As someone who generally loves the idea of tinkering with my phone, I simply can't buy the logic that not being able to, actually hinders the ownership experience.
I don't have any interest in "hacking" into my car, dishwasher, or fridge. I want them to _just work_, and I want to know who to call when they break.
So then, it is entirely reasonable that most people simply want their electronics to work, rather than to somehow feel that just because they can't tinker and mod their device, their ownership is somehow hindered.
Although I do feel that media DRM (movies, music, DVD region codes) can often hinder the ownership experience, I simply don't see how these devices being locked down actually hurt MOST consumers who aren't even interested in such details.
There's a trend in this whole thread that I don't understand. After pointing out that the users are licensing the ability to use the proprietary operating system rather than "owning" it, the main rebuttal is: nobody cares, so it doesn't matter.
I don't understand that. For example, few people care about taxes, war, or clean energy policies (less than 50% vote in much of North America). Does that mean the work done in these areas doesn't matter? The fact that most people don't care has little to do with the truth of the matter.
Only Apple owns iPhones. It doesn't matter that nobody cares about this, they still don't own their phone.
But – so what? That’s the point. So you don’t own the phone. Is that a bad thing? Why?
That’s the point of disagreement. I don’t understand what’s so bad about it.
Ah. I see. I only came in here to correct the statements about ownership. It matters to me that HN is not the kind of place where people think they own their iPhones - after all the news about software patents, free software, mobile platforms, etc, I think it's an important distinction to make on this site. The people here care (obviously, hence this debate) about this issue and I just wanted the definitions to be set right: jailbreaking != ownership.
As to why it's good or bad, that's entirely personal preference. For me, I want to own it because I want the option to change it. That's all. Therefore, for me, it's terrible to buy a device I don't own. That should answer your question about why it's bad.
Maybe it's not bad for you. Maybe it's good for you to not own the device. That's fine; I'm only here to remind you that you don't own it (after it was erroneously suggested up top that you do own it)
Ok, you choose what software you run, then along comes the other guy and claims that you don't own your phone unless you control what hardware is running your software.
Some just cannot tell owning and controlling apart.
My point is only that, do you feel like you own the other appliances in your home any less, if they had parts that were tougher for you to fix without voiding a warranty?
Or are we only having this discussion because we all here collectively care more about the hackability of electronics?
Do you remember when Amazon deleted books off of peoples' kindles? Remote control of your phone is one obvious way in which Apple owns it and you do not. And the average person might not think they would care but when their copy of 1984 disappears they get angry!
I think it’s necessary to be ever vigilant when companies create an infrastructure for doing just that and to really scream bloody murder when they actually use it. I also can understand people who refuse to buy devices that actually support moves like that (Apple has the capability for remotely removing apps.) It’s a valid reason.
I, however, like to be more pragmatic.
1. As far as I know Apple never used that capability. They removed apps from the store, they never remotely removed apps from devices. (I think Apple claims that they only want to use this capability for removing maleware. Now, you might not believe them but their track record is pretty clean in that regard.)
2. Shitstorms will make anyone with such a capability think long and hard about actually using it. (I think Amazon at least apologized for what happened, I don’t know what else they did for the customers who lost their copies.) Apple can’t just treat their customers like crap.
It’s right to be vigilant about theoretical capability but I don’t think I’m completely irresponsible when I recognize factors that will prevent Apple from using their theoretical capability to its full extent.
I understand the need to confuse "ownership" with hackability, for the purposes of philosophizing on this site. We are all tinkerers.
But by every definition of ownership recognized by society and our laws (at least in the United States), you completely own your phone. You are lawfully allowed to do the following:
- crush it, destroy it, put it in the dishwasher, or drive over it
- open it up all you want
- sell it to someone else
- Install alternate software on it
You are under no obligation to anyone once you have purchased that phone. It is, by ANY definition, legally your property.
The WORST thing Apple can do to you, is void your warranty. And that is completely acceptable.
Whether you think it should be less or more difficult is a philosophical discussion. The fact is, you have all the same protections under any laws that most people who "own" things have.
Reply to VladRussian Below (I couldn't find a reply link): Won't get me to disagree with you on anything related to the DMCA. I think it is a pigheaded piece of evil legislation. :) But most of the things I'm talking about aren't related to the DMCA (at least I hope not).
>The WORST thing Apple can do to you, is void your warranty.
before that the "WORST" was much worse
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/library-of-congress-adds-dmca-exception-for-jailbreaking-or-root/ http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/library-of-congress-adds-...
