allow people to choose which virus, spyware, or trojans to contaminate their computers with... You're just an admin password away from having your home directory (or more) wiped by a package installer...

 

[enent]

I'm done with the iPhone. So much potential lost...

Horrible Carrier -

A 3 year old UI (for those of you who haven't seen the things being done on WebOS and Android/SenseUI, you won't get it.

Anal control issues

Ignoring user feedback

A HORRIBLE Carrier

and last but not least - A horrible carrier - WITH A RENEWED EXCLUSIVITY CONTRACT!!!!


Android here I come.

 

[Hunts121]

You do have the option.

It's called Windows Mobile.

Actually, the new one coming from HTC (its not out yet I don't think) the HD2 looks pretty nice I have to say. I'm good with my iphone for now.

 

[samcraig]

I dont know anyone with an iphone who ISNT jailbroken. apple wont be selling nearly as many iphones, so they better hope the dev team hurries up and releases the new jailbreak. also, so many people here are advocating apple, and i really wish apple would lock down their OS X and only let them use apple approved apps just to make sure they dont "pirate".....douches

That's your personal experience. The only people I "know" who actually have a jailbroken phone post here. I don't know a single person "in real life" who has a jailbroken phone. And I would venture to guess that out of the MILLIONS of iPhones sold - MILLIONS are not jailbroken. Which means this little change might affect a percentage of the population who might buy an iPhone - it's negligible in the scheme of things in terms of what Apple considers acceptable losses.

 

[RiverFox]

The part of the story that bothers me is not that Apple is locking down the bootloader, or that people are hacking the iPhone to jailbreak or unlock it. The part that bothers me is:

Recent data from mobile advertising firm Pinch Media reveals that it has seen nearly four million jailbroken devices on its ad network, with 38% of those using at least one pirated application.​

Why does Pinch Media get such a deep look into the devices that it can tell not only that the phone has been jailbroken, but what apps are on the phone and whether they are pirated or not!? This is way beyond reasonable and, in my mind at least, constitutes a serious privacy breach. If they can see the pirated/not pirated status of all the apps on the phone, how do I know they can't see into the apps - like contact lists, email, etc? Even if they can't, how would you feel about a website that gathered information about all the software (and the licensing) on your computer when you visited?

I also noticed that too. How do [Pinch] they know this? How did they arrive at the 4M number? They had to use some kind of information harvester to get that, and if that's the case, I don't remember signing anything that gave that company the right to scan my device.

I find this a little un-nerving to say the least.

 

[blackcrayon]

That's your personal experience. The only people I "know" who actually have a jailbroken phone post here. I don't know a single person "in real life" who has a jailbroken phone. And I would venture to guess that out of the MILLIONS of iPhones sold - MILLIONS are not jailbroken. Which means this little change might affect a percentage of the population who might buy an iPhone - it's negligible in the scheme of things in terms of what Apple considers acceptable losses.

Let's assume the numbers in the article aren't suspect....

4 MILLION jailbroken phones? That's quite a few. If there were as few people jailbreaking as you suggest, Apple probably wouldn't bother with trying to fight them The better question would be how many people would still be able to use or want to own an iPhone if they couldn't jailbreak...

 

[Cupertino95014]

Wen will apple understand jailbreaking helps them to sell iPhones. If there's No jailbreak I'm personally not buying another iPhone.

Apple would love to have as a financial advisor as they are doing a terrible job selling iPhones. Have you looked at their balance sheet lately? Apple is having record years and one of the more successful tech companies in the last 5 years.

They aren't in the market for selling the most units. They want to sell a product the users will love and attach themselves to.

Here's a business secret

Don't ever give your customer 100% of the features because they will never upgrade. You give them a product with an approval rate of 80% and those happy folks will jump at the next product opportunity. ZOMG it has video!

Apple is a corporation, they strive to maximize profits while delivering lovely shiny products.

 

[Hunts121]

Let's assume the numbers in the article aren't suspect....

4 MILLION jailbroken phones? That's quite a few. If there were as few people jailbreaking as you suggest, Apple probably wouldn't bother with trying to fight them The better question would be how many people would still be able to use or want to own an iPhone if they couldn't jailbreak...

I'd still keep the phone, I didn't jailbreak til OS 3.0 and I got a long just fine. I prefer the features I've gained by jailbreaking but if I couldn't anymore it wouldn't be the end of the world.

 

[HLdan]

The people in this thread saying "good" are just flat out wrong.

Not everyone uses jailbreaking to pirate software. personally, I use it to make life easier - Adding a calendar to my home screen, theming my springboard, making my connections easier to control, allowing me to run programs in the background, etc..

There are a lot of amazing uses for jailbreaking and its sad to see that a few idiots are going to destroy it by stealing software.

Oh please, stop trying to justify reasons as to why jailbreaking is a good thing and not bad. This is the same crap type argument that people use about torrents. I just love when people say not all torrent downloads are illegal. I beg to differ that even 10% of torrent downloads are legally approved, verified and promoted by the owners of the software.

