[webstyr]

Quote:

---

Anyone who REALLY found a great degree of validity in the 3rd party community just wouldn't upgrade knowing or even suspecting that connection to this community would be removed.

---

I totally disagree with this statement for a couple of reasons. First off, we've been through a couple previous updates to the iPhone software and while it zapped the third-party apps and made us restore our iPhones, we could still re-install teh Installer app and get back to where we were before the update. If history is an indicator of the future, and I believe it is, then one could have reasoned this update would act similarly to the previous updates.
Secondly, a couple of weeks ago an Apple executive who's name I can't recal, made a public statement to the effect that Apple would not intentionally to anything to prevent third-party apps from being installed on the iPhone. That statement along with the history of iPhone updates makes a pretty strong argument that the risk of having the connection to the third-party community and apps they provided was small to nil. I also updated my iPhone and I am as, or more, remorseful than the author of this article.
I miss not being able to hit and button and have my long/lat show up in Google Maps so I can then enter a destination and get directions from my current location without haveing to find intersection signs to get the information to key into the iPhone. I miss having the ability to IM my friends from my iPhone. I miss the IRC channels. I miss getting my news through an RSS Reader when I'm not at my computer. I miss Minesweeper. I miss the ability to transfer my ringtons from my Mac to my iPhone with FTP. I miss doing the same woth my Nintendo ROM's. I miss the tool I used to find open unprotected Wi-Fi hotspots so I could surf faster than using the lame EDGE network. I miss not having my website run right on my iPhone so I can access it directly from my iPhone even when I don't have a signal or Wi-Fi access. I miss not having a Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus avail at the touch of a button. I miss the ability to touch my screen to bright white and use it as a flashlight. I miss customizing the screen background and icons and adding many, many more third-party app icons to a flickable springboard. I miss the ability to edit any text document on the iPhone. I miss the ability to email images, files and songs from my iPhone to my friends. I miss the ability to navigate through the iPhones operating system and having the ability to change file ACL's or even delete files I don't want anymore.
I miss soooo many good and wonderful, and free, third-party apps that it makes me want to cry. I almost makes me waant to put my iPhone on the shelf it has become so much less in the flash of an update. I think they should have called it a downdate. I am in morning for the death of my iPhone. Please Apple have a heart and set my iPhone free. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Walt_Basil]

I agree with most of what you say Chris. Where we part ways is when you refer to your iPhone as a Mac. That it is not. Apples computers have that area covered. Steve has gone out of his way to let us know they do not consider it a computer. Its a phone. Nothing more. Nothing less. You say One of the beauties of the Mac is that I can make it mine by deciding how it's going to look, what applications I'm going to put on it, and where I'm going to organize the stuff on it. Well, that still holds true. You can make your Mac yours by doing what you want to it and putting what you want on it. What you cant do is make your iPhone a Mac, as much as youd like to think it can be. Its not. As long as Apple puts that in the license, you can do as much as you want to it, but when it comes down to any support, its going to be support as an iPhone.
When the x86 architecture first came into play, it was a generic CPU, and technically still is. It is used in many things, to include, our PCs and Macs. Just because that processor gets put into other devices for other specific uses doesnt mean we can buy these other devices, and somehow come up with a way to install our own items on them, and expect to maintain our warranty and future reliability intact. After all, it's technically a computer right? Once youve deviated from the original intention and voided the warranty, dont expect any official support.
I applaud Apple for this (/applause). They need to spend enough time making sure everything is in perfect working order, and doesnt have any major conflicts with itself and any future updates without worrying about what Joe Blow decided to do on his iPhone and whether or not that will have any major effects. That is when you start getting to be microsoftian. Having to make sure you are compatible with a host of other peoples hardware, drivers, and code. When Apple provides an update, they only have to test it out on the official iPhone and all supported software. When Microsoft provides an update, they have to make sure their OS is still compatible with their own software, hardware, drivers, and most every other major hardware vendor out there as well. That is when the system starts becoming more unstable. I have only restarted my phone 3 times since Ive had it. Once for the first update, once because AT&T told me to when I changed my text messaging limits, and once for the final update. I want to keep it that way.
Bottom line is, no matter how much you or I wish that we could install what we want on our iPhones, or how much we would like to think of our phones as little Macs, when the manufacturer tells us its not, then its not. And if we happen to act like they are, and do what we want on our phones, we take our future use of that phone into our own hands and have to accept whatever risk may be involved.
Luckily for those willing to accept the risk, they have your (Macworlds) experience to guide them through the rough waters.

