Okay, now that Apple has released iPhone update 1.1.1 and "broken" all those wonderful little 3rd party apps I just got around to showing my friends I have a question. Is Apple now shooting themselves in the foot? You see, I understand that they need to stop the "hackers" who have unlocked the phone (or at least they need to help AT&T realize a small profit, since Apple already made their money on the phone) but why step on these developers who are building apps that only make the phone more desirable?
So now those same developers (and by definition early adopters) are getting pissed, and talking about it openly. I’m in that camp. Let me back it up a sec…
You see, the iPhone developer community have helped produce a wonderful little application called (marketing-free) Installer.app. Google it. Further, on Sept. 7 they banded together with the other fine folks working on native iPhone applications to ensure an easy path for people looking to extend their phone. Imagine if Blu-Ray and HD DVD got along so well. In any event all was well until last Friday when Apple released software update 1.1.1. Now installer.app doesn’t work. And the natives are restless, many refusing to upgrade. (in fact an informal online poll on Engadget speaks volumes, where only 20% of 9000 people upgraded.)
And here is a clever reader revolt, using Apple’s own marketing words against them:
I contend that Apple is hurting itself now. Not only did they charge early adopters $200 more than folks who waited a few months for the iPhone (then issued the iPology) but now they are hurting the developers who have extended Apple’s platform making it more appealing to the late majority. This is classic Steve Jobs trying to control his invention. What’s funny is that this isn’t the Apple way – they thrive on getting other people to help them sell their stuff. But as I said in earlier posts, we’re witnessing a transformation of Apple from a people-centric computer company to a product-centric consumer electronics company. I, for one, think Apple needs to wake up and see that its early adopters are working hard to make their products more marketable.
Well for what its worth, I’m an ATT customer whose contract has been up for a few months. A long time Treo user, I didn’t see enough brand/model improvements to justify buying another one.
This left me open to get ANY phone I wanted.
I could have bought the i phone. But between bad reviews of download times, price reversals and now the i-phone poison pill download, I choose the ATT 8525.
Does one person (me) matter? Well, all I can say is all this bad pub, less technology and bad business practices sent me in another direction and I spoke with my wallet.
I doubt I am the only one.
Apple is about to repeat the disaster of the Macintosh with the iPhone. If they are so worried about people switching carriers, then perhaps the CARRIER should offer something MORE ENTICING!
Version 1.1.1 is no match for what the developer community has offered the iPhone. Apple can take 1.1.1 and shove it 3 times! The only loser here is Apple. Without the update, no sales via wi-fi itunes. Let’s see who wins here.
Don’t confuse your stream of consciousness and the aspirations of an arcane minority wishing to create their own distortion field with REALITY.
The REALITY is that 1 million plus iPhone users don’t care about hacks for the iPhone. I’m pleased with my product as Apple has provided it. And I know many associates who are also.
To iPhone hackers: Accept the terms of the contract and hack at your own risk. Leave the rest of us out of your fantasies.
Agree 100% with previous poster HG.
Simplistic moron. Comments like this clearly define your lack of fraction of clue as to what the iPhone is. Stick to a LG phone you uneducated peasant. You’re not worthy of an iPhone. Freakin idiots.
Apple have now become the Empire in the minds of the geeks:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pr-bluff/apples-iphone-bricking-is-legal-and-technical-bs-303459.php
No more being the cool rebels, nope, they are the bad guys now. This is bad. Real bad. Many early adopters are now annoyed, the bloggers are turning against Apple, even the main stream press has caught on. I think the long term damage to Apple may well be significant. They are no longer cool, no longer the rebels, they are now the Empire.
Only question is: Who is the rebel now?
The real issue here is not that Apple’s update has neutralized the hacks, it’s that Apple is forcing developers to create hacks instead of giving them the opportunity to create real apps.
If there was a hack that made my car get better mileage I might do it. However, I also need to know that the manufacturer could make an upgrade that would disable the hack or even cause bigger issue. Apple pwes ATT some loyalty. Fine. It also owes its customers the expectation that their needs will be met – either by Apple directly (doubtful) or by the free market.
Does anyone remember when OS X came out and Apple didn’t want any third party apps in the Finder bar at the top?? Well, users demanded that their addons be allowed to work and all of a sudden Apple relented.
