iPhone 1.1.1 Aftermath

[bigmc6000]

I am not a lawyer or anything so I was wondering how do you "Hack" a physical piece of property that you own? What I mean by that is you 'own it' so you can not hack it...if apple owned the phone and you started messing with it then it would considered "Hacked" since you did not fully own the phone...you were just borrowing it from them. So if you fully own the phone and apple does not own any part of that phone then it can not ever be Hacked

Now if Apple was to make the phone inoperable (like they did with this lock down) they have in fact HACKED the phone that you own?

so who then is evil?

Clever argument but no - the iPhone 1.1.1 firmware was OPTIONAL and was clearly stated that it COULD brick your phone. No one forced you to update just as no one forced you to buy the iPhone in the first place. It is your property and you have the choice of updating or not. You didn't have to and Apple warned you of the potential consequences if you didn't use it as they had intended and you knew ALL of this from the beginning...

 

[ngdesign]

I am not a lawyer or anything so I was wondering how do you "Hack" a physical piece of property that you own? What I mean by that is you 'own it' so you can not hack it...if apple owned the phone and you started messing with it then it would considered "Hacked" since you did not fully own the phone...you were just borrowing it from them. So if you fully own the phone and apple does not own any part of that phone then it can not ever be Hacked

Now if Apple was to make the phone inoperable (like they did with this lock down) they have in fact HACKED the phone that you own?

so who then is evil?

chicken first or the egg first???

 

[whatever]

By your logic you don't get it. Had he adjusted the shift points in software and everything was fine THEN he took it in for service and they said they installed an update but your car won't run then the dealer would be at fault. Get it now?

Do you know exactly, code wise, what unlocking or hacking your iPhone did to your iPhone? Do you know for a fact that a 3rd party app didn't substitute a line of code or removed a file and this is what caused it to brick?

I've seen plenty of applications in the past, choke because one file was missing. What if 1.1.1 was looking for a particular file, one called AT&T graphic which lives in a particular directory. All this file does if provide the AT&T branding on the iPhone, however unknown to the hackers, Apple's 1.1.1 upgrade looks for this particular file to determine which country this iPhone was sold for. And when midway during the upgrade it doesn't find the file, so it can't re-authorize the phone to work, thus creating a brick. Now is this really Apple's fault!

All I know for sure is that I bricked my iPhone (made it unusable) installing a 3rd party application and before I researched how to fix it, I decided to try the 1.1.1 install and a few minutes later my phone was good as new!

I think blaming Apple is unjustified, granted it would be nice for Apple to release an SDK for the iPhone and perhaps they will with 10.5, but hack is called a hack for a reason!

What about those poor souls who live north of the boarder and aren't allowed to be a precious ATT customer? Where is our "mums the word" announcement?

They have four options:

1. Wait
2. Move
3. By an iPod Touch
4. Spend their money elsewhere

 

[stoneii]

linuxos77

linuxos77 do not try an over think it, just smile and drink the cool aid

if you took your car into the shop and they found that you used Mobile 1 instead of Quacker state and therefore voided your warranty because of that modification;..well, that would bassicaly suck.....but if they then proceeded to destroy your car (so that you could not drive it anymore..much like the lock down update did to the iPhones) Then I would think that you would be a little ticked....but only a only little from what I can tell

 

[Whiskerdreams]

Not the same...

No other smartphones have this problem, why should the iPhone?

No one should be keeping sensitive data on their phones in the first place, especially unencrypted.

The iPhone is not like any other smartphone. The iPhone is truly a computer. It is a computer that is running a version of Unix called Mac OSX. Think about that. It can support logins and accounts, etc...

Your absolutely right that noboby should be keeping sensitive data on their phones but I must ask... What planet are you living on? There is a lot of things that people shouldn't do with their computers too but they do... That's why we have viruses, worms, trojans, etc...

 

[linuxos77]

True..
The truth is we paid for the phone, and it's ours.
And we didn't pay to "rent" the iphone.

