Hackers 'jailbreak' Apple's pre-release iPhone OS 4 beta - Page 2

I agree that is important to be observant and not misuse terms.
But actually, I used the word "hackers" for what it was, I wasn't referring to "crackers".

I am pretty certain that I read this paragraph (almost verbatim) in another article here. This indicates that it has been repeated (copied and pasted) at least twice. Not sure this and the original article were from the same author. If not, then there could be charge of plagiarism -- even if we are talking about the same publisher.

At least this is relevant; but, the author (even if (s)he is the original writer) could have paraphrased the statements.

This tendency to copy and paste sometimes can lead to inclusion of text that simply look like fillers, One of my peeves is the citation of the publication of an earlier article from AI, as if the citation of such original article validates the current articles whichh is in itself is merely a rumor.

Good examples of the latter include articles about the mini-iPhone, the Verizon iPhone, the iterations of the iPad, all sorts of iPod models, notebooks and minis, and more -- many from analysts, blogs, or even mainstream papers -- based from "reliable" or unidentified sources.

By simple internet propagation, they become the fodder of all these debates, as if the information was already verified as fact or true.

CGC

How does that hurt Apple? I don't get it. Does it hurt Apple if somebody puts their iPhone in a blender?


Tell that to the guys who founded the company. The guys who used to build and sell Blue Boxes.

What else is consistent with or against the Apple ideology?

Jailbroken iPhone's in China number in the several of millions, grossly out-numbering the more expensive and monitored legally sold ones. The main reason is the Chinese government only allows wifi-less versions of the iPhone to be sold by Apple there.

So all those people are running code by some unknowns, when Apple could offer a method to free the device without using risky software.

Not just today.

Bill Gates said pretty much exactly what you have said in a famous letter, written decades ago. He accused this hacker organization of stealing software. He thought those guys were horrible and he wanted nothing to do with them or their methods.

The most prominent members of the organization vilified by Microsoft were Steve Jobs and his buddy Woz.

I get what you're saying but I disagree mostly.

I think Apple has every right to control app quality, and most of the arguments from the jailbreakers and the complaints by tech sites about this or that app being banned were spurious in that the rejections were based on sound objective criteria in most cases. The recent development of banning apps because of their supposedly "immorality" however, is just plain wrong in my book. This is the worst kind of censorship there is. It's censorship based on no other reason than "Apple doesn't like this," and it's unfair and (ironically) immoral of Apple to do this. There is no essential difference between saying "no apps with girls in bikinis" and "no apps with democrats." Neither has any objective reason behind it and neither app is causing any objective harm to anyone. I always stand up for what is right so I might find myself in the jailbreaker camp in the future for that reason alone, (which would be kind of doubly ironic in that I'd be standing mostly with a bunch of criminals.)

The advertising development I was referring to is the fact that the end user has no choice on the iPhone platform to cruise the web advertisement free. On the desktop, some small percentage of people like me who find the ads morally offensive, can install a plug-in to make them disappear. I see this as a sort of basic right to not look at stuff I don't want to.

Not only is this not going to be possible on the iPhone OS platform, the iAd thing is going to put the ads right in the programs. People today, are arguing that this just means the same ads we already have in the apps will be of a better quality, and they are right, but that's just today. There are already several very popular apps that are paid aps, but still have advertisements in them. Also, the fact that we will now be paying for "apps" that are actually magazine and newspaper subscriptions (and these are set to be some of the most expensive apps in the store), that will also have multiple advertisements in them has to be factored in. The presence of the iAd framework will only accelerate these processes.

Anyone who believes that Ads will only appear in "free with ads" type apps, and that there will always be a paid alternative to such apps is really fooling themselves IMO. The Facebook app for example is almost certain to go this route (they already have ads on the web version), and it's not clear at all that they would bother to make a client without ads that was paid for, or that the price of such an app would be reasonable. Since in my case I only use Facebook on the phone and not on the desktop, I will have to quit Facebook if this comes to pass.

We will almost certainly get better ads as a result of the iAd initiative, but it's also fairly certain that the prevalence of ads will rise dramatically as well. Personally, I refuse to use any app that has advertisements in it, even so-called "free" ones. Even worse will be paying for the app and having ads in your face anyway.

