Think different (and get shut off)

I'm kind of surprised at this post. I would have thought you were in the "you read the EULA, you agreed to the deal" camp.

"If you want a cool phone that you can load applications onto,..."

First, as far as I've seen, Apple only bricked the iphones that had been *unlocked* ...they simply wiped the third party apps. If you hadn't unlocked the phone, you just lost your (ostensibly) reinstallable apps.

Second, I don't think Mr. Jobs has any reason to guarantee something he didn't sell (the ability to use the phone on any carrier). Maybe he *should* have let you do it, but I don't think we have the right to complain *too* loudly about something he never guaranteed.

As far as wiping the third party apps (the lesser penalty) - this is a very new technology and its acceptance is going to be widely dependent on its successful functioning. Third party hacks might jeopardize the reputation of the technology as poorly thought out or unstable apps would give the impression the phone isn't stable.

I would imagine there's some proprietary greed thrown in there (Apple's no saint), but I don't think they're quite the sinners they've been made out to be by some unfortunate folks who gambled on unauthorized mods.

As someone who had a legit copy of Frontpage disabled by MS back in the day because I'd reloaded it on my computer too many times, this bodes ill if it becomes commonplace. I simply don't want to buy from a company who retaliates against its customers by breaking what it sold them, even if it has a good business justification for doing so.

Home Depot can't dictate what I can or can't do with the shovel I bought, though they can certainly refuse to stand by their product if I use it improperly. I don't want to deal with a company that goes farther than that in saying what its product can be used for.

This is one more reason to support open architectures, as Michael recommended.

I'm kind of surprised at this post. I would have thought you were in the "you read the EULA, you agreed to the deal" camp.

But I am. You might have missed it:

I agree Apple can sell whatever it wants, and offer whatever kind of upgrades it wants.

I have no issue at all with the idea that Apple can overwrite people's unauthorized software. It's entirely their right to do so.

But I also think it sends a very stupid message.

(It *is* possible to hold both views.)

(In fact, to make things even more confusing, I should note I *also* believe (on philosophical grounds) that people should have the right to do just about anything they want with a product they've purchased, including break its encryption and defenses. (As Ryan seems to, also.) Yes, it's true: I hold all three beliefs and see no conflict among them. Challenges welcomed.)

NB: In most countries, the phones aren't "owned" by the same people who provide the networks.

Third party hacks might jeopardize the reputation of the technology as poorly thought out or unstable apps..

I agree. This is all the more reason people should be prevented from loading unauthorized software on "their" computer -- it could be used to transmit unauthorized packets across their ISP's network, and even the Internet! Never know the harm that could cause. (Such as the loss of precious "licensing" revenue!) Or as you suggest, falsely giving the impression that the "Operating System" (Microsoft Windows, for example) might be less than stable.

Whoops! Sorry, you were talking about cell phones! ;-)

But I am. You might have missed it:

>I agree Apple can sell whatever it wants, and offer whatever kind of upgrades it wants.

I didn't miss it, but it seemed more like an reluctant acknowledgment than a fully supported view. I'm sorry for misunderstanding your intent.

I have no issue at all with the idea that Apple can overwrite people's unauthorized software. It's entirely their right to do so.

But I also think it sends a very stupid message.

(It *is* possible to hold both views.)

Never argued. I just didn't read your apparent support for the first view in the same light you seem to have intended it.

(In fact, to make things even more confusing, I should note I *also* believe (on philosophical grounds) that people should have the right to do just about anything they want with a product they've purchased, including break its encryption and defenses. (As Ryan seems to, also.)

You two may be more visionary on this than I. For example, although I freely use it, I still don't really get the economics of open source :) Maybe that's another good topic!

Yes, it's true: I hold all three beliefs and see no conflict among them. Challenges welcomed.)

I agree that it is possible to hold multiple beliefs about a complex topic. No challenges required.

Third party hacks might jeopardize the reputation of the technology as poorly thought out or unstable apps..

I agree. This is all the more reason people should be prevented from loading unauthorized software on "their" computer -- it could be used to transmit unauthorized packets across their ISP's network, and even the Internet! Never know the harm that could cause. (Such as the loss of precious "licensing" revenue!) Or as you suggest, falsely giving the impression that the "Operating System" (Microsoft Windows, for example) might be less than stable.