AAAAAAAND.... The phone is yours. They do not force you to run their updates. Don't run their update, stay at 1.0.2 and continue on with your 3rd party apps and using your iPhone on T-Mobile. What they're saying is, if you want support, use the phone for it's intended purpose and keep the software as shipped. If I put performance parts and swap out the car's computer in my new car think Toyota/Honda/Ford etc will still honor my warranty?! Why is this so hard to understand? You buy a product, do whatever the hell you want with it... But if you modify or use the product beyond its intended purpose don't expect support form the company you bought it from.

 

[macUser2007]

So, if I mod my XBox.... Car.... anything, and then the vendor performs maintenance under the assumption the hardware is as shipped upon purchase, are they responsible to honor my warranty??

Hmm, yeah, if all you did was to install new "non-official" ringtones on your Moto, or even if you unlocked it yourself. Or if all you did is install a new skin on your XBox, or if you used Transcode 360 to get around the supported codec limitations.

Few companies go so far out of their way to screw their loyal customers. QuarkXPress was one (with almost as fervent followers) and look where they are now....

I love Apple stuff, but this is a BIG f...k up, regardless of whether Apple did it on purpose, or as Engadget implies, because of bad quality control. People are rightfully pissed.

 

[Digital Skunk]

But by that analogy I can do you one further. He takes his car into the shop and the dealer says there is an update that lets your car go in reverse. The owner says it should have gone in reverse in the first place. The dealer says you can install the update but it might render your car useless. The owner ponders and is pissed off that it won't go in reverse but takes the chance. The car is now useless. He asks the dealer to revert his car back to the old firmware so he can at least drive it and the dealer says Tuff Luck buddy, I warned you.

Same as iphone. The iphone did not have video out enabled. With the update it does. This is a feature all ipods have and should have been in the release. It also fixes the speaker phone volume problem among other things.

Touche... when you consider the iPhone's lack of certain features then it make the discussion a little more interesting. See next comment below....

I am not a lawyer or anything so I was wondering how do you "Hack" a physical piece of property that you own? What I mean by that is you 'own it' so you can not hack it...if apple owned the phone and you started messing with it then it would considered "Hacked" since you did not fully own the phone...you were just borrowing it from them. So if you fully own the phone and apple does not own any part of that phone then it can not ever be Hacked

Now if Apple was to make the phone inoperable (like they did with this lock down) they have in fact HACKED the phone that you own?

so who then is evil?

This is the myth that some consumers fail to realize, it was talked to death in the early days of Adobe's and other software maker's growth. You don't own the software that is used on the hardware you buy. You own a license to that software that is basically an agreement to use it under the providers circumstances. For example, you can't copy Mac OS X and give it to a friend who is running an older version. The biggest thing to remember is that there is a software agreement that many people (including myself) don't read, we just agree to it and go on with our lives.

The software that is used for the iPhone (including iTunes and Mac OS X and other related software) is not ours to hack, we just bought the right to use it. Cars are a different thing because i don't own one and I am sure that they have some legal limits to what you can do with the software.

 

[Stella]

Well, that is where you are wrong. Other smartphones are just as capable as the iPhone. The only difference between other smartphones and the iPhone is the UI.

Tell me - what do you think the iPhone can do that no other smartphone can't? In your reply, please state real world examples / applications.

iPhone runs mobile OSX - its a cut down version of OSX. They are not identical.

[

The iPhone is not like any other smartphone. The iPhone is truly a computer. It is a computer that is running a version of Unix called Mac OSX. Think about that. It can support logins and accounts, etc...

 

[whatever]

But by that analogy I can do you one further. He takes his car into the shop and the dealer says there is an update that lets your car go in reverse. The owner says it should have gone in reverse in the first place. The dealer says you can install the update but it might render your car useless. The owner ponders and is pissed off that it won't go in reverse but takes the chance. The car is now useless. He asks the dealer to revert his car back to the old firmware so he can at least drive it and the dealer says Tuff Luck buddy, I warned you.