This pirating crap needs to stop, you can't just modify it for the "good" people, the whole outfit needs to stop. Good for Apple!

 

[Hunts121]

Oh please, stop trying to justify reasons as to why jailbreaking is a good thing and not bad. This is the same crap type argument that people use about torrents. I just love when people say not all torrent downloads are illegal. I beg to differ that even 10% of torrent downloads are legally approved, verified and promoted by the owners of the software.

This pirating crap needs to stop, you can't just modify it for the "good" people, the whole outfit needs to stop. Good for Apple!

wow...I jailbreak and I don't pirate apps...but I still must be a bad person from this blanket statement

 

[kingtj]

It's all stupid, really ....

On one hand, my iPhone isn't jailbroken and it's not that big a deal to me. I ran a jailbroken one in the past, but that was back when a lot of the best apps were being released in that community. Now, with the app store in full swing and hundreds of thousands of things, free and for-pay, available there, I just don't have the incentive to "hack" the phone like I once did.

On the other hand though, Apple is caught up in this pointless "back and forth" of trying to prevent people from doing things on the phone they want to do on it. The real solution, IMO, would be for Apple to embrace these hackers, similar to the way Tivo did with their set-top boxes. Not saying it needs to be officially supported -- but at least make no active attempt to block jailbreaking, and perhaps even put up a web page about it, with links to the people with tools that make it possible. Explain, if they want, that doing it will "void your warranty with Apple" and is "unsupported". But acknowledge it exists, and make it clear that Apple is "ok" with it, as long as you don't cheat people out of money they deserve for programs they're selling in the official app store. (Just like the iPods, remind people that stealing music is wrong, but let THEM decide for themselves if they're going to put those "stolen" MP3s on the player.)

This isn't very surprising.....of course mine isn't jailbroken so I'm not really affected. But it sucks for those 4 million other users....

 

[ed724]

Sweet !! How many dishonest people make an attempt to and successfully get a replacement phone from Apple when theirs gets bricked on a jailbreak attempt ?

 

[RangerXML]

I'm wondering if I can sell my iPhone 3Gs OS 3.0.1 pre bootROM refresh for enough to buy an unlocked model from Europe? I just found out tethering works on downgraded iPhones, so I could get it to 3.0.1 and use tethering, I don't care about jail breaking as long as I can tether.

 

[mrJnC]

It's interesting to note that without the work of jailbreaking community, we'd all still be running webapps. And Apple never would have been motivated to create the app store.

Seems like now that Apple has the golden egg, it's going to try to kill the goose that laid it.

 

[kingtj]

Only agree with SOME of this ....

Horrible carrier? Check!

3 year old UI?? So what?! Does a UI automatically get "stale" or "moldy" after an expiration date? I didn't know they were like food? Sorry, but a good UI is a good UI, period. MANY people really like the iPhone's UI and find it vastly superior to anything they used before. Android might improve on it, and that's great ... but it doesn't make the iPhone's UI suddenly "go bad".

Anal control issues? I'd say no more than ANY cellphone provider! Verizon couldn't even live with all the file xfer features being left enabled for bluetooth on the lowly Razr phones they provided! I've run across countless times when a carrier insisted on crippled firmware being loaded into new phones they offered, to make sure you couldn't do things with the phone they didn't like.

I'm done with the iPhone. So much potential lost...

Horrible Carrier -

A 3 year old UI (for those of you who haven't seen the things being done on WebOS and Android/SenseUI, you won't get it.

Anal control issues

Ignoring user feedback

A HORRIBLE Carrier

and last but not least - A horrible carrier - WITH A RENEWED EXCLUSIVITY CONTRACT!!!!


Android here I come.

 

[bruinsrme]

I'm surprised to see that high a percentage of jailbreakers using pirated apps. There's absolutely no validation done on these numbers. They could be wildly innaccurate. They could be ass numbers, as in pulled out of. That's what it sounds like. In my circle of friends who jailbreak, no one uses pirated apps. The paid apps are just too cheap to bother. It's about accessing features you can't get otherwise.

I have 2 in our group that pirate all their apps. its extremely laughable at how many time I am fixing their phones because the pirated apps are junk.
The rest of the circle has pirated in the past but it seems to have worn off. Plus many of the group have multiple devices in their families so purchasing the apps is far less work.
my break down on apps of 147 apps
86% -free or promo
11% - <$3
3% ->$3
0% -pirated loaded

I enjoy some of the third party apps and themeing as you can tell but I guess that is criminal.

i am looking forward to the new android platforms being introduced.

 

[pmjoe]

Recent data from mobile advertising firm Pinch Media reveals that it has seen nearly four million jailbroken devices on its ad network, with 38% of those using at least one pirated application. Among iPhone applications that have been cracked and made available for pirating, Pinch Media notes that about a third of the total installations of those applications are pirated copies.

Methinks this ad firm apparently has access to way too much information from your phone.

