But what about those who buy a phone and cancel their contracts with ATT but keep the phone? Surely, they are still apple customers and should be allowed to sync with itunes?
They would have activated their phones properly and wouldn't have the problem. You wouldn't need to use an activation hack if you had signed up with and then canceled the AT&T service.
Well, I am wondering how the agreements on the iphone can be valid at all, if you don't agree to them while activating on itunes. It seems to me you didn't agree to anything at that point, if you just purchased the phone but activated via other means.
Because willful ignorance doesn't get you anywhere. You have enough information to know that what you're doing is intentionally evading agreement to terms. Your use of the product is legally adequate assent to the terms of the contract given to you with said product.
Your actual agreement is measured only by objective observation, not your secret mental state while doing so.
...it's a ridiculous idea! Hardware is *not* intellectual property.
Actually, that's not entirely true. There are a number of intellectual property rights related to the hardware itself. What you're saying is that possession of the object is yours, which is true.
That does not extend to the software on the phone, however. The firmware on it most certainly is protected by law and owned wholly by Apple.
If I buy a tangible, physical piece of equipment, it most certainly IS mine to do whatever I want with it afterwards.
With the hardware. If you want to snap it in half, play with a soldering iron, or erase the memory and install something of your own on it
instead of Apple firmware (and so long as "your" firmware does not contain ANY of Apple's), go for it.
not about my right to modify the code within the phone itself.
Err, no. You have no rights to the code save a nonexclusive license for the execution of said code. You have no legal right of access to Apple's source code. If you want to modify the code and compile it yourself and keep it to yourself, that's fine. If you want to reverse engineer the binaries, you can. But they don't have to make it easy for you to install third-party code. They don't have to allow the distribution of code that infringes on any of their rights. They don't have to work around third-party code on the phones (and therefore can break whatever they want to break, whenever they want to break it).
It will probably end up for the courts to decide if Apple's official stance of "we're going to block people from unlocking our phone" is acceptable or not.
There is no need to take it that far. They can do anything they please with firmware updates, iTunes updates, or carrier network operations.
(And laws about unlocking refer to subsidized phones.)
No, they refer to all cellular handsets. It is not a qualified exception.
and *I* retain the right to modify any of that for my own personal use.
Sure. But they have the right to modify any of it for any reason they feel like, so you've gained no advantage. They still have superior interest in every aspect of the phone's firmware; AT&T likewise still has full control over how it interacts with their network.