And this is the main point of all these discussions. It isn't about technical obstacles put in place by Apple and difficulty to break them as it only adds more interest to process, It is about criminalizing the very act of analysis of the system, ie. an act of mental activity, applied to the system you're supposedly own.
>I understand the need to confuse "ownership" with hackability, for the purposes of philosophizing on this site. We are all tinkerers.
Nobody tries to confuse ownership and hackability. They are orthogonal. What people still trying to bend their minds around is the ownership and off-limit (for your mind) holes in that ownership established by DMCA.
You want your car, dishwater, fridge, etc to _just work_ in the exact way in which unregulated corporate tyrannies say.
>I want them to _just work_, and I want to know who to call when they break.
And in what way, shape or form does this require the device to be locked down to hell and back? That argument is a fallacy - correlation does not imply causation. The two things are completely unrelated to each other, yet people continue to assert that from one follows the other (locked -> just works), and that the opposite is also True (free -> doesn't just work).
It's bullshit, and I'm sick and tired of hearing it. There's absolutely no reason for locking down a device besides wanting to restrict the user's freedom. This isn't about "just working", it isn't about better support, it's about unjustified control over the user's actions.
If you don't have any interest in hacking, why are you on Hacker News?
Of course hackers define ownership that way.
I would assert that this is no longer true.
Thanks to the jailbreak, it is possible in principle to get Android running on the iPhone hardware. In practice, this may not be possible yet, but it has been accomplished before on earlier hardware.
Therefore, buying an iPhone is not that different from buying a Mac: You get a computer with a proprietary operating system, which (thanks to DevTeam) can be bypassed and replaced with anything that will run, which will eventually include Android assuming people care enough to make it work (they will).
The parent comment, that this is a win consumers shouldn't need to fight for, is one I support wholeheartedly.
I don't get this reasoning. No, you do not "own" a jailbroken iPhone. When you truly own something, you can do what you want with each and every component, including its system software, up to and including selling or licensing it as your own property. The very foundations of copyright law will not permit you to do that.
Most people would agree that the core ideas behind copyright law are useful, necessary, and just, or at least they'd agree that there is no chance that the law's fundamental basis will change anytime soon.
So no, all you've done is make a minor change to the device's operation that allows you to do some things with it that weren't as easy to do before. That's great, but casting it as some kind of moral act of "ownership" makes absolutely no sense. If you didn't build it yourself -- all of it -- you don't "own" it.
> If that is the logic, why make jailbreaking difficult at all?
Apple pays support costs (facilities, labor, etc.) for everyone who brings in an iOS device to a store, and it's their best interest to allow their personnel to turn problems around quickly. If an in-warranty device is "broken," they can send the customer home with a refurb one within fifteen minutes (I've done this for a screen). An easy jailbreak means more devices will come in broken, they'll have to keep more replacements in stock, and they won't necessarily be able to turn customers away for it because there might not be a good way to detect a jailbreak.
Jailbreaking is also a security problem for enterprises. If a user can run arbitrary un-sandboxed code, there's no way the device's owner can trust it to receive sensitive emails, be wiped remotely, and so on.
It is pretty clear that if Apple were to enable unknown sources (my comment was more of an unlikely hypothetical intended to point out that Apple isn't really that jailbreak friendly), it would void all warranties and be very detectable. Also, just like Android, it could easily be turned off in enterprise settings.
Looks like the opposite to me. First time I saw an iPhone jailbreak, it was just a matter of visiting a certain web site and tapping a button. (This was, of course, an obvious remote root vulnerability that definitely needed to be patched.) This came back briefly a year ago, but didn't last long. Devices were generally jailbroken quickly and easily, but it's been getting harder. The iPad 2 still doesn't have a usable jailbreak despite having been available for half a year now. iOS 5 only has a tethered jailbreak (i.e. you must connect it to a computer when rebooting the device) and even that is only on certain devices, even though betas have been available since the summer. In fact, even iOS 4.3.4 and 4.3.5 don't have untethered jailbreaks.
To me, it looks like Apple is actively locking down the platform in a big way and trying pretty hard to shut down jailbreaking entirely. Given how long it's been on the iPad 2, I fear that they're succeeding, too.
> You can''t compare some car mods to all iPhone mods
I didn't, but there isn't a lot of diversity in the iPhone mods. The vast majority are jailbreaking whereas the car mods change behavior.
> it would still be meaningless because it's just a thing you said, not a validated and useful model.
Validated? It's just as "validated" as iPhone jail breaking.
In fact, since some car mods can result in illegal behavior, not just IP violations, ....
Which reminds me - why is it so important to you that iPhone mods be considered "rad", "sticking it to the man", unique, etc?