My phone works fine jailbroken. I take responsibility for the support. If someone jailbreaks their phone and doesn't educate themselves how to fix it then that's their problem. I feel that since the phone is a computer essentially and I should be able to put the software I want on it, like my Macs.

Again, this is where you can stick with Apple. Jailbreaking my iPhone has nothing to do with your iPhone. Millions of users who do not jailbreak cannot possibly get their devices messed up because of millions of others jailbreaking theirs.

Your opinion on this is starting to not make any sense. No offense, of course, but it just doesn't make sense.

Pirates on the other hand, do in fact hurt developers. I'm sure everyone can see that, it is quite simple. Stealing a product hurts the people who make the product.

Early devices won't support multi-tasking because they simply don't have enough RAM.

The early iPhone and iPod touch only have 128MB total RAM. iPhone OS 3.1.3 uses roughly 96MB at boot-up leaving just 32MB for an app, phone capabilities, background music playback and alert notifications.

Even on an iPod touch that lacks phone capabilities is rare for an app to grow beyond 16MB before the OS runs out of resources and jettisons it. To an end user it looks like the app has crashed.

It is far better for Apple to say "no" to multitasking on low RAM devices than to say "yes" and have millions of end users get frustrated with apps "crashing" on them.

Jailbreakers are a whole different demographic who likely understand that there is some risk of abnormal behaviour.

I'd like to add to this, I agree with you. Jailbreakers also usually understand that it is reversible, and it also voids your warranty.

I screwed mine up for a few gut wrenching minutes messing with CommCenter, but easily restored it. I didn't think "oh, man Apple sucks my phone is bricked now." I thought, uh-oh, I hope I can fix this....or I'm going to have to buy another iPhone. My hacking around with stuff is my own fault, no one else's.

People who don't understand these risks probably are the same people who get viruses all the time and curse Windows to shreds. I have no statistical evidence for that, just a hunch.

If you never cared enough to know how your computer worked, never wrote a script in your life, or continuously get malware on your PC and don't know why, then Apple's products are probably perfect for you just the way they are. That doesn't mean it's not fun to poke around under the hood for others.

None of your statements logically lead a person to the conclusion that jailbreaking is inherently bad:

"Jailbreaking is bad because it doesn't match Apples vision" only works if you assume Apples vision is the standard for good, and everything else is bad.

"Jailbreaking hurts Apple" is your opinion. An opinion that you never backed up with any evidence whatsoever.

"Jailbreaking makes your iPhone unstable." Does it? If it does, how does it hurt Apple? If it doesn't hurt Apple, shouldn't it be your choice to make?

"Jailbreaking messes up millions of peoples devices." I'd like to see some evidence for this. Even if this is true, do you also believe we shouldn't be driving? Millions upon millions of people die in accidents you know. All this really says is that only qualified individuals (or those willing to take the risk) should jailbreak their iPhones.

I just can't follow your jumps in logic to the conclusion that jailbreaking is bad. There are simply too many holes that need filling. Note that I use an un-jailbroken iPhone, so I'm not trying to justify my own actions.

QFT.

You mean kind of like cable tv, or Sirius satellite radio? Oh, you mean exactly like that.

Spin, I love it.

I'm going to take a guess and assume that you think helmet laws were designed to stop innocent people who ride dangerous motorcycles and bicycles from being gravely injured...for their own good. Rather than these laws being designed to save insurance companies tons of money from those grave injuries or deaths.

I think of iPhone jailbreaks the same way. It is frowned upon by the majority of the community because of the potential IP theft, or worse, identity theft. Money, in other words, not safety for safety's sake.

You don't have to miss the "old" days. They are still here and those computers still exist. Last time I checked, Apple makes iMacs, Mini's, MacBooks, and Mac Pros. Computers that are open in every way you need.

It's that same vocal minority that continue to extend the PC-paradigm to iPhones and iPads. They are not the same breed even though they do technically share some very common DNA parts.

