razorpit

dewme said:

GeorgeBMac said:

There was another aspect to this locking that was even more insidious:   it was when the modem in the phone would only work on certain networks.   While the technophiles often understood it, most average users did not and, even after their phone was "unlocked", it was still locked to the networks of certain carriers because its modem would only work on those networks -- and there was nothing anybody could do to change that.  A Verizon phone would never, ever work on an AT&T network and vice-versa.

Average, nontechnical users generally had no idea that that was happening.

And, with 5G and its customizability by the carriers it has the potential for happening again.    I hope that it doesn't.

Are you referring to the CDMA vs GSM days? I wouldn't lump that into the non-technical carrier locking issue being discussed because the non-technical locking can be easily removed. If you had a CDMA phone it could never be "unlocked" to work on a GSM network because the device had different radios installed. I seem to recall that Apple made it very clear that you were buying a carrier specific phone when this was the case, but I suppose some buyers were still unaware and who knows what the sales people communicated to buyers at the time of purchase.

The locking thing was probably a "scheme" pushed on to Apple by AT&T when AT&T was the only carrier available for iPhone and they demanded a way to preserve exclusivity. Who knows, perhaps AT&T provided Apple with some sort of quality of service (QoS) guarantee if iPhones were locked into to AT&T networks? The iPhone put a lot more connectivity demands on networks back then compared to most any other phone of the day. Yeah, it was a stupid idea in retrospect but Apple probably felt that they needed a special relationship with AT&T to get iPhone launched in a big way. The iPhone's success wasn't a sure thing at the time. Once the iPhone sales exploded and more carriers were brought into the mix the locking thing was probably an artifact of a standard operating procedure and the other carriers wanted in on the same deal that AT&T received.  

The only carrier locked phone I ever had was an iPhone 4s purchased through AT&T. As soon as it was paid off they removed the lock, with no fee and without prompting. This is a pretty good indicator that whatever reason originally existed for carriers locking phones faded away fairly quickly. Also, the carrier subsidy gimmicky has been toned down somewhat, especially with Apple providing straightforward payment plans for the devices that bypass the carriers entirely. Why any existing carrier would continue with the prehistoric practice of locking phones defies all logic. I hope the UK ban is stated as "Hey carriers, stop being stupid!" 



 

joecwik said:

I fixed it by downloading "HPPrinterDrivers5.1.dmg" from HP here and running it. A restart later, I'm good to go.

OctoMonkey said:

bloggerblog said:

Tim said “my generation has failed you” there is nothing private in tech anymore. Actually I’d be surprised if Apple has not already been handed a gag order on back doors. 

Agreed!  Given how information "leaks" seem to happen constantly, if such a gag order does exist, somebody should simply leak it.

More, if these tools exist, what is the reason for the DOJ to be doggedly pursuing back doors from the tech companies?

M68000 said:

“To bring the movie Exclusively to Apple TV+“ ...   does anybody see a problem with this?  Can you say monopolistic ?    This is bad for consumers.  Really would prefer to see Bond in the theater first where it belongs.  If it must be streamed it should be available to multiple services.   I don’t have Apple TV or TV+ or whatever they call it these days.