Same as iphone. The iphone did not have video out enabled. With the update it does. This is a feature all ipods have and should have been in the release. It also fixes the speaker phone volume problem among other things.

No, no, no.

You are so way off.

Video Out was not a feature, but was added. As was the WiFi iTunes Music Store.

Come to think of it, I bet it's the forced placement of the iTunes Music store which disabled the added buttons on the iPhone. When we added buttons/3rd Party applications, didn't they appear left to right, however the iTunes button is on the right. Hmm.

 

[artalliance]

Anyone else feel like Steve Jobs is kinda like President Bush? Take away liberties from the people so as to protect said people from bad outside sources?

True..
The truth is we paid for the phone, and it's ours.
And we didn't pay to "rent" the iphone.

linuxos77 do not try an over think it, just smile and drink the cool aid

Man, what happened to the friendly and substantive discussion forums I grew to like????

 

[stoneii]

BigMac6000

I see were you are coming from but I ask you this, if Apples intentions were NOT MALICIOUS then why did they not provide a restore function that would unblock the phone to those owners that did not realize (yes they were dumb but you do not punish someone for being a moron) that the 'Update' was not in their interest but that of Apples?

 

[goosnarrggh]

I am not a lawyer or anything so I was wondering how do you "Hack" a physical piece of property that you own?

That's because, while you own the physical medium (the iPhone hardware itself), in the eyes of the law you don't own the software encoded in its Flash memory. Apple owns it, and they have granted you a license to use it.

What I mean by that is you 'own it' so you can not hack it...if apple owned the phone and you started messing with it then it would considered "Hacked" since you did not fully own the phone...you were just borrowing it from them. So if you fully own the phone and apple does not own any part of that phone then it can not ever be Hacked

Again, you fully own the hardware, but Apple owns the software embedded within the phone. In fact, if you were to totally erase every scrap of Apple-created software from the phone and start from scratch with your own totally original firmware, then you wouldn't be in any trouble at all as far as Apple is concerned.

(AT&T will still be asking you to fork over your monthly service fees or else pay the early termination fee.)

(Depending on how much control your new software has over the physical radio, you may be paid a visit by the FCC if your modifications cause it to fall out of compliance with their regulations...)

Of course, there'd be no question in that case, though, that if you ever wanted to go back to Apple's default firmware, then the onus would on you to ensure that a mechanism was in place to restore the factory default conditions; if you failed to plan such provisions, then you'd have nobody to blame but yourself.

As a matter of fact, Apple's own Software EULA acknowledges that you may have certain statutory rights to make some modifications to their copyrighted material. In the USA, this specifically includes the legal right to modify the firmware to allow network interoperability.

But...

Now if Apple was to make the phone inoperable (like they did with this lock down) they have in fact HACKED the phone that you own?

Surely, Apple couldn't be expected to predict which portions of firmware may have been modified by unauthorized changes. Therefore, it has to proceed on the assumption of some baseline norm, and it's perfectly within Apple's rights to use the previous officially released firmware as that norm and release its patches to simply build on it.

If you installed a change that disrupts that norm, then it's entirely reasonable to expect that Apple's patches might not work they way they are intended.

so who then is evil?

I don't think it's a question of anybody being evil.

 

[bigmc6000]

I see were you are coming from but I ask you this, if Apples intentions were NOT MALICIOUS then why did they not provide a restore function that would unblock the phone to those owners that did not realize (yes they were dumb but you do not punish someone for being a moron) that the 'Update' was not in their interest but that of Apples?

It's BigMc - I'm not a hamburger haha

Apple signed an exclusive agreement with AT&T and had the hacking gotten out of control I wouldn't even be remotely surprised if AT&T could have brought law suit against Apple to make a better effort to honor their AT&T only contract.

 

[Whiskerdreams]

Well, that is where you are wrong. Other smartphones are just as capable as the iPhone. The only difference between other smartphones and the iPhone is the UI.