[OM_user]

Quote:

---

The whole article kind of loses it's punch when you take into account the fact that the writer willingly applied an update they knew would more than likely disable this functionality. I think it may have been more valid to state that "I'm not going to upgrade and here's the reason why" than "I upgraded and now I'm sad". Because, with ONE of those statements, you'd at LEAST still have a happy writer

---

This comment makes me laugh, really.
If none of the MacWorld editors had stepped up to take a hit for the "team" they wouldn't have been able to accurately report on what, if anything, this update did to a hacked and/or 3rd party app modded iPhone. (Remember, Apple did not state it would definitely brick iPhones or remove 3rd party apps; it was a warning of the possibility, not a defacto statement)
No report from MacWorld would have meant that many more users who were in danger of having their iPhones bricked wold have installed the update, resulting in more iBricks.
So in the end I would expect users to b*tch about the fact that MacWorld could not or did not report on this update.
in the end, MacWorld can't win. If they do it to report on it accurately, they get chastised, if they didn't do it, complaints would come in about why they didn't report on it. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Johnson]

How about you would-be third-party iPhone programmers dry your eyes for a minute? As Rixstep pointed out when the iPhone first appeared, most everything in the iPhone is running at the root level. This is what makes the iPhone so fast and responsive relative to its competitors. But without the user account protection scheme of desktop Mac OS X, any vulnerabilities in native programs become a route for bad hackers to take over the iPhone (ala Metasploit hacking software). At least with web programs, there is a sandbox to make it harder for malicious hackers. Either the SDK process is going to have to be handled very carefully by Apple or the iPhone will have to be changed in ways that will lose ground to Symbian and Windows Mobile phones.

[NewGuyontheMac]

Quote:

---

I have to disagree with "this is not the mac way" thought. This seems to be the mac way since at least the intro of OSX.

---

Even further back. I've been around long enough to have gone through several of these "locked" periods and it may be why I'm so ambivalent about this recent one. While other companies make products JUST for normal consumers (that geeks aren't interested in) or JUST for geeks (that normal consumers couldn't HOPE to use), Apple's genius is that it creates products that both groups want for their own reasons. If this was just another underpowered "consumer friendly" device, there wouldn't be as much talk or interest in unlocking or putting on other apps except as a hobby for the most elite of the geeks (because I'm sure there's someone hacking a VideoNow to run Linux /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif But, Apple has created a consumer device (and as such, will market and update it like a consumer device) that geeks happen to be ga ga for. Unfortunately, those avid mod-folx will always be in the margins (and underserved) when compared to the HUGE number of consumer users who are more than ecstatic to use it exactly as Apple intends and may never even reach the limits of what's currently available... much less what upgrades may bring.
For those that still want to play with a cool phone, there is ALWAYS openmoko, but doesn't "open" in the name merely means "no challenge"? And what true hacker wants no challenge?? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Chris Breen]

Quote:

---

Bottom line is, no matter how much you or I wish that we could install what we want on our iPhones, or how much we would like to think of our phones as little Macs, when the manufacturer tells us its not, then its not. And if we happen to act like they are, and do what we want on our phones, we take our future use of that phone into our own hands and have to accept whatever risk may be involved.

---

Let me try to clarify some of what I'm saying.
1. Apple can say "it's just a phone" but then it installs Google Maps, a browser, an email client, iPod stuff, etc. Other than the fact that it can make calls, in what way are they treating it as a phone? Apple more than hints that this is a portable computing/communications device. I'm not asking it to produce milk or walk my dog. I'm simply asking for the privilege to -- at my own risk -- extend its powers just as I can do with my Mac or...
2. ...with another smartphone. If there were no precedent for phones being user configurable, fine. But look at a Treo or Blackberry or.... Modern smartphones allow for this kind of thing. If you install a third-party app on a Treo and there's a problem, the manufacturer doesn't raise its skirts and fall over in a dead faint. In short: Apple's excuses about third-parties breaking their phone is asinine. Do they issue these same warnings about putting third-party apps on Apple computers? Of course not.
3. Just because Apple says so doesn't make it so. The law allows you to unlock phones. Apple says "no, our license says you can't and we may technically skirt that law to keep you from exercising your rights." Who's right? Any manufacturer can put any damned thing they like in their EULA, but it doesn't make it enforceable even if the user agrees to the license. I'm not one for petitions or calling for the cops every time you're unhappy, but I think Apple's on shaky ground here.
4. I'm not asking Apple for anything other than it stay out of the way. I completely understand its efforts to prevent unlocking (though, as I say, I'm not sure they have the right) because it costs them something when phones are unlocked. Third-party applications are another matter. It costs them nothing (unless they have a scheme where they're going to find a way to charge those third-parties and us for installing such tools) and it adds value to their product. In my heart of hearts I have to believe they could have done this without killing hacks.

