WinPho7 jailbreak kit locked down by Redmond 'dev mojo' man The Windows Phone 7 jailbreak software, which debuted earlier this week, has been pulled while the developers talk to Microsoft about how best to distribute such a thing. The developers of ChevronWP7 have apparently been chatting to Microsoft about how to encourage the kind of home-brew development their jailbreaking tool …
I'll give it a week, 2 weeks at most until someone else releases software able to do the same and possibly actually for the purpose of piracy. Especially considering the software mentioned in his article is still freely available in many places on the internet, it will be fairly easy to reverse engineer it to find out the exploit used in the jailbreak.
People are forced to jailbreak as the only possible way to install a custom ringtone on Windows Phone 7.
It's a bit sad, isn't it, that installing your own ringtone on Windows Phone 7 voids your handset's warranty!!!
Whoah!! Really? I can't install a custom ringtone in WM7? My old WM6 handset didn't have this restriction, allowing me to choose whatever MP3/WAV/MIDI I wanted for Ringtone or SMS. Installing un-signed apps on WM6 was a widely pubslished registry tweak or in some devices was an option selectable in setup.
So all the WM6 apps I paid for are now worthless if I want to upgrade to WM7. Odd, my 32 bit XP apps work fine in Windows 7 32 bit.
The worst part is you can no longer use Activesync/XP or Mobile Sync Center/Vista. Instead it relies on the horrid Zune software. I used to think iTunes was bloated until I went through the install and sync process for my Zune. The same PC I installed iTunes on in about 3 minutes took 40 minutes for the Zune software.
There is one ringtone that should be included on all current WM7 devices - Taps. This is the beginning of the end for Windows Mobile. IOS, Android and RIM are the only choices we'll soon have.
Microsoft can either provide a 'signed install' mechanism at a cost the homebrew community will pay (ziltch) or play the cat and mouse game of jail breaking and blocking that.
It's up to Microsoft to decide which is in their best interests and the ball's in their court.
At a time when 'bedroom programming' is becoming a rediscovered vogue, users have seemingly fallen love with 'installable apps', I think it would be in their best interests to get the homebrew crowd on-board but it's always hard to second-guess Microsoft thinking.
Anyone else wonder why companies are still spending money trying to lock down their hardware/software?
Someone somewhere will find a way round the restrictions eventually. Often for the better of the device.
Case in point, my Android G1 last official update was little over a year after it came out and the official line was that it couldn't run anything above 1.6 (or was it 1.5?).
Thanks to Cyanogenmod I am running 2.2 and keeping the phone alive.
Or take Motorola's hardware locking. That only lasted a few months before it was circumvented.
Nice to see constructive communication between Microsoft and the ChevronWP7 developers. Rather than come down on them like a tonne of bricks they've instead demonstrated willingness to work with those develiopers to resolve the core issue of homebrew development.
"Apple...has managed to keep jailbroken iPhones, and thus software piracy, to a minimum"
I may not be the "best" example, but when shops offer to jailbreak your iPhone for you, just so you'll sign up for their network instead, and when 70% of the people I know that use an iPhone are jailbroken...I just don't see this "minimum" bit....perhaps 90% of the people just use the iPhone as-is because they don't care to do anything more than just have the iPhone. (yes yes, warranties, plan-switching, etc hassle...)
"and by ensuring the legitimate app store is suitably stocked with the applications people want"
Like fart apps and banning porn. Last I checked, most blokes would prefer a porn app to a fart app. Or perhaps an app for their favorite local radio station? There's no app for that....
On a non-troll note, the ChevronWP7 developer was probably just paid off by MS until they can find a better way to not lose $99 per developer contract.
One day we will look back on the last 25 years or so as a golden age when we could install any software we wanted on our own computers.
I hadn't realise WP7 was locked down like iOS. Only a matter of time before this contagion reaches mainstream desktops and laptops.
In the future a home device will be restricted the same way as office machines. Oh and the government will of course have the ultimate level of control
A few things
1) ChevronWP7 only allowed unsinged apps to be installed. Marketplace apps remained signed, and the tool did not allow this feature to be bypassed. This means the tool by itself did not mean one could install