I finally listened to Twit. The bashing was fair only for AT&T. And what's with the cow analogy? I despise apple but see how this is unfair
2 years, 1 month ago.
14 comments so far
Huh? Must be a cultural thing... I can assure you, if they brick phones in Germany, people won't be so easy on Apple. I dunno about Greece, but we actually have consumer protection agencies here that take the laws seriously. I can understand them disabling applications, but if they really bricked phones irreversebly and done so intentionally (which according to Engadget isn't sure yet), they did something despicable. Even if it's lawful, that doesn't make it right.
Either way, Apple fraked up big time! Even if its the case that a percentage of all phones get bricked (even unmodified ones), it's still a disaster... If Microsoft would ever pull a stunt like this, they would be hammered into the ground! Of course, Apple is Apple.... X(
In Greece it's illegal to sell a device with a contract that locks it for more than 9 months. We do have consumer rights groups too, this is not Myanmar. All devices however must be offered separately too, which is how I have gotten all of my previous phones and my current S710.
Apple is selling a device, with very clear characteristics and a simple licence agreement. You pay a certain amount of money up front and you don't get to duck the expense you have to pay for enveloping everything in html, each time you check out your google calendar. Granted that Apple takes a cut off the monthly bill, it's a money making machine in their part, but they aren't being dishonest about it. They even warned users to roll back to valid firmware.
The problem doesn't lie with Apple, but with the journalists that always assume the best possible thing when it comes to Apple, Linux and Google, even if it has to bend their statements. The exact opposite applies to Microsoft. It used to earn you brownie points to bash them, now if you don't there's a penalty.
In my opinion the only thing that Apple has done wrong is claiming the iPhone is as smartphone, which it clearly is not. It's a feature phone and a good one at it, if you don't care about a2dp and video.
And what's with the Microsoft argument ? They do it all the time, it's called product activation (although it gives you 60 days to settle things out) and it's the only way to make sure that software isn't pirated. That and making sure that you take the OS price as part of your whole product's price like Apple does.
Yes yes, I fully agree that it is unpleasant. However this wouldn't have happened if people didn't do what they were explicitly told not to, from day 1. It's not Apple's fault that journalists still claim that it's very ok and 'quite safe' to hack the device in order to make it work with any network.
Next up: blame Microsoft for releasing updates that make Windows stop working over wine, or preventing Vista versions whose eula says they are not allowed to run under VMs from doing so. Or blame Apple for releasing updates that prevent hacked OSX distros from running on any x86 computer.
here's the problem with the "Apple broke my iPhone" argument.... you changed the firmware to an unknown state. you ran the firmware update that expected one of a very few default states. you bricked your phone.
None of this is Apple's fault. Does it suck? Yeah. Does Apple have any responsibility to support firmware they didn't write? Heck no.
They at least had the courtesy to warn people not to run the firmware update if they changed the firmware to an unknown state. Why should they waste resources trying to support unknown firmware states? No sane business would. They went above and beyond as far as I'm concerned by publicly warning people that they shouldn't run the firmware update.
@ChrisHanson. The fact is that they went out of their way to introduce people to an activation screen (Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows Genuine Advantage). They shouldn't have to support the new state of the machine, but they bricking them intentionally reveals:
a) spite,
b) need to conform to some contract
They have the right and obviously the obligation to protect along with AT&T their mutual property. But stating that the bricking was an accident is naive.
So what if they re activated phones? For those who hadn't broken their own phone by installing non-supported firmware they touched a button and were done.
I repeat. They warned you that it would probably break your phone yet you installed the upgrade anyway... how on earth could this possibly be Apple's fault?
@ChrisHanson. I agree with you. I am an Apple fan, but all of this whining about people's hacked phones being bricked is getting a little ridiculous. There is a reason you have to hack it! Apple decided, or may have been required based on their exclusive agreement w/ATT, to provide a locked down platform. Whether it is "fair" or not is a different story. Apple cant be held responsible for unauthorized modifications that break your phone after an update.
1) Does Apple have the right to release a firmware update that bricks you phone even though there is no good *technical* reason ? My answer to this certainly yes.
2) Is it nice that they do that to your phone ? My answer is absolutely no.
But it's not their fault at all if you bricked your phone by installing a firmware update that you were warned would do exactly that.
Besides there was a technical reason that the phones were bricked. They had unauthorized, unsupported, 3rd party, hacked firmware. Apple could have worked around it with some effort but they had absolutely no reason to do so and it would have been detrimental to shareholder value (wasted resources) and they could have opened themselves up to a shareholder lawsuit. Should they have done so to allow you to use your iPhone on Tmobile and take money out of their pockets. Would you do any different? If you say 'yes' I'll call you a liar :-)
@ChrisHanson As I understand it you still insist that there was a technical reason why they bricked their phones. The people who hacked their phones however were not presented with a black screen, nor was the phone behaving strangely. They were presented with an actvation screen. That means that the software didn't fail, but rather worked and fulfilled it's purpose by giving them the finger.