While I could see them getting some info about which app is accessing their ads, seems like they'd have to dig pretty deep to get whether or not an iPhone was jailbroken. Knowing if an app was pirated would also mean they are tracking who is using apps viewing/accessing their ads, even if you don't tap on the ad.

If you even use an app that displays ads, big brother is watching you.

 

[whooleytoo]

So would you advocate this same DRM being applied to Mac OSX? It's easy for apple to implement. All Intel Mac's come with the necessary hardware. Sure you might not be able to run the program you wrote without a blessing from apple, but at least all those programmers who pay apple to "authorize" their apps will get paid.

If you argue for this on the iPhone then the same argument can be used for OSX.

Would I advocate DRM on OSX? Probably not:

- Effective & unobtrusive DRM would be more difficult on OSX, since usage patterns are different and more complex on a Mac than on an iPhone.

- The incentive for piracy is greater on OSX, since the application price is far, far higher. Hence someone is always going to go to that effort to crack any DRM system, and many people are going to risk lawsuits/malware to get it.

- Less need for it since there's no "contract" with Macs, thus no need to enforce contract terms such as no VOIP over 3G.

- But mostly: it would be very difficult to change now. If they launched a new device (iTablet?) in which all apps are DRM'ed, people would more readily accept it; but not on the Mac after years of an open app market.

(To be honest, I actually think we may see app distribution substantially locked down in the future; not for piracy reasons, but for security. But that's a whole other thread).

I paid full whack for my iPhone to get it on Ready to Go. No subsidies here. I'm waiting for O2 to start handing out unlock codes.

The lack of unlock codes once the contract term is complete is ridiculous, and AIUI, the competition authority here are investigating it here in Ireland. If you've paid full price for the phone - in particular - you should be able to switch to any compatible network, without having to dump your handset.

 

[bruinsrme]

Sweet !! How many dishonest people make an attempt to and successfully get a replacement phone from Apple when theirs gets bricked on a jailbreak attempt ?

I dont know please tell us how many?

 

[RiverFox]

You can't 'brick' a phone from a failed JB/ Just DFU it back to life. (And I can't stand the word 'brick' used that way...)

I say, I bought the phone, it's mine, I can do anything I want to it, to better its functionality and my personal enjoyment.

It goes back to the arguments of GM telling you, you can't get bolt-ons after the same has been made. Want a new FM/XM/GPS/touchscreen radio for you car? NO - you're stuck with the 8-track AM/FM we put in. kinda, like that.

I bought the car, I would like to add a fancy radio, GPS, alarm system, etc, etc, to make ownership fun.

 

[ed724]

I dont know please tell us how many?

It was a question, not a comment. ????????????????????

 

[couto27]

Apple would love to have as a financial advisor as they are doing a terrible job selling iPhones. Have you looked at their balance sheet lately? Apple is having record years and one of the more successful tech companies in the last 5 years.

They aren't in the market for selling the most units. They want to sell a product the users will love and attach themselves to.

jailbreakers dont understand that .

most of the iphone users are coming from a windows world . where they have their pirates copies ,and all programs are copies, and cracked programs, and most was free, except the hardware.

their jailbreaker mentality is like the ghostnet .
-hackers are cool etc, i do this and that bla bla bla.
-until they rip your bank account ...look how cool they are , seing you broke....

 

[dZp]

The part of the story that bothers me is not that Apple is locking down the bootloader, or that people are hacking the iPhone to jailbreak or unlock it. The part that bothers me is:

Recent data from mobile advertising firm Pinch Media reveals that it has seen nearly four million jailbroken devices on its ad network, with 38% of those using at least one pirated application.​

Why does Pinch Media get such a deep look into the devices that it can tell not only that the phone has been jailbroken, but what apps are on the phone and whether they are pirated or not!? This is way beyond reasonable and, in my mind at least, constitutes a serious privacy breach. If they can see the pirated/not pirated status of all the apps on the phone, how do I know they can't see into the apps - like contact lists, email, etc? Even if they can't, how would you feel about a website that gathered information about all the software (and the licensing) on your computer when you visited?

I feel the same as you, but apparently not everybody minds. I've approached the snitching subject once in these forums and the following 2 responses were that it was no different than a web site knowing your IP address.
That's it. And the thread went dead.

I also noticed that too. How do [Pinch] they know this? How did they arrive at the 4M number? They had to use some kind of information harvester to get that, and if that's the case, I don't remember signing anything that gave that company the right to scan my device.

I find this a little un-nerving to say the least.

Check out the following site gathering info on what applications send what data home.
http://i-phone-home.blogspot.com/

Luckily, with a jailbroken iPhone, you can block all those calls. And NO, it not only concerns piracy... it's about privacy.

 

[Cupertino95014]

It's interesting to note that without the work of jailbreaking community, we'd all still be running webapps. And Apple never would have been motivated to create the app store.

Seems like now that Apple has the golden egg, it's going to try to kill the goose that laid it.

too funny. Apple had app store in development during 07 while trying to finish 1.1.4 release. It wasn't until July 08? when it was officially released.

Apple had to create the SDK and work out deals with large developers to get the wheel rolling.