iPhone v1.1.1: is it legal?

Let's say you buy a new house After all these years, you now have a place you can call home. What a good feeling...

So you decide to make some renovations: you paint the rooms in your favorite color, you put nice accessories on the walls, a high tech kitchen with all fancy new gadgets, etc...

But one night, the previous owner breaks in your house, removes everything  and puts your house exactly  the way it was before you bought  it.

Then when you realize what he's done, he turns to you with a little smile and tells you "I didn't like the way it was. So I undid everything."

That's his right, isn't it? At least that's the way Steve Jobs sees it.

Comments

[Steve]

Yes, except Apple isn't forcing you to update the firmware. The phone will still work fine with all your custom apps. You can't expect them to release the strangehold of the cell phone companies all at once.

[Kevin Lohman]

I agree that consumers should be able to do what they want with their electronics, so I'm not really arguing against the point you are trying to make with your post.

However I don't like obnoxious debate tactics. Notably your strawman isn't factually correct. The Analogy is close, but not correct, you forget that there is nothing that forces you to install the update. A more correct analogy would be:

You buy a house from Steve Jobs who sets up the house in a pretty nice fashion and promises to come by on a regular basis and add things at no extra cost to you. He warns you however that if you let him do this it involves cleaning out all the old stuff, which might include anything you put in. You then redecorate the place, adding things that you think should have been there in the first place, as well as picking some of the locks to the back room so you can install a satellite dish because you don't like cable. Later Steve comes by and rings your doorbell, he's got a few new pieces of furniture, but he warns that if you let him in he'll have to clean out everything, but that you don't have to let him in, and everything will keep working fine if you don't.

It's not against the law, you're just a big baby. You can have your cake or you can eat it. If you want the iPhone to be cooler, and play nice with 3rd party apps, the justice department isn't who you should go crying to, it's Steve Jobs and my guess is his hands are tied right now by AT&T (we don't see the contracts those yo yo's made him sign to get the sweets but my guess is they aren't retarded and all this hacking was provisioned for.)

Kevin

[rickx]

Well, this is a bit exaggerated. The previous owner does not come at night, he rings and asks: "do you want me to do some maintenance making some of the parts of this house better? It's for free." People should realize this: they have a choice. But they would like Apple to support them though they go in the opposite direction.
Apart from that, Apple's last strategies all suck and I sincerely hope Jobs will be buried once for all by the consequences. Let's see.

[RB]

Buying a house? You think that compares to buying a phone. How about buying a car modding out the engine beyond manufacture specs and then expecting their new components to work with what you did.

[Cyril]

Well, it looks like the question raised about the legality of all this was not so crazy after all:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/01/iphone-users-calling-for-class-action-lawsuit-over-firmware-v1-1/

[Steve]

I think buying a house is a good analogy. I spend more time with my laptop than I do my house, and once I get an iPhone it will be like a third arm to me. That is, if I can install third party apps it will be.

[Cliff]

Its a shame to see such lock down of apple products, I almost never update my apple products for fear that the updates are just "patches" to make my "mytunes" or iphone not work as well as it could.

The iphone is incredibly sophisticated, and while I understand the out of box sandbox, I don't think there's any reason for power users to not be able to add custom apps, that is the definition of a smart phone remeber?

[sweet frenchy]

how do i change my iphone main menu appearence.. and also add programs onto it?