I've been a software developer for 20+ years. Been through them all. This is what I consider to be a natural evolution of computing. It's a matter of adaptation. Adapt or die. Works in nature too.

I see it happening. The "old days" were indeed simpler, but so were everyone's expectations.

I see your point, however I respectfully disagree. Apple is not any different than your corner grocery store. In this case, that grocery store is the size of Walmart with milions of users and they can (and do) decide to put whatever they want on their shelves.

When you begin the discussion of "censorship" is where logic all falls apart.

Apple is not "by the people, we the people". They are not a government body with a constitution and they can discriminate as much as they want as to what products they want people to see when they walk into its store. They do not report to the people. It's simple as that. The people have no say. All they can do is say "We won't shop there." Done. At this point in time, Apple has decided that more people favor their methods than reject it.

But for other people to picket outside that same corner grocery store because the owners refuse to stock Swank magazines, or not allow the issue of "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition" is just ridiculous in my book.

And the choices the grocery store has made seems to be incredibly popular for the masses. They just walk by the picket lines.

Hmmm, how have I hurt Apple by jailbreaking? No lost sales, I paid for my phone and apps. Better advertising for Apple since others seeing my iPhone thinks its better than it is seeing added jailbroken features.

Is it possible that some jailbroken apps could make your system unstable, sure. Does it mean it will, nope. Mine is rock solid. Now if Apple wants to refuse to provide any support for these phones, no qualms there.

I understand why Apple keeps a tight control on the API and iPhone apps and trying to maintain a stable consistent environment. It's a good idea and people have to stop viewing these devices as if they were computers (technically they are), but as appliances. The problem is Apple artifically limits areas where they don't have to and that is the frustrating part. (Why can I not have a custom background for example?)

1st: Lots of creating (but bullsh@t excuses) for downloading MP3s too. Before that people were stealing cable. THE problem is that there is a healthy percentage of scum out there, and people who encourage/apologize for it. Everyone's burned somebody a CD, but when the mentality becomes totally blasé, and worse justified as a righteous quest, there's some head cracking that needs to happen.

2nd: Who the hell cares about anything Woz has to say? He needs at least one 'Dancing With The Stars' win, in order renew his tech authority license, since he "retired" 30 years ago. Very convenient for the guy not contributing squat to champion the idea of getting stuff for free. Even those birds that clean his beard get compensated for the effort.

3rd: Does Steve Jobs call you often to tell you how dumb you are? Sounds more like someone is either imagining little demons again or needs a diaper change. Obviously if the guy wanted to control you, he'd sell iHack and Matrix sunglasses so you could feel more like you're fighting the system.

Do people complain when American Airlines doesn't allow them to ride on the wing? I mean unless you're going to go there with your rebellion and staple yourself next to the engine, you're ultimately a useless dweeb playing pocket pool with someone else's SDK. "I'm Batman, I'm Batman... I found or added a secret button!"

In conclusion: My advice is the 5th dock icon and other kludgy jailbreak apps aren't worth all the mental gymnastics involving paranoid fantasies of corporate plots. So cut it out, because nobody wants to see Woz in Statue of Liberty outfit trying to emancipate the monochrome green CRTs and dot-matrix printers.

Dude, it's their creation... You're not qualified to judge the "natural or artificial limits" on how or why the iPhone works. You need to realize a product, then you get to talk about how far or wide your vision goes. Ford doesn't want you operating your car in certain ways either. Only babies think they can do anything they want.

You can't have a custom background because you haven't demonstrated to Apple that you have the appropriate fashion & design sense to decorate their flagship products. Seems pretty clear to me, so I'm outta luck with all my cat pix too. Maybe just have it backwards, this is less of a missing feature and more of an essential feature.

No, babies can't think for themselves. And following without question is not thinking for yourself.

There are many of us with jailbroken devices because we want to use the device to it's maximum capabilities. We don't have any illegal or unpaid for software on our devices.

We don't just accept when an authority says something can't be done. And, on the iPhone, Apple has been proven wrong many times when they say something can't be done. It's understandable if they don't want to support "extended" capabilities the company is not comfortable with or can't support due to contractual agreements.