As I said I fully accept that Apple has the right and probably the contractual obligation to do what they did. It is the people's fault for hacking their phones. But there was clearly no technical reason to brick phones.
If you don't think the legal (AT&T contract) and the financial (wasted resources working around 3rd party firmware and lost revenue stream from ATT contracts) reasons aren't good enough there's no convincing you.
Besides this is just Steve Jobs being Steve Jobs. He wants to be the biggest little monopolist in technology, locking users into his 'pay me and no one else' sandbox. The iPod is no different. Is there a technical reason you can't drag and drop files on and off of it? No. Is there a technical reason they don't support any DRM other than their own? No. Is there a techical reason for the new iPods to have a hash on the database that locks out programs other than iTunes? No (by the way if people want to be pissed about something Apple did to screw users, this should be it not the one they announced in June with the phone). Now that Apple has iWork and iLife I wouldn't be surprised if when Leopard comes out Steve says "We'll sell you everything you need on your computer, you don't need to install software from other companies anymore so we're getting rid of the ability to install other software".
Personally I think Apple went plenty far out of their way to give people with hacked iPhones a fighting chance. The firmware could have actually bricked the phones (which they publicly warned could happen). At least the thing still boots giving the hackers a running OS to work from to reunlock the phone until the next time this happens and the users still think they got screwed and still think it's not their own damn fault.
Emotion and logic coexist orthogonally in all people but fanboys.
I've written that I accept that what Apple did is sensible in the legal and financial context it was done, in virtually every post on this thread.
You started by posting that the bricking was a technical side effect of the update process. It's not.
Then you tried to counter the absolute fact that it was unpleasant by saying it was legal. And YES it was legal. I stongly believe that business-wise they should have been bricking phones from day 0. But NO there was no technical reason.
What's an example of a technical reason then? Would the firmware installer finding an unapproved/unsupported firmware and locking the phone be a technical reason? I'd say it is but you obviously disagree and that's cool.
I think we're just arguing for the sake of arguing now since we both agree that it's within their right and makes business sense to relock the phones and it happened due to people's own stupidity. (I mean seriously, if someone knowingly installs a third party firmware why on earth would they think "hmm I should install this software update despite the warnings from the manufacturer"?)
14 comments so far
Huh? Must be a cultural thing... I can assure you, if they brick phones in Germany, people won't be so easy on Apple. I dunno about Greece, but we actually have consumer protection agencies here that take the laws seriously. I can understand them disabling applications, but if they really bricked phones irreversebly and done so intentionally (which according to Engadget isn't sure yet), they did something despicable. Even if it's lawful, that doesn't make it right.
Either way, Apple fraked up big time! Even if its the case that a percentage of all phones get bricked (even unmodified ones), it's still a disaster... If Microsoft would ever pull a stunt like this, they would be hammered into the ground! Of course, Apple is Apple.... X(
2 years, 1 month ago by fabsh
In Greece it's illegal to sell a device with a contract that locks it for more than 9 months. We do have consumer rights groups too, this is not Myanmar. All devices however must be offered separately too, which is how I have gotten all of my previous phones and my current S710.
Apple is selling a device, with very clear characteristics and a simple licence agreement. You pay a certain amount of money up front and you don't get to duck the expense you have to pay for enveloping everything in html, each time you check out your google calendar. Granted that Apple takes a cut off the monthly bill, it's a money making machine in their part, but they aren't being dishonest about it. They even warned users to roll back to valid firmware.
The problem doesn't lie with Apple, but with the journalists that always assume the best possible thing when it comes to Apple, Linux and Google, even if it has to bend their statements. The exact opposite applies to Microsoft. It used to earn you brownie points to bash them, now if you don't there's a penalty.
In my opinion the only thing that Apple has done wrong is claiming the iPhone is as smartphone, which it clearly is not. It's a feature phone and a good one at it, if you don't care about a2dp and video.
And what's with the Microsoft argument ? They do it all the time, it's called product activation (although it gives you 60 days to settle things out) and it's the only way to make sure that software isn't pirated. That and making sure that you take the OS price as part of your whole product's price like Apple does.
2 years, 1 month ago by KCorax
The problem is that they disable your phone on purpose (if they did that)...
2 years, 1 month ago by fabsh
Yes yes, I fully agree that it is unpleasant. However this wouldn't have happened if people didn't do what they were explicitly told not to, from day 1. It's not Apple's fault that journalists still claim that it's very ok and 'quite safe' to hack the device in order to make it work with any network.
Next up: blame Microsoft for releasing updates that make Windows stop working over wine, or preventing Vista versions whose eula says they are not allowed to run under VMs from doing so. Or blame Apple for releasing updates that prevent hacked OSX distros from running on any x86 computer.
2 years, 1 month ago by KCorax
here's the problem with the "Apple broke my iPhone" argument.... you changed the firmware to an unknown state. you ran the firmware update that expected one of a very few default states. you bricked your phone.
None of this is Apple's fault. Does it suck? Yeah. Does Apple have any responsibility to support firmware they didn't write? Heck no.