Exactly. I'm glad you see it my way. :P

ps. I can't seem to get the italics to work on some of the quoted sections. Not sure why.

Tracey - ps. I can't seem to get the italics to work on some of the quoted sections. Not sure why.

A hard return undoes italics (and many other tags) on Tim's blogging software. You have to reinsert them. Hope that helps.

I didn't miss it, but it seemed more like an reluctant acknowledgment than a fully supported view.

It's both, actually. Had someone asked me: Wasn't the consumer taking their own risk? (the view you posed) I'd agree entirely. I would never argue that Apple did anything illegal here.

But I still think it was a bad move on their part (given that now they look like Darth Vader), and I also still have concerns about unlimited powers in EULAs, especially in situations where choice has been constricted by government power.

You can be fully supportive of the idea, say, that criminals should go to jail, and yet be somewhat less than enthusiastic (but nonetheless in agreement) that it might apply (say) to your kid, should he carelessly step out of line.

My concern here is that I feel I understand the purpose of intellectual property, as the founders saw it, and the kind of reasoning being deployed today has little to do with it, and works counter to their vision.

Most arguments today have to do with "protecting investment", etc. The founders, believers in negative rights understood copyright & patents as a prohibition on our normal rights to do what we wanted with our property. (Why can't I write down the words and music to "Yesterday" and give the paper to my girlfriend?)

*But* they felt the compromise was worth it, with limited copyrights and patents, because these things would eventually enrich the "public domain." And I agree they made a wise tradeoff, given what they had & knew at the time.

But we're entering a world where technology necessarily replaces that piece of paper, and yet also where the copyright to Mickey Mouse never expires, where there's a big push to make sure you can't even store your own content on your hard drive (read up on DRM sometime) without permission from some distant company, where "fair use" seems to have been ridiculously restricted, and where judges have bought into the idea that the purpose of intellectual property primarily is to protect corporate profits.

Fourteen years was a fairly limited time period once. Now it's an eternity: what kind of software did you have 14 years ago? Would the "public domain" be enriched by making it freely available today? And never mind doing the same comparison with copyright...

A huge step back happened under the Clinton administration. Previously, it was held that algorithms were unpatentable, that patents' novelty had to be proven, and that there was nothing wrong with attempting to decrypt a stream of data which you happened to legally possess.

The nineties changed all that: It became a Federal Crime to write a short Perl script which would allow your Linux box's legally-purchased DVD player to play your legally-purchased DVDs. Activist judges decided mathematical algorithms were patentable. Clinton gutted the patent office, and simply told everyone to approve almost everything, and let the lawyers fight it out in court.* (My boss has a friend who, to make a point, successfully patented the process of swinging side-to-side on a playground swing.) (* You'd never guess the Clintons were members of the American Trial Lawyers assocation, eh?) While Al Qaeda was building up their networks, Wesley Clark ran around telling us the "real threat" was from "cyber terrorism", by which he meant we needed new legal powers and a dedicated focus on 12-year-old hackers.

And of course the Republicans generally gave Microsoft a huge break from prosecution for their clear violations of antitrust law. Twice.

And now cable companies want to start inspecting your data, and blocking it if they don't like it, or if you haven't paid them enough for it. ("Enough", of course, being a limitless proposition.)

You might say: "Well, it's their lines, don't they have the right to do that?" But you forget that their exclusive access to your home derives from a government concession: I won't be allowed to run a wire over public lands to your house -- they will. There's no technical nor physical reason to have cable monopolies (as we might with electricity), but nonetheless they exist because local governments love the cable companies (and kickbacks) more than their constituents.

(I once lived in one of the few cities in the USA with cable competition. I had an awesome picture and great service for $22/month. My girlfriend, in the next town over, paid $65 a month and couldn't even see past the snow. They wanted her to upgrade to digital (add a few dozen more dollars a month) in order to be able to finally get a decent picture.)

So now we're in a situation where it might be impossible, in some not-too-distant future month, for you to load your own software onto the computer you have "bought". Where CDs might have to be licensed and renewed on a month-to-month basis. We might end up paying huge amounts of income (they talk about $200 or more a month) for infrastructure which costs a mere fraction of that.

