iPhone Freed From AT&T, Twice 357
A very large number of readers sent in stories about one or the other of the two new claims to have unlocked the iPhone for use on other GSM carriers. A New Jersey teenager, George Hotz, posted instructions for unlocking the iPhone using a soldering gun and a lot of patience. This is from coverage in a local NJ paper: "If someone handed him an iPhone new out of the box, he could modify it in 'about an hour,' he said. A person following his directions might take 'a good 12 hours,' the teen estimated." Hotz has put up a YouTube video substantiating his claim, and is conducting an eBay auction for one of his two hacked phones. The other hack is by a commercial outfit called iPhoneSIMfree.com, whose claim Engadget has verified. The company will be selling licenses to the hack, minimum quantity 500, at a price not yet announced. These hacks are much bigger news for those outside America. Expect to see an industry spring up to meet European (and Asian?) demand for freed iPhones.
More Like.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why do all this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More Like.... (Score:5, Interesting)
You would think...... (Score:4, Interesting)
Licensing a hack? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More Like.... (Score:3, Interesting)
don't care (Score:5, Interesting)
Hack licenses? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More Like.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, they'll probably respond (and I'd wager that they'll wait until AFTER the phone sells on eBay--you know, to ensure some legal technicality ensues due to the sale) but really, if their business model relies (at least partially) on the revenue of another company, then shame on them.
Re:More Like.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More Like.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Depending on the balance of new customers to old (and 4GB iPhones to 8GB iPhones), Apple may just make more money by letting people buy the phone and use it with any provider, especially considering that the legal fees to try to enforce the locked phone policy would probably wipe out any difference in revenue from lost AT&T customers. That's provided that AT&T doesn't make too much of a stink with Apple about it. In any case, I'm sure the number of people who actually will end up unlocking their phones will be relatively small, so even AT&T doesn't have much to worry about, and Apple can enjoy those few extra sales that they'll get from it.
Re:OpenMoko (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Noone's going to know about it but Slashdot nerds. It may sell alright and be moderately succesful, but nothing like the iPhone.
2) The Phase 2 version of the phone (the one intended for mass market) will cost $450 [openmoko.org] for the base model, or $600 for the Advanced (developer's) version. That makes the base model $50 cheaper than the 4GB iPhone, and $150 cheaper than the 8GB iPhone, but there's also much less storage space (256MB + 512MB micro SD card... any other larger mSD cards you have to buy separately), no camera, and at this point, there's no way for the general public to really know how good the software interface is. It also has a smaller screen (but with higher resolution, so that's a plus), with no multi-touch functionality (yet). More pros and cons for the OpenMoko phone vs. the iPhone can be found here [openmoko.org].
I hope the OpenMoko project is a success, and I want one two, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's an iPhone killer. Come to think of it, good things haven't ever happened for any company that's made a so-called iPod killer, so I wouldn't think OpenMoko should even aspire to be an iPhone killer. Just a good phone/personal portable computer.
Why is GPS primary? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet almost all the time, I know exactly where I am. What I want to know is where something else is, and how to get there. Thus for me of primary importance is the map browsing, and at that the iPhone excels since it's so easy to do local searches on an area you are viewing, have it generate directions you can follow a turn at a time, and browse nearby streets to be sure exactly how to get there once you are close. Panning and zooming in and out are far easier even than on a browser on my desktop!
Then there's the issue of how reliable your GPS even is - even with standalone units I have the signals go in and out, basically I don't trust them much. The thing I do like about standalone units, locally stored maps for when you have no network at all, does not apply to any other phone anyway (that I know of).
Re:Why do all this... (Score:4, Interesting)
STFU - iPhone represents the most proprietary item you can obtain, with a hardware supplier who's not letting anyone but them write software, a software supplier who's famous for not running on any hardware other than that which they created (software supplier and hardware supplier being the same company, for anyone interested in vendor lock-in), and doing an exclusive deal with a monopoly telephone provider, just to put the monopilistic cherry on the proprietary icing.
How the fuck can you compare *that* with OpenMoko, a completely Free phone with a Free firmware, Free Operating System, Free applications, and community of Free Software guys prepared to spend $450 each just to debug the hardware for the benefit of humanity, so that for the first time ever, you can buy a phone that does whatever you want
Re:Except for one small problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Heck, what about the US? I'm wondering if the phone is unlocked....there is nothing preventing you from theoretically using it with a T-Mobile account in the US is there?