This product is only 3 months old. Let’s see what happens. If Apple is smart, they’ll develop a SDK or someother means to allow 3rd aprties to enhance the product. If not, someone else will come out with a more useable if less elegant I love my iPhone but in the end it needs to make me more productive and the last 10 songs at Starbucks won’t cut it.
Two things.
1. Apple will probably have a SDK for the iPhone sooner rather than later.
2. Can you give some specifics on what 3rd party apps you used on your iPhone?
Sure. I used Installer.app to load Summerboard (great customization software), FiveDice (a Yatzee simulator), Lights Off, Mobile Tetris, TTR, VNotes, and Sudoku. I’ve tried others but this was the stable set I ended with. Still haven’t upgraded…
It’s amazing that Apple can make any money at all considering the thousands of impassioned pleas I’ve read in posts over the past few years that go something like, “if Apple were smart…”
Well, the truth is, (should anybody care about the truth,) Apple IS smart. That’s why their stock hit an all-time high today. Anyone else here with that going for them?
Money, success, profitability, is unlikely to be the yardstick for such critics, whose main goal is having things their way…oh yes, the more informed, the more enlightened, the smarter way.
So what’s the snit, this time in diggdom? Apple made a deal with AT&T. A grown-up contract…(on paper, and everything.) It’s clear that many don’t like that fact. But that was the decision. If you want to bash Apple for that decision and not buy their products because of that decision, so be it. They can live without the extra business. They will do things, like roll out products, set pricing, add features, give rebates, when it makes business sense to THEM, not because they have their ear to the dorm room of every armchair quarterback with a blog. If anyone wants to wait. Wait. No harm in that. The world will never know or care.
In this case, the developers felt otherwise. They were smarter. They knew better. They felt that it would be easy to do things to a phone that rightfully belonged to them after the purchase. Maybe force Apple to play ball with them once the iPhones were all tarted up and it would cause grief, they knew, for Apple to come out swinging. And they were right to believe that they could do it. It’s obviously true; one can perform all sorts of surgery, hard or soft, to an iPhone once purchased. And ANY hardware and software can be hacked. It happens regularly to iTunes, for example, and new revisions come forth on a regular basis. Same now for the iPhone. But if you wish to play in the iPod, ITunes, and iPhone sandbox, you have to deal with that pesky Apple continuously wanting to keep their franchise healthy and at the forefront. Don’t you just long for those good old Napster days? Wow, $10…or…FREE. Let’s see…well, who’da thunk that iPod contraption would go anywhere with that kind of an equation? Yes, “if Apple were smart…”
Now along came those developers armed with their plan for the iPhone. True altruists they were. They were going to “open up” the iPhone up to everyone in the world, for the betterment of all mankind. Didn’t bother to ask Apple if they might mind the boinking around inside the iPhone or on the network, what with the millions invested in developing, marketing, and deploying the device over the course of several years . There was clearly an opportunity for shareware here and, by golly, they were the ones to ride to the rescue of the common good.
Now, let’s face it, they were clear that Apple had said that boinking around wasn’t intended useage and would void warranties, but many believed Apple was saying that with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, cause (let’s face it again) why the heck wouldn’t Apple be looking for the first chance to hack and mod and boink around a lucrative revenue-sharing contract with AT&T? At least the developers fervently hoped, for their sake, this was so. Well, it turned out not to be. Whaaaa.
And so, all the slavish man-years of work that these altruists put into their mini-marvels was not only down the drain, but the ones foolish enough to update seem also to be sans iPhone. Here’s to the crazy ones.
What’s that you say, “it’s not hard to believe that some even wanted the update to brick, for a variety of reasons and motives.” Oh, I’d never believe, for a nano-second, there’s anyone out there in the combined consumer electronics, computer, software, or cell phone, music, movie, or print media business (not counting brokerages and banks) working to counter every move Apple is making. Never crossed my mind. Not. Ever.
Wait! To get back on track, please refresh my memory…hacking commercial products is a constitutional birthright, isn’t it? And expecting that regular updates on hacked or modded devices will just “work” and not cause consumer grief on a worldwide scale, regardless of ANY type of modding…isn’t that true? And is that just in America, or is that a global entitlement?
Yes, it seems that to many of the entitled, everything should just be free. Wonderful world, envision it if you can: everyone relentlessly screaming at each other in blog comments and forums…(well, that’s the same as now)…but all with free software and computers and phones.