But, for the bold who go off the reservation and prove out the limits of the device without stealing and without asking for support! These individuals should be punished and thwarted and demonized? Give me a break.

Wow, where would Ford be today if everyday dudes didn't roll up their sleeves and grab their wrenches? Would Ford even be mentioned in racing?

Let the hackers hack. They paid for the hardware, let them do what they want.

Apple doesn't implement everything on old platforms because they have decided the experience is not of a high enough quality for the user.

Take Leopard on a sub-866Mhz G4 or any version of OSX on a pre-G3 (a long time ago): it runs, but not very well.

Hackers help Apple make the platform MORE stable. Each hack gets blocked. They have found security holes galore and Apple isn't always too quick to close them, unfortunately.

I no longer have my iPhone 1G, but if I did, it would be jailbroken and running anything that keeps it useful.

hummmm'' well I had to jailbreak in order to use another sim in another country...or else I would have to buy another device...."which is crazy...just sell this wonderful device open and there will be no need...."only in the U.S. If I would have got this somewhere else in asia it may have been sold open...to use with whom I choose whether it be prepaid sim or contract.... there are more users in asia than most of the world and alot of them dont have contracts ....and they also buy open ..none locked to carrier devices....I have had both since Ive been here and find that prepaid is the way to go because my data charges were wayyyy outta line .....because there was no data unlimited plan for the phone......

It's the lack of RAM that has made be decide to return the iPad. Safari pages reload too often which would make typing this up in Safari, switching to another app or Safari page and then popping back to finish this post frustrating if the page reloads and I have to type it up from scratch.

The business model in Asia is completely different from USA. USA model, people do not want to pay the full price for a phone and so thats how mobile carriers support the cost, but request you lock-in with them for approx. 2 yrs. In India especially people want to change plans constantly to get the best rate possible and do not like being locked in.

Btw the above is not Apple problem, but your phone carrier and if you did not pay for full cost of the phone, then what right do you have to say it should be unlocked. You can purchase a unlocked phone on eBay, it will be FULL price and then you can do what you want.

Please do not complain, when you have not pay full price for the phone and then want to jump ship, after mobile carrier has supported you. Thats not just for iPhone, but any phone. I purchased a unlocked iPhone 3GS at full price, simply because I want freedom, but I knew it would be at a cost.

This is the real deal right here. Most people jailbreak for cosmetic reasons. Apps that enable these cosmetic changes require apps that only work on jailbroken phones. Totally non-malicious. The only negative side effect is that your phone might become slower/crahes etc. No security vulnerabilities are exposed when using apps that are related directly to cosmetic changes. Does not affect other iPhone users' experiences.

Ditto.

most people, not everyone. I happen to know a few who have jailbroken phones but that's up to them. The iPhone was sold here(Canada) a year after they went on sale in the US. One of them went there because he couldn't wait for it to come here. The others waited till it came to Canada and they still chose to break it. I wonder why? Actually I do.

Btw, let's not use the "only US" BS in posts, okay? I live in Canada and we have 4 telcos that sell the iphone.

Jailbreaking makes them less stable? Are you joking? This reminds me of the cracked Cubase 3 when the rls group bypassed the Syncrosoft protection making Cubase MORE stable and less resource hog. That's the real art of cracking, making corp controlled software usable.

Right and they also allow me to use different SIM cards in a phone I paid for... Rather then getting raped by the phone companies when roaming.

the majority of iPhones used in China are not "jailbroken". They are stock carrier unlocked phones sold in Hong Kong and many other places.

And where is Woz and where is Jobs?

Woz's "way" can be fun for some technical people who like to tinker, and Woz's "way" is brilliant from a product development perspective, but that is not of interest to Apple when they think about their markets (and I suspect the company would be dead years ago it if catered excessively to that way). It's why so many people, forced to tinker with their shoddy Windows OS, are steadily moving to the calm waters of the Mac/iPhone OS's.

It would seem the "advanced user control" option you speak of is largely what apps you choose to use. Its obvious the capability of iPhone OS devices changes dramatically with your customized application suite (I can control my Sonos music system, change channels on Tivo, control lights around my house, etc.)

