Recent press has confirmed that Apple’s threat to disable iPhones that have been unlocked appears to have come true.
The Guardian’s article title is rather amusing: Apple bricks some hacked iPhones.
Gizmodo has a good piece about it here.
Twitter has gone wild with folks reporting problems, not just with hacked ‘Phones but with regular unhacked devices too. And even Robert Scoble’s son is having problems.
Do you think iPhone users who unlocked their devices deserve to be locked out? I suppose it *is* breach of contract and Apple are simply enforcing that contract…after all, I guess AT&T have a legal position on this too. I’d appreciate your comments.
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Has Apple shot itself in the foot? What do you think?
Technorati Tags: iPhone, unlocked iPhone, iPhone firmware 1.1.1, Apple iPhone
This would put me off getting one! Vendor lock-ins are understandable but unethical.
I would say that whilst Apple have the “right” to do it, they should really be careful what press they get.
The update makes the iPhone into iTrash :-).
It isn’t even that great a phone for the money!
Dont know about you Craig, but my biggest grind with this vendor lock in rubbish is we can’t blag an iphone through work as we don’t use O2 here in the UK 🙂
I remember seeing the key note where Steve Jobs stated that an Apple employee, after seeing the iphone for the first time, said ‘You had me at scrolling.’ … well … you lost me with the vendor lock in !! 🙂
However, my daughter loves her istone
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackhatspider/1453822875/
May be Ipod lived to its expectations.. but not this one..too much of techie…
I’m with you immediately if you want to say it’s a crap idea and a potential publicity disaster… but as I understand, it’s not such a *very* unusual thing in the US, where apparently cell phone providers have a history of locking people into their contracts (and binding them to their devices) far more than in Europe.
In the end it’s the customer who chooses – how many people can honestly say they weren’t aware of Apple’s stance on this when they bought their iPhone? I think now that things have turned out the way they have, it’s still better to speak up than to do nothing. But at the same time I also believe that a consumer has a certain responsibility for his/her actions, and complaints after the fact are not the way to go.
As you’re asking elsewhere – Has Apple shot itself (SIC!) in the foot? – well, they might have, given enough negative publicity. But knowing Apple, I would actually assume they were going to bring a piece of the stability of the Mac platform, or even of the iPod, to the telephony market… both these platform have not achieved their stability and, in the end, their popularity by being particularly open, free or cheap.
Its about the same setup as Sony and Microsoft have with their PS3 and XBox360s respecively. The lose money on the game console and make it up in royalties for games. Apple is probably losing money on the IPhone and making it back with the contract with AT&T. What they should have done is to make versions of their phone for different carriers rather than make the phone inoperable. Unfortunately they probably have a contract with AT&T that they can’t get out of either. 🙂