Tell me - what do you think the iPhone can do that no other smartphone can't?

iPhone runs mobile OSX - its a cut down version of OSX. They are not identical.

Well if you have ever read the hacks and how they actually get into the iPhone... They use things like OpenSSH... Try that on a Blackjack... Windows Mobile is a very slimmed down version of windows. Most do not support wifi along with tcp/ip networking... The iPhone's UI is different agreed but to me the major difference between the iPhone and other phones I have seen and used like Blackberry, Treo and Blackjack do not do things like automatically switch to wifi and let you browse the internet like the iPhone does. They use some hacked up version of the internet. The iPhone can support servers thru its wifi connection... try that on a smartphone.

 

[macenforcer]

I see were you are coming from but I ask you this, if Apples intentions were NOT MALICIOUS then why did they not provide a restore function that would unblock the phone to those owners that did not realize (yes they were dumb but you do not punish someone for being a moron) that the 'Update' was not in their interest but that of Apples?

Bullseye! This is the whole problem. They are not offering a way to revert back the phone for use. That my friends is called screwing the customer.

 

[BigHat]

I bought an iPhone the day it came out. I clearly remember the activation process requiring me to agree to terms of useage, which clearly stated stipulations to the effect that I agree to not alter the hardware or software and if I did, I would lose access to warranty service.

If I was to -not- agree to those terms, I should return the unit where I purchased it. I clicked on the button indicating that I read the agreement and that I agreed to it's terms.

I presume that everyone had to go through that same process?

No one made any individual buy this $400 to $600 phone. It was a consumer's individual choice to make. Agreeing to the terms and conditions was an individual's choice to make. No one made anyone violate those terms and conditions... it was an individual's choice to make.

Furthermore, the software update posted by Apple wasn't mandatory. In days leading up to the release of the update, Apple publically warned iPhone users online that the software was likely to break phones that had been tampered with, in ways violating the original terms and conditions. In front of me, I have a screenshot of a notice offered by the 1.1.1 update. It reads "Warning: Apple has discovered that some of the unauthorized unlocking programs available on the internet may cause irreparable damage.... making unauthorized modifications to the software on your iPhone violates the iPhone software license agreement, and the inability to use your iPhone due to unauthorized software modifications is not covered under your iPhone's warranty".

No one made any iPhone owner disregard that notice, some of which was typed in boldface fonts, and install the update, anyway.

If, for some reason, I decided to violate those terms and conditions, I would hope that I would be enough of an adult to live with the consequences of my decision. At a very minimum, I would hope that people wouldn't yell at retail employees for something that the retail employee had no involvement with. The employee didn't force anyone to buy the phone, the employee didn't force anyone to agree to the terms and conditions of service, the employee didn't encourage anyone to violate those terms and conditions, the employee didn't blind anyone to the public warnings, the employee didn't force anyone to apply the update, and the employee certainly didn't write those terms and conditions.

If there's a lawsuit to be found in this, I only hope that the employee files assualt charges against the customer. That's not very realistic, obviously, but it's the only thing that makes any basic sense to me, in this scenario...

You had better be careful. Lucid, fact based posts like yours aren't tolerated around here.

More and more geeked out whining p*ssies joining everyday.

For those that think Apple deserves to be sued -- are you high?

 

[linuxos77]

linuxos77 do not try an over think it, just smile and drink the cool aid

if you took your car into the shop and they found that you used Mobile 1 instead of Quacker state and therefore voided your warranty because of that modification;..well, that would bassicaly suck.....but if they then proceeded to destroy your car (so that you could not drive it anymore..much like the lock down update did to the iPhones) Then I would think that you would be a little ticked....but only a only little from what I can tell

That's not what happened to the SIM hacks. When you SIM hacked your phone you not only had to un-jail your iPhone software (IPhone firmware), you ALSO flashed the modem INSIDE your iPhone with a completely different firmware, (ie your iPhone basically now has completely different hardware than it was shipped with). When Apple released 1.1.1 they assumed the modem would be configured how it shipped when they produced it (and rightfully so).

