Already stalinized
Impressive, quite impessive. That was less than 5 minutes between posting the link and the website being stalinized of the face of the internet.
Efforts to open up the functionality of Apple's iPhone to users disinclined to sign up to expensive two year contracts with AT&T are growing. Following the publication of a technique to get the iPod and Wi-Fi features of the device working without signing up to AT&T by reverse engineer DVD Jon, a new group has picked up the …
This seems pretty pointless. Unlocked phones are only useful if you can then insert your own SIM card. The iPhone has this locked away inside (the only phone in the world to do this). It has been demonstrated that you have to destroy the case to open it up. So if you can't change the SIM what's the use in unlocking the device?
It's the same with any consumer product in the last 20 odd years. Start futzing with it and the warranty is no good. But the people cracking them open are probably more competent than the people on the other end of the support phone.
Back in the 1980s, I was in DEC software services (DEC SWS, pronounced deck swiss). We had a customer order the microcode for a VAX 11/780. We canceled their software and hardware support contracts. They just said "sure".
What are you on about?
The SIM can be removed very easily thanks to the helpful little slide-out tray on the bottom.
Instructions and photos:
http://www.maclife.com/article/how_to_remove_the_iphone_sim_card
There are many reasons to criticise the iPhone, there is no need to make them up.
To be fair, I originally heard somewhere that the battery *and* sim were both sealed inside. Was only later that I saw a youtube vid showing how to take it out that I was like...."oh, ok then"
Dont think he was intentionally making it up, but perhaps only heard the early reports about the phone.
"Last year, the US copyright office ruled that it was legal for consumers to unlock their mobile phones in order to use them with other carriers, a decision AT&T and Apple may seek to contest..."
I can see that AT&T would get their panties in a twist about unlocking the iPphone, but Apple has no downside if it gets unlocked. It is extra demand for their very profitable hardware, with no support cost. I'm assuming they had the foresight to make this a warranty voiding activity. If they did, then iPhone unlockers would be the most profitable customers out there for Apple.
let us assume that Apple get a hefty kickback from AT&T when people buy the iPhone and sign up, then Apple don't really care if the security is cracked provided they are not in breach of their deal with AT&T (no doubt there is some clause requiring Apple to have made appropriate locks and done approved testing, and also to enforce after-sales patches and fixes). Thus, if sales boom on the hope of a security breach, provided Apple play their cards right then they win twice, once from the jump in AT&T kickback/subs, and secondly from the jump in sales of the device and possible jump in iTunes revenue.
who loses? AT&T! Does Apple care? Probably not.
"Psssh, what's an average eletronics warranty now anyways? 30 days? A year at most? In the age of 'Screw the consumer' I hardly fear the thought of losing my precious warranty which doesn't even cover the screen."
Most EU countries have a 2 year statutory implied warranty on consumer electronics - the UK is one of the few EU countries that has yet to implement it (just 1 year here) though warranties are transferrable within the EU - eg I'm in the UK but have just had my 18month 3rlod Xbox360 fixed free by MS as I bought it from Amazon.de.
"re: Warranties
1 year in France "
I heard that in France if your phone breaks pixies come and whisk you away to a magical land where they sit you down in a comfy chair while you select from a series of phones not even released in teh rest fo the world while swilling pixie wine and scoffing pixie cheese of course the big bad americans make the software which ruins everything..
I bet they even warranty the screens, well, except for the ones made in the evil nasty black creeping horror that is the US of course.