If you believe Jobs real notion is that most people are ignorant, you are seriously missing the essential focus of Apple. In reality. a vast majority of people don't need or want to be bothered by the underbelly of technology. They want to pick something up and have it perform great without need to tweak, customize, hack, or otherwise have to sweat to make things work. Their high degree of success in merging sophisticated function & simple form (HW and GUI) is exactly why they are growing at an appreciable rate.

A more controlled system rather than a more uncontrolled system is essential to achieve this because you can (relatively) have a reliably high degree of certainty as to what is being executed on the system to preserve the user experience. If anything, there are far more sloppy and inefficient developers than "ignorant" consumers, and crappy third party apps can ruin the experience Apple has spend considerable resources building (i.e. their disgust for Flash). Another good reason for strict developer guidelines (and I suspect good developers appreciate high standards).

Beyond this, Apple also needs to assure its business partners that it will do what it reasonably can to protect the ecosystem that developers/media firms are investing resources to support (ie App store, iBookstore, iTMS, etc.). A wild-west mentality wouldn't give many companies a good feeling about their return on investment with Apple.

What else - the iPhone SDK is available to anyone, and Apple will distribute your accepted app freely if there's need you have that isn't met. The next iPhone OS offers a ton more API's for third party developers, so great functionality is to become even greater. And since the iPhone OS HAS been hacked so many times, maybe Apple isn't trying that hard to stop you - striking a balance that largely protect the stability of their system, but allowing those with enough geek muscle to scale the barrier and hack away to meet their ultimate burning desires.

So at the end of it all, if none of this reasoning or options make sense to someone, Apple clearly is not the right choice for - stay with Windows are Linux, and dive deep into the muck - why continue to bang one's head against a wall for something that was so ill-fitting to the needs?

Nice waste of first post. Get a clue. Apple has stolen ideas, icons, and features from the jailbreak community since it was born, which was might I add, days after the 1st gen was released in 2007. Most of the great new features that Apple has rolled out in 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, and now 4.0, were ALL born on jailbroken iPhones and available as awesome customizations thaks to Jay Freeman and Cydia.

The entire concept of the App Store and even the f'ing APP STORE ICON was stolen from Installer.app

WTF are you talking about?

What the hell are you talking about? Not on my iPad.

Mayabe so but the god news is they announced it whilst it is in beta allowing time for Apple to make changes. They didn't keep quiet and exploit it for nefarious ends later. So I tend to come down on the side that this is good not bad at this point.

Hey sol, just tried to recreate that in my iPad 32 gig and can't, I am using iPad now and have been almost continuously since Saturday. I did get some weird crashes in Safari on Monday so I treated it like an iPhone and did a reboot. I haven't had that issue again. I left this entry just then and ran a few orther apps and even other Safari pages and returned here and it was sitting exactly whe I left it. What Ram config did you have, maybe the base line model?

I do think the new stuff shown in iPhone 4.0 when brought to the iPad will be a massive improvement and I am baffled by no such thing was even alluded to in the presentation

My only issue is getting used to the auto caps as I keep hitting shift at the start of a paragraph. I'd like it to know it's a cap even if I hit caps.

So what? The iPhone OS is good enough now that you won't need to JB... big deal!
Plus, Apple does multitasking with resourcefulness and the JB does it sitting next to a wall receptacle. these hackers will NEVER be able to do anything better than Apple can... just a bunch of kids in the JB community trying to be revolutionaries he he. Well, Apple showed them a thing or ten he he... services for one! Also, you don't have to worry about exploits in and around the hacking cults. You all SUCK! Get a real JOB!

By inserting malicious code in their applications... that's making it better huh? You probably only have an iPhone that you stole off someone he he. All it takes is to JB your phone and go do some online banking... boy, that's making it all better all right he he...

Well why didn't they invent it then professor WTF? The iPhone works fine and the JB is a battery hog and makes the phone VERY, VERY sluggish. If they are so fricking bright, why didn't they create the apps and the foundation to conserve power then? You don't know what the hell your talking about and the JB thing is dead now with OS 4, just face it. Bye bye... go play with your little toys.

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