They at least had the courtesy to warn people not to run the firmware update if they changed the firmware to an unknown state. Why should they waste resources trying to support unknown firmware states? No sane business would. They went above and beyond as far as I'm concerned by publicly warning people that they shouldn't run the firmware update.
2 years, 1 month ago by ChrisHanson
@ChrisHanson. The fact is that they went out of their way to introduce people to an activation screen (Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows Genuine Advantage). They shouldn't have to support the new state of the machine, but they bricking them intentionally reveals:
a) spite,
b) need to conform to some contract
They have the right and obviously the obligation to protect along with AT&T their mutual property. But stating that the bricking was an accident is naive.
2 years, 1 month ago by KCorax
So what if they re activated phones? For those who hadn't broken their own phone by installing non-supported firmware they touched a button and were done.
I repeat. They warned you that it would probably break your phone yet you installed the upgrade anyway... how on earth could this possibly be Apple's fault?
2 years, 1 month ago by ChrisHanson
@ChrisHanson. I agree with you. I am an Apple fan, but all of this whining about people's hacked phones being bricked is getting a little ridiculous. There is a reason you have to hack it! Apple decided, or may have been required based on their exclusive agreement w/ATT, to provide a locked down platform. Whether it is "fair" or not is a different story. Apple cant be held responsible for unauthorized modifications that break your phone after an update.
2 years, 1 month ago by hspirate
@ChrisHanson & @hspirate There are two very distinct arguments.
1) Does Apple have the right to release a firmware update that bricks you phone even though there is no good *technical* reason ? My answer to this certainly yes.
2) Is it nice that they do that to your phone ? My answer is absolutely no.
Does either of you disagree ?
2 years, 1 month ago by KCorax
But it's not their fault at all if you bricked your phone by installing a firmware update that you were warned would do exactly that.
Besides there was a technical reason that the phones were bricked. They had unauthorized, unsupported, 3rd party, hacked firmware. Apple could have worked around it with some effort but they had absolutely no reason to do so and it would have been detrimental to shareholder value (wasted resources) and they could have opened themselves up to a shareholder lawsuit. Should they have done so to allow you to use your iPhone on Tmobile and take money out of their pockets. Would you do any different? If you say 'yes' I'll call you a liar :-)
2 years, 1 month ago by ChrisHanson
@ChrisHanson As I understand it you still insist that there was a technical reason why they bricked their phones. The people who hacked their phones however were not presented with a black screen, nor was the phone behaving strangely. They were presented with an actvation screen. That means that the software didn't fail, but rather worked and fulfilled it's purpose by giving them the finger.
As I said I fully accept that Apple has the right and probably the contractual obligation to do what they did. It is the people's fault for hacking their phones. But there was clearly no technical reason to brick phones.
2 years, 1 month ago by KCorax
I give up.
If you don't think the legal (AT&T contract) and the financial (wasted resources working around 3rd party firmware and lost revenue stream from ATT contracts) reasons aren't good enough there's no convincing you.
Besides this is just Steve Jobs being Steve Jobs. He wants to be the biggest little monopolist in technology, locking users into his 'pay me and no one else' sandbox. The iPod is no different. Is there a technical reason you can't drag and drop files on and off of it? No. Is there a technical reason they don't support any DRM other than their own? No. Is there a techical reason for the new iPods to have a hash on the database that locks out programs other than iTunes? No (by the way if people want to be pissed about something Apple did to screw users, this should be it not the one they announced in June with the phone). Now that Apple has iWork and iLife I wouldn't be surprised if when Leopard comes out Steve says "We'll sell you everything you need on your computer, you don't need to install software from other companies anymore so we're getting rid of the ability to install other software".
Personally I think Apple went plenty far out of their way to give people with hacked iPhones a fighting chance. The firmware could have actually bricked the phones (which they publicly warned could happen). At least the thing still boots giving the hackers a running OS to work from to reunlock the phone until the next time this happens and the users still think they got screwed and still think it's not their own damn fault.
2 years, 1 month ago by ChrisHanson
Emotion and logic coexist orthogonally in all people but fanboys.
I've written that I accept that what Apple did is sensible in the legal and financial context it was done, in virtually every post on this thread.
You started by posting that the bricking was a technical side effect of the update process. It's not.
Then you tried to counter the absolute fact that it was unpleasant by saying it was legal. And YES it was legal. I stongly believe that business-wise they should have been bricking phones from day 0. But NO there was no technical reason.
2 years, 1 month ago by KCorax
What's an example of a technical reason then? Would the firmware installer finding an unapproved/unsupported firmware and locking the phone be a technical reason? I'd say it is but you obviously disagree and that's cool.
I think we're just arguing for the sake of arguing now since we both agree that it's within their right and makes business sense to relock the phones and it happened due to people's own stupidity. (I mean seriously, if someone knowingly installs a third party firmware why on earth would they think "hmm I should install this software update despite the warnings from the manufacturer"?)
2 years, 1 month ago by ChrisHanson