[OM_user]

Quote:

---

I'm going to guess that there was nothing in the software update that required them to lock out third-party apps. Why not just leave the firmware the way it was and add the new features?

---

That's a good question. Not having ANY first hand knowledge of the iPhone's firmware, this is pure speculation, but, does anyone recall that when the iPod touch first hit the store shelves, one of the 1st things the hackers did was see if their 3rd party apps and things like the Installer.app would run on it? Well, it didn't. This tells me that the firmware for the touch was fundamentally different than on the iPhone.
So, what does this mean?
Is it possible that the firmware included in the 1.1.1 iPhone update is now the SAME as the one on the iPod touch? After all, some of the features present on the touch have made their way to the iPhone, including, bit not limited to, the WiFi iTunes Store feature.
Again, I have no idea, but I wonder if in order to bring the iPhone to match some of the new functions that made their debut on the iPod touch, it was necessary for Apple to install a new version of the firmware; one that would not work with the existing 3rd party apps. Existing being the key word. I have no doubt eventually the hacker community will find a way to revive the 3rd party app scenario.
As for bricked iPhones, I'm not as confident they can help there.

[NewGuyontheMac]

Quote:

---

If history is an indicator of the future, and I believe it is, then one could have reasoned this update would act similarly to the previous updates.

---

Common advice regarding updates of ANY kind on ANY system... If you're currently in a "working" state, DON'T UPDATE. History is NEVER an indicator of the future in this regard. Everyone here probably has a story where QuickTime 7 worked great, but 7.0.7 broke some essential feature. Or, OSX 10.3.5 worked like a charm, but something went wrong between there and 10.3.9 where the problem was resolved. Every change you make can leave you in a compromised or non-functioning state... and, in most cases, this may be directly caused by the user doing something non-supported (like using haxies on OSX). If anything, when in a working state, check with others to determine if anyone has a system close enough to yours to validate your safety when updating and even THAT isn't foolproof.

Quote:

---

Secondly, a couple of weeks ago an Apple executive who's name I can't recal, made a public statement to the effect that Apple would not intentionally to anything to prevent third-party apps from being installed on the iPhone.

---

There was also some information from just this week (more recent than a couple of weeks ago) mentioning something about an upcoming update doing something bad to iPhones. I'm paraphrasing because that's pretty much all the info I'd need to have to make me cautious of this update.
Unless someone was sleeping most of this week and missed the pages and pages of back and forth over "will my phone be safe", "Apple is becoming like Microsoft", and more all over the Mac web, I'd find it difficult to believe that anyone who felt a large portion of their enjoyment with the iPhone was based on third party applications would have blindly updated before at least reading ONE article regarding another's success/failure.

[Johnson]

And if you don't believe me about the security problems with iPhone applications, answer the arguments in this article:
http://www.metasploit.com/

[swartzfeger]

Quote:

---

Apple allows third-party apps on my Mac without complaining that they might introduce problems, why can't the same standard apply to my iPhone?

---

I agree with your post Chris, but I think Apple is between a rock and a hard place with 3rd party apps because of AT&T. Allowing unfettered access would allow immediate access to chat, VOIP, and other apps that any carrier would consider a threat to their bottom line. Apple knows 3rd party apps are gonna be installed, as does AT&T. They also know that every update is gonna break these apps, and that a lot of users aren't going to jump through the hoops of re-installing summerboard et al. with every monthly update.

