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Consequences of iOS 7 as a non-developer

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Paragonal17

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 8, 2013
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Before I begin, I just want to preface that I don't have IOS 7 on my phone (or any idevice) and I have no intentions of putting it on them until the GM release.

I'm just curious what are the consequences (legally) of installing it if you aren't a developer? Or does Apple not care?

If Apple did do something, would the worst be just deactivating your device? Being sued? Jail (lol)?

Just been pondering this after being a viewer of the forums for several months and reading people's comments. Some say it's illegal, others that it's legal. Just getting conflicting information and want some clarification.

Thanks! :)
 
Non-devs can register multiple devices but I am not sure if they're supposed to belong to the dev.
 
If Apple cared who installed it they would locked it out to un-developers like they have done with previous updates. They are just using the people who have the intelligence and will to update to iOS7 as extra testers.
 
IFRIT said:
If Apple cared who installed it they would locked it out to un-developers like they have done with previous updates. They are just using the people who have the intelligence and will to update to iOS7 as extra testers.
Click to expand...

Can't say they're using non-devs because they're not allowing non-devs to submit bug reports.
 
GoCubsGo said:
Can't say they're using non-devs because they're not allowing non-devs to submit bug reports.
Click to expand...

Surely there is some background process that monitors crashes and errors and such like i'd presume and sends it off to Apple.
 
Paragonal17 said:
Before I begin, I just want to preface that I don't have IOS 7 on my phone (or any idevice) and I have no intentions of putting it on them until the GM release.

I'm just curious what are the consequences (legally) of installing it if you aren't a developer? Or does Apple not care?

If Apple did do something, would the worst be just deactivating your device? Being sued? Jail (lol)?

Just been pondering this after being a viewer of the forums for several months and reading people's comments. Some say it's illegal, others that it's legal. Just getting conflicting information and want some clarification.

Thanks! :)
Click to expand...

PM me any questions, man. Running 7 on two iDevices. Didn't feel like paying 99 bucks just to test the beta.
 
IFRIT said:
If Apple cared who installed it they would locked it out to un-developers like they have done with previous updates.
Click to expand...

And how exactly did they do this previously?
The current method checks for developer registration only during activation.
How did it work before?
 
Gjwilly said:
And how exactly did they do this previously?
The current method checks for developer registration only during activation.
How did it work before?
Click to expand...

There's a work around, that according to the forums, is fairly easy to exploit.
Which is why I'm wanting to know how illegal (if it is) this method is, or if it's simply just violating some user terms which could result in nothing really except no Apple store help/voided warranty.

Anyone know?
 
Like I said before, Apple doesn't care who uses it. If they did it would have been stopped by iOS 6 presumably. a lot of companies don't care who use their betas since people usually help out with the process by submitting bugs. If a bug is common then apple works to fix it, if it's a few isolated instances it doesn't have a high priority.
 
tymaster50 said:
Like I said before, Apple doesn't care who uses it. .
Click to expand...

Is not that they don't care, they likely do care a lot. But you have to pick your battles and they know this one they would lose. So they just stick to no in store service and locking up your phone if you restore, it crashes out etc. and of course cutting off accounts that are just to get folks 'official' access
 
Paragonal17 said:
There's a work around, that according to the forums, is fairly easy to exploit.
Which is why I'm wanting to know how illegal (if it is) this method is, or if it's simply just violating some user terms which could result in nothing really except no Apple store help/voided warranty.

Anyone know?
Click to expand...

I know about the exploit and that's why I asked what I asked.
The "exploit" relies upon the verification of eligibility that Apple conducts and when they conduct it.
People claiming that the betas used to be locked down and now aren't have never explained what exactly has changed.

But to answer your question:
There are no legal repercussions for trying the beta.
 
charlituna said:
Is not that they don't care, they likely do care a lot. But you have to pick your battles and they know this one they would lose. So they just stick to no in store service and locking up your phone if you restore, it crashes out etc. and of course cutting off accounts that are just to get folks 'official' access
Click to expand...

Well yeah they don't want any and everyone going around installing it and complaining their phone doesn't work. If I read correctly, this whole beta without a dev account thing started with iOS 6, which means they changed something that could likely be easily changed back. I haven't been locked out my phone yet except for when I erased all content and settings in an attempt to try to restore from iCloud, other than that it runs just fine.
 