Bringing up another question....what if T-Mobile put in infrastructure to support iPhone visual voicemail...and other goodies that AT&T does...if they reversed engineered it in a 'clean' room, could they not get away with it and allow people in the US to switch to T-Mobile if they so wished?
Re:More Like.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Despite the exuberance of the dedicated fans, Apple needs to sell to average consumers if they're going to really succeed. It wasn't all the Mac fans buying iPods that made it so successful, it was the millions of regular, normal people who were drawn to a well-designed, innovative product and paying full price for it.
Retail is tricky though, because you have to keep giving customers what they want if you're going to stay on top. One reason Apple is still a small fraction of the personal computer market is not just the price, and now that you can run windows on them, it's not the compatibility with software. It's because a huge number of potential customers who would jump to run OSX want to be able to do it on their own sweet hardware. Most of us who deal with digital products as objects instead of a defining "way of life" expect to be able to buy a product "our way" and not be limited by the will of the vendor. There was a time when if you wanted to buy a Jaguar, you would go to some "car boutique" and have some snotty salesman tell you that you could either take the colors they offered or stuff it. There were no such thing as "options". If you squawked about the fact that you needed a complete tuneup every 1000 miles, you were told that "maybe a Jag isn't for you". Eventually, the Jaguar brand went in the tank because they just weren't giving customers what they want and their attitude led to horrible quality control. Now, you go to a Jag dealership and they'll give you choices. They started making the cars better, more reliable, because that's what people want.
Now Apple's got a lot of company when it comes to not giving consumers what they really want. In fact, it's all the rage now in certain industries, like telecom. "Screw the consumer," they say. "Where are they gonna go"?
But the consumer is more powerful than we've been led to believe. Eventually, we'll get what we want from Apple or their stock won't continue to stay so overvalued. Or, virtualization will get so flexible that there will be usable hacks for running OSX on our own hardware. Then, you'll see Apple offering "OSX Your Way" like it was some brilliant brainstorm.
Re:Calling all Lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)
Nonsense (Score:2, Interesting)
Fact: The idea that "Shrink-Wrap licensing" is a viable legal concept in this country, even these days, is a myth. It has never been tried in higher courts for software, and they have been thrown out in every case of which I am aware, when it comes to hardware.
When you walk into a store, and buy something off the shelf, it is YOURS, and you can do with it what you damned well please as long as you are not harming others (like hitting them with it). The only legal exception is if you have agreed otherwise, in advance of the purchase!
Even if such "shring-wrap" licensing, for such things as DRM, were otherwise legal, they would constitute "contracts of adhesion" which, in brief, are contracts that are not negotiable by the customer before purchase. ("Take it or leave it.") Courts are automatically biased against Contracts of Adhesion and routinely throw them out of court. The general idea is: if you can't negotiate it, it isn't a real contract.
So... yes, the corporate lawyers might try to step in and stop this, but if anybody has lawyers of their own that are worth the title, they will squash the oppressors without much trouble.
Re:Calling all Lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)
I had to look this up but Cell Phones have been ruled to be one of the exceptions to the the DMCA:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061124-828
http://www.darknet.org.uk/2007/04/legal-to-unlock
Cell Phone providers do not have to provide you with the ability to unlock your phones nor provide you with the information, but they cannot legally sue their customers for unlocking them according to Federal rules.
Re:More Like.... (Score:2, Interesting)
George did graduate, but did not attend graduation ceremony. Or was asked not to.....
Watson *is* a student at BA, and is also a sharp cat, and they *do* know each other.
And BA has more collective brains than a very large (though not complete) subset of
the Slashdot crowd put together. Top minds. We have freshmen that can compete against
our PhD teachers (yes, our school has about 70% faculty with PhD).
So unlike many of the total losers that post here on Slashdot, that talk and talk
and complain, and dream narrowly of some level of excellence but accomplish
NIL, our kids are very top flight performers that will go on to real technical
and other world-class work.
But of course, this is probably a Foreign Notion to most whining, complaining,
wannabe tech types here on Slashdot.
Go, George, Go!
And Watson, get your act together and put those brains to real work!