And there’s no finer example to be found anywhere than in this very blog post where you’ve no doubt been enchanted by the poaching of the “Here’s To The Crazy One’s” commercial. Alas, the hard working critics, developers, and their self-envisioned, self-aggrandizing, vast minions of rebellious, paradigm-shifting, tantrum-throwing, threatening, boycotting geek-squaddery couldn’t even raise enough bucks, intellect, or creativity to produce their own commercial for the dearly departed without additionally having to boink Apple’s property.
Here’s the reality: the iPhone doesn’t need to do anything that it doesn’t already. I know that must sound all mumbly-jumbly to the modding community out there. But the real majority of owners aren’t even aware of this galactic-shaking issue. That’s the deal. It’s not smug, or arrogant, or anything. It just is. It’s expected that updates will be ongoing, and new uses and useful applications will find their way into the device over time. People are happy with the phone the way it is. It’s true.
The equation is simple. If the iPhone the way it is doesn’t make you more productive (or whatever) then see if something else does. The fact that you’ll buy a Zune 2, or a Nokia, or Vista, or a VIAO, or a Linux distro, or a Blackberry, a Wii, or a Dick Tracy wrist watch, to solve your needs won’t REALLY matter to anyone but you.
If you REALLY want to make a noticable difference to people around the entire world in the least amount of time, then help work on Firefox and prove that a free community effort can produce not just a respectable effort, but at least ONE world-class product so far ahead of anything else that everyone HAS to have it (not true today.)
If you think you can put a dent in Apple by not buying their next product, then please check out Apple’s stock price on your freePhone anytime you’re feeling empowered. That should give you a clue about what its stockholders and real customers are buying and their level of satisfaction with the brand, the company, and its solutions.
Oh, one last thing…a psychiatrist will probably advise you that it’s unhealthy to a) continuing to wish things were not the way they obviously are, b) to insist on clinging to the fantasy where you always believe you know better than the folks running a $135+ Billion consumer electronics marketing powerhouse, and then there’s c) your seeming compulsion to break into everything. What’s that about?
Hmm…(let’s see if we can figure out the response.) Oh, I bet it’s…
Yell. Scream. Ridicule. Shout. “Your stoopid.” More yelling. And finally, “if Apple were smart…”
Reality Check: all I can say is wow. What a comment. Clearly there are sides to this argument…I don’t think people should think they can do what they want to Apple’s platform. However, Apple did go on record saying they were 1) open to developers extending it and 2) they wouldn’t go out of their way to prevent people from doing so, at their own risk. Those are magic words to developers. It’s not carte blanche, but it isn’t a “you void your warranty for messing around here” which is what the final warning sounded like last week.
In any case, I stand by my point that Apple has changed their tune on what early adopters can and should do for them. And it’s an interesting twist of fate that Steve and Steve first made their money to start Apple by making a device (a “blue box”) that allowed anyone to make free phone calls…on AT&T’s network.
They definitely didn’t say either 1) OR 2). They said web apps. But, hey, don’t worry. There’s an SDK coming very soon. Fake Steve says so.
(in reference to the first comment)
I’m sorry, but why would i listen to a guy who buys the Att 8525 instead of the iphone? You didn’t buy the iphone because they lowered the price?! LOL.
I’m sorry that’s just retarded. How about buying it because now it represents a better value?!
As for download times it all depends where you are. I have a friend who tells me very often he cannot access a 3g network with his phone anyway.
Your last reason isn’t any better than the others. I guess you believe that if you modify the engine of your car and it won’t run anymore that your car company should replace your car even though you voided the warranty by modifing it.
Every day I’m more amazed at how well the iphone works, I doubt you will be thinking the same thing.
But I’m sure you’re teaching Apple a big lesson by buying an inferior product and getting stuck with it. Of course given your warped logic you’ll be insisting to your friends:” no really, it’s soooooo much better than the iphone because they didn’t lower the price!”
I agree with Jarod, this stranglehold on the iPhone is the same mistake that kept the original Mac from gaining wider adoption. If people want fun little apps on their phone, they’re going to take the path of least resistance, even if the OS under it sucks.
I wrote about various business, design and technology reasons why iPhone and iPod touch are not yet open here:
iPod touch nay-sayers: shackled by “gadget thinking”
http://counternotions.com/2007/10/01/ipod-touch-nay-sayers-shackled-by-gadget-thinking/
IT’S JUST A F***ING PHONE!!!