They only thing Apple will do is deactivate phones that don't have a UDID registered, like they did back in 2011.
 
mrapplegate said:
Yes there is, but the user can disable it.
General -> About -> Diagnostics & Usage, send or not send.
Click to expand...
Yeah but next time you sync with iTunes it sends that data to Apple through iTunes.

----------
LoloBond said:
They only thing Apple will do is deactivate phones that don't have a UDID registered, like they did back in 2011.
Click to expand...
This is not true and never happened.
 
Last edited:
Regardless of what Apple would do, just remember it's a beta for developers so that Apple can gather feedback; it's not a public preview.

Things will be broken or break during the process and the experience will not be optimal.

(Full disclosure; I'm not a developer nor have I ever used a beta for iOS)
 
Paragonal17 said:
Before I begin, I just want to preface that I don't have IOS 7 on my phone (or any idevice) and I have no intentions of putting it on them until the GM release.

I'm just curious what are the consequences (legally) of installing it if you aren't a developer? Or does Apple not care?

If Apple did do something, would the worst be just deactivating your device? Being sued? Jail (lol)?

Just been pondering this after being a viewer of the forums for several months and reading people's comments. Some say it's illegal, others that it's legal. Just getting conflicting information and want some clarification.

Thanks! :)
Click to expand...

Nothing will happen to you legally. Have fun! :)
 
TwistedPain said:
Nothing will happen to you legally. Have fun! :)
Click to expand...

Haha. I get the vibe you think I'm going to install it. But really I'm not. I was just curious.

Besides, with my luck, I'd install it and my entire phone would implode.

Thanks for the clarification.
 
Apple obviously knows non developers are using it. Much like they patch jailbreaks, they could easily prevent unauthorized users from running iOS 7. However, this larger beta test pool sends them more crash reports, this allows them to release a more solid public release of iOS, so they look the other way pretty much.
 
Paragonal17 said:
Or does Apple not care?

If Apple did do something, would the worst be just deactivating your device? Being sued? Jail (lol)?
Click to expand...
I doubt Apple cares much. You're probably more likely to be hit by lightning than get sued. You can't be jailed, it takes a lot more than installing a beta to be charged with criminal copyright infringement.

If installing betas becomes a pandemic that causes major hassle for their tech support/repair people, I suppose they might put technical measures in the next version to make it harder to install.

Paragonal17 said:
Just been pondering this after being a viewer of the forums for several months and reading people's comments. Some say it's illegal, others that it's legal. Just getting conflicting information and want some clarification.
Click to expand...
It's copyright infringement and illegal. When you download the beta you are making a copy of it without permission, and when you install it you're making yet another copy without permission.
 
bobbysmith said:
I doubt Apple cares much. You're probably more likely to be hit by lightning than get sued. You can't be jailed, it takes a lot more than installing a beta to be charged with criminal copyright infringement.

>snip<

It's copyright infringement and illegal. When you download the beta you are making a copy of it without permission, and when you install it you're making yet another copy without permission.
Click to expand...

To clarify, while copyright infringement is illegal, unless you are doing something like mass selling copyrighted material, it's a civil matter, which means it is up to the copyright owner to assert their rights. So in this case, it's up to Apple to sue you or send cease-and-desist letters or whatever. The government doesn't get involved, so you won't go to jail over it. And if Apple did sue people, they could probably get court orders to tell people to stop using betas without proper authorization, but in order to get any damages, they'd have to prove that they have received financial damage. Which, in the case of unreleased beta software, would be impossible to show. So basically, all Apple can do to people using iOS beta is tell them to stop using it. And while it might be worth their while to go after the websites distributing beta downloads and selling UDID slots, it's hardly worth their while going after individual end users. So practically speaking, if you are just an end user using the beta on your personal iOS device(s), there's no legal consequence.
 
Gjwilly said:
How?
And please be specific.
Click to expand...

I'm very familiar with the exploit the jaikbreak process. So how exactly are you disagreeing that Apple permits jail breaking? They patch jaikbreak at their earliest opportunity.
 
Gjwilly said:
How?
And please be specific.
Click to expand...

They can institute a UDID check when updating to the software file via iTunes or OTA. Additionally, they can put some sort of unique identifier into the beta files downloaded from the dev center so you can only use a file if it was downloaded from the dev center. This would prevent people from downloading beta files from hosting sites and such.
 
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