Is jail breaking illegal?

[TruckdriverSean]

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Forgive me if I sound like an oldhat here, but what's the difference between jailbreaking your iDevice and installing Linux on your machine that shipped with Windows?

I guess I just don't understand how you can buy a computer, and if you think the iPhone / iPad is anything less than a computer then you're mistaken, and then be told that using it in the way you choose is illegal. The whole idea is absurd.

IIRC, what Apple said was illegal wasn't the act of installing non-approved apps, but that you had to break the copy protection (and the DMCA) to do it.

Either way, I think it was just posturing. Apple, (in my estimation) cares NOTHING about geeks & enthusiasts tweaking the system, so long as typical Joe Bloe user doesn't do it.

This all goes back to Apple's determination NOT to offer "commodity" products, (generic beige box) but to instead offer a more refined product with a more refined user experience (and corresponding higher profit margin). By locking out unapproved applications, they felt they could cut out a lot of the problems faced in the PC world (the crapware and viruses that bring us over to our parent's house to clean up & fix their PC's twice a year)

As for jailbreaking, so long as it's difficult enough that only advanced users do it, (and piracy doesn't get too out of hand), I think they're ambivalent at worst, and cautiously optimistic at best.

 

[thelatinist]

Forgive me if I sound like an oldhat here, but what's the difference between jailbreaking your iDevice and installing Linux on your machine that shipped with Windows?

I guess I just don't understand how you can buy a computer, and if you think the iPhone / iPad is anything less than a computer then you're mistaken, and then be told that using it in the way you choose is illegal. The whole idea is absurd.

It was not the act of installing third-party software on your iPhone that was illegal, it was the act of circumventing the access restrictions (chroot jail) Apple placed in its software. This is no different from the fact that it is legal to make fair use of brief clips from a film in an academic context but it was, for a time, illegal to break the encryption on a DVD in order to do so.

Presumably, your Windows machine did not come with digital access restrictions that would prevent your installing Linux on it; if it had, then it would indeed be illegal to circumvent them in order to install Linux on it.

I agree that this distinction is absurd, but that does not make it any less real or legally binding.

 

[-aggie-]

No. Jailbreaking itself isn't illegal, but pirating paid apps is.

Did someone mention pirating?

Arrrrrrr matey.