Back to the car scenerio, it's like you changed the timing in your car's ignition system. then brought the car Toyota for a tune up. In doing their tune up (and under the assumption your at factory settings they gank your engine). If you make unsupported modification, I don't know a single company that will support you. Say what you want, but name a single company that will let you do UNSUPPORTED modifications and continue to support you. Now, I think the fact they don't allow 3rd party apps is plain dumb business wise, but my guess is the following chain of reason:

1.) They are under contract to do anything possible to stop people from jumping cell carriers.

2.) To jump cell carriers you need to change SIM's.

3.) To change SIMS you need to reflash the modem firmware to something that will allow it

4.) By locking down the iPhone file system you prevent useres from re-flashing the SIM (and thus change carriers). Of course locking the iPhone filesystem also makes it impossible to install 3rd party apps.

 

[Whiskerdreams]

I see were you are coming from but I ask you this, if Apples intentions were NOT MALICIOUS then why did they not provide a restore function that would unblock the phone to those owners that did not realize (yes they were dumb but you do not punish someone for being a moron) that the 'Update' was not in their interest but that of Apples?

From my understanding if you take a bricked iPhone into an Apple Store and talk very nicely to the man/woman behind the counter then they might just walk it back to the lab and do some magic to bring it back to life. Also, from my understanding they don't charge for this service... I think they should charge you for this service. It's just like putting Non-Apple memory into your Mac. The first thing they do is take out the 3rd party part and then test the stuff they supplied.

 

[macenforcer]

Old lady spills McDonalds coffee on her and burns herself. She sues McDonalds for $1 million and wins. Lawsuits happen every day. Apple is Ripe for one.

YOU DON'T BRICK A CUSTOMERS PHONE! End of story.

 

[Stella]

Well, my Symbian device can do all that -
* has a third party SSH application to make SSH connections ( Putty - http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/ )
* supports WIFI / I can connect from my Mac to Phone ( for example, see above )
* roam between WIFI and GPRS / 3G internet connection ( just like iPhone can )

So, please give other examples - of what you think the iPhone do that other smartphone OSes can't?

( Symbian has its faults of course - for example, its hell to develop on - but its a very flexible OS ).

I think you over-rate the capabilities of the iPhone and at the same time, under rate other smartphones.


Edit: windows mobile can also make SSH connections -
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/links.html

Now, do you want a big long list of what the iPhone cannot do today, compared to other smartphone OSes?

Well if you have ever read the hacks and how they actually get into the iPhone... They use things like OpenSSH... Try that on a Blackjack... Windows Mobile is a very slimmed down version of windows. Most do not support wifi along with tcp/ip networking... The iPhone's UI is different agreed but to me the major difference between the iPhone and other phones I have seen and used like Blackberry, Treo and Blackjack do not do things like automatically switch to wifi and let you browse the internet like the iPhone does. They use some hacked up version of the internet. The iPhone can support servers thru its wifi connection... try that on a smartphone.

 

[ktlx]

But by that analogy I can do you one further. He takes his car into the shop and the dealer says there is an update that lets your car go in reverse. The owner says it should have gone in reverse in the first place. The dealer says you can install the update but it might render your car useless. The owner ponders and is pissed off that it won't go in reverse but takes the chance. The car is now useless. He asks the dealer to revert his car back to the old firmware so he can at least drive it and the dealer says Tuff Luck buddy, I warned you.

I don't understand why you and others keep insisting on these stupid automobile analogies that don't actually describe what's going on. Especially when it seems like the two classes of problems are pretty simple for us to wrap our arms around.

The first class is that group of people who insisted on buying an iPhone with the express purpose of not using it according to the contract, unlocked it and then applied an update after Apple broadcast all over the Internet they were not happy about the unlockers and now their iPhone is bricked. I think that's just too bad and that's what you get. I won't try any stupid analogies that aren't on point. You didn't intend to use the product as intended, changed it in a manner outside of the agreement you signed and now it doesn't work. That's unfortunate for you but I'm not going to feel sorry for you.