And where the power of the state is mainly conscripted to prevent competition, rather then encourage it.

I'm not saying we'll all end up having to swipe a credit card each time we want to send an e-mail. But I'm not saying we won't, and that there's no reason to worry about it.

I view the moral and legal as separate. Legal is what's on the books; moral is what makes the world better. I'm in favor of changing the laws, but also obeying them, since they don't yet present us with a dire burden.

But I'm also in favor of writing pieces to shame companies like Apple who promote that end-state, as I have done here. As the story of trans fats show, sometimes consumer awareness and reaction can be as or more effective than legal changes.

Hence, this piece.

What: You think I'm writing this primarily for my own benefit? I have no interest in an iPhone. I tend to use my phone only for placing calls: I could care less about running software on it.

But I think the world will be a better place if Apple looks (as they should) like a huge jerk for being so draconian in their restrictions and punishments. I suspect they'd be smarter to make the registration and licensing process easier, and open up more of a market.

Well, to chime in as someone who does want an iPhone, but unfortunately can't have one, I think what Apple did is fine, and they had to do it. There is a much more root cause to what they did. Unfortunately phone development and financing sucks, and the R&D for a lot of 2.5G and 3G features haven't been paid for yet.

Apple signed an exclusive deal with AT&T so they *had* to brick the unlocked phones to keep that relationship healthy, even though AT&T hasn't done too good a job at that themselves. (Anyone want a several hundred page bill? Anyone?)

I was actually expecting this, which is one of the reasons I didn't buy an iPhone and unlock it. Apple required network infrastructure upgrades from AT&T to get a solid and seamless feature set which were quite expensive. (So an unlocked iPhone wouldn't even work quite the same as one on AT&Ts network.) So there is an exclusive contract they have to try and defend.

All in all, since most of the executive team at my company has iPhones, and I have 3 Macs, an Apple TV and 2 iPods in my household, I have great reasons to want an iPhone, but I'm left out in the cold. All in all, I don't feel too jilted, however. There is an out with the iPod Touch, which I'll probably end up getting, and just using a phone for what a phone is for — dialing phone numbers. :-)

Well, to chime in as someone who does want an iPhone, but unfortunately can't have one, I think what Apple did is fine...

LOL! Well, this is amusing then: The one who has no interest at all in an iPhone (unlocked or otherwise) is arguing what Apple did was a bad move, and the one who has the most interest in an unlocked iPhone is, instead, arguing what Apple did "is fine".

Being conservatives, it's easy to see how our opinions are only determined by our blind, Ferrengi-like greed and self interest. ;-)

Hehehehe, oh, I thought it was from Fox News. I mean, that's where I got all my in depth research into GSM standards and financing. :D

Hehehehe, oh, I thought it was from Fox News...

As a total aside, I *love* listening to liberal accusations against me, since I actually know who I am and what I do.

For example, I watch probably two hours (if that) of Fox News each year (far less than they do, I'd bet), and am not remotely impressed with Bill O'Reilly. (Similarly with Sean whats-his-name.)

Such accusers think they're being oh-so-insightful, but they're so far from the mark that they're simply demonstrating, for God and all to see, how quick they are to denounce dissent using false charges.

One more on the "iBrick" topic: and I don't agree at all that Apple *had* to do what they did. Had they just wiped out unauthorized software, I would not be writing this. What I'm shaming them for (which one might deduce from the title) was completely disabling unlocked phones, and forcing violators to buy entirely new ones.

Even a trip to the shop, a lecture, and a slight service fee for restoring them ($50-$80) would have been more reasonable, and would have taught a memorable lesson. But the penalty here smacks of feral greed, and, again, I don't think that's the image Apple should want to project.

According to this Wired article, the iBricking was more the result of a massive rewrite to clean up hacky get-to-market-quick code than any revenge scheme:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2007/10/cultofmac_1003

That's possible. But the "deliberate bricking" allegation (though I didn't say this explicitly) includes, in my mind anyway, their refusal to reload the firmware.

Now, if the "bricking" was entirely accidental, and it's impossible, or insanely expensive to rewrite the firmware, then we can correctly say it wasn't Apple's intent that EULA violators be left with a "bricked" phone.

But if either one of those is false, then the decision to force them to repurchase was indeed the result of Apple's intentions.

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