[seanmcg]

Quote:

---

Secondly, a couple of weeks ago an Apple executive who's name I can't recal, made a public statement to the effect that Apple would not intentionally to anything to prevent third-party apps from being installed on the iPhone....

---

If I remember correctly...
He said they wouldn't do anything intentionally to block third-party apps, but he also added that they wouldn't guarantee that the apps would continue to work either. They have been warning people a long time about this. While people may not like it, they sure shouldn't be surprised.

Quote:

---

There was also some information from just this week (more recent than a couple of weeks ago) mentioning something about an upcoming update doing something bad to iPhones.

---

That was not in regard to 3rd-party apps but to unlocked phones. The implication I get from all this was that the code to install apps didn't require the same access to firmware that the unlocking hacks did.
I'm indifferent to the iPhone issues (lock/unlocked,apps/no apps) except to say that if I start using a product in a manner a) it was not designed for or b)inconsistent with warnings given by the manufacturer, I don't expect the manufacturer to support that. In the same way, I don't blame the manufacturer if their attempt to fix/upgrade my product results in the inability to continue using it in an unapproved way. (If Apple's SIM lock is against the law, I would still prefer a solution from them since they made the device.)
No one forced you to get one of these phones and their capabilities and limitations were well-known.

[swartzfeger]

Quote:

---

I have to disagree with "this is not the mac way" thought. This seems to be the mac way since at least the intro of OSX.
In order to run it on upgraded 9600s etc you had to install the xpostfacto patch. There are many other examples of this sort of thing and, no doubt, more experienced users could come up with a long list.
This "control" issue is present in their designs too: Why sealed battery compartments. Why no memory card slots? Look at the modularity of the laptops as compared to - say - a thinkpad or even the pismo.
Why the surprise?

---

I'm partially with you on this, probert -- I don't think people should be surprised with the iPhone's 'closed' nature.
We knew pre-launch the battery couldn't be replaced, we knew about the seamless design, we knew about the host of other closed 'features' that were enumerated on the net prior to June 29, 2007.
Apple has had a love/hate thing with user-configurability with the Mac ever since I could remember. I remember being able to customize things under OS 9 that I can't now in OS X; with that said, I can geek out to my heart's content via terminal and change virtually anything I want (as long as I copy/paste the correct string from macosxhints.com!).
I think the other thing we may be confusing/conflating is the "Apple Way" vs. the "Mac Way." The iPhone is not a Mac... I know it sounds pedantic, but it's not a Mac. I catch myself throwing mini-tantrums sometimes, wondering "why can't I..." and then stop and remember I'm running a watered down, bastardized Tiger/Leopard OS X hybrid on a really cool phone that feels a lot like my Mac but isn't.

[NewGuyontheMac]

Quote:

---

That was not in regard to 3rd-party apps but to unlocked phones. The implication I get from all this was that the code to install apps didn't require the same access to firmware that the unlocking hacks did.

---

My point was that even if you didn't get the fine point differences between "unlocking" and "hacking", just the mention of "some uptate" doing "something" to "some" iPhones should have been enough to raise a red flag to anyone dependent on third party apps. Even after finding specific articles going over what was meant, I never read anything that stated 100% one way or the other what the resulting functionality would be after the update. This, again, would make me pause before updating if I had anything on the phone that was not "factory".

[swartzfeger]

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

That was not in regard to 3rd-party apps but to unlocked phones. The implication I get from all this was that the code to install apps didn't require the same access to firmware that the unlocking hacks did.

---

My point was that even if you didn't get the fine point differences between "unlocking" and "hacking", just the mention of "some uptate" doing "something" to "some" iPhones should have been enough to raise a red flag to anyone dependent on third party apps. Even after finding specific articles going over what was meant, I never read anything that stated 100% one way or the other what the resulting functionality would be after the update. This, again, would make me pause before updating if I had anything on the phone that was not "factory".

---

There's the rub -- no respectable article is ever going to state with 100% certainty what the iPhone's functionality is going to be after an update because Apple is never going to state that up front. The Apple exec that invoked the cat & mouse analogy nailed it.
Heck, with reports that unmodified, un-hacked iPhones losing data after the 1.1.1 update, I think it's safe to assume that any iPhone with 3rd party apps from this point forward is definitely vulnerable to some degree. As power users, I think we need to decide how badly we need those apps until Apple comes out with a concrete statement (fat chance).