The second class is that group of people who purchased an iPhone, activated it with at&t but installed some third party software and then applied the update and now their iPhone is bricked. I think Apple is screwing these people over and I hope they get sued. It's just software and firmware and Apple and/or at&t should provide some mechanism to "clean" their iPhone and get it back working again. Unlike the unlockers, Apple has never been clear that installing third party software was a Sin Against Steve. Apple needs to figure out how to cut this group of users some slack.

Of course, I would argue that Apple just got done screwing all of their iPhone customers by dropping the price on an overpriced, crippled phone to begin with, but that would probably be rubbing it in.

 

[linuxos77]

Old lady spills McDonalds coffee on her and burns herself. She sues McDonalds for $1 million and wins. Lawsuits happen every day. Apple is Ripe for one.

YOU DON'T BRICK A CUSTOMERS PHONE! End of story.

Apple didn't "brick" the phones!!!! The user did. But it's not bricked... It's working as it was intended. The iPhone firmware is written for the hardware that shipped with the iPhone. the SIM hack, reflashes the modem inside the iPhone (as far as the iPhone software is concerned, the hardware changed, it doesn't know what to do with this "new modem", its not what shipped with the iPhone. If I reflash my Dell BIOS to a Linux BIOS and break my PC, will Dell support my now broken PC?? No, because I made changes to the hardware.

 

[guzhogi]

Old lady spills McDonalds coffee on her and burns herself. She sues McDonalds for $1 million and wins. Lawsuits happen every day. Apple is Ripe for one.

YOU DON'T BRICK A CUSTOMERS PHONE! End of story.

That reminds me of a time my mom & I were @ a hardware store or something and one of the employees there said that every warning you see on every device is there b/c someone did that and probably sued the company. Kinda like lawn mowers pretty much all have a warning to not put your fingers by the blades while they're moving. A lot of these things are "Well, duh!" kinda things, yet no one wants to claim responsibility for their own mistakes.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Well if you have ever read the hacks and how they actually get into the iPhone... They use things like OpenSSH... Try that on a Blackjack... Windows Mobile is a very slimmed down version of windows.

Windows Mobile does have a full TCP/IP network stack. This is evidenced by the existence of things like Skype clients. (Or by looking through the .Net compact edition API documentation for that matter.)

OpenSSH (both server and client) has been ported to Windows CE, and thus to Windows Mobile.

I don't understand why you and others keep insisting on these stupid automobile analogies that don't actually describe what's going on. Especially when it seems like the two classes of problems are pretty simple for us to wrap our arms around.

The first class is that group of people who insisted on buying an iPhone with the express purpose of not using it according to the contract, unlocked it and then applied an update after Apple broadcast all over the Internet they were not happy about the unlockers and now their iPhone is bricked. I think that's just too bad and that's what you get. I won't try any stupid analogies that aren't on point. You didn't intend to use the product as intended, changed it in a manner outside of the agreement you signed and now it doesn't work. That's unfortunate for you but I'm not going to feel sorry for you.

The second class is that group of people who purchased an iPhone, activated it with at&t but installed some third party software and then applied the update and now their iPhone is bricked. I think Apple is screwing these people over and I hope they get sued. It's just software and firmware and Apple and/or at&t should provide some mechanism to "clean" their iPhone and get it back working again. Unlike the unlockers, Apple has never been clear that installing third party software was a Sin Against Steve. Apple needs to figure out how to cut this group of users some slack.

Of course, I would argue that Apple just got done screwing all of their iPhone customers by dropping the price on an overpriced, crippled phone to begin with, but that would probably be rubbing it in.

The irony is, Apple actually has more of a legal leg to stand on in defending itself against the "3rd-party software" camp than it does against the "alternate network" camp.

Of course, I don't think they should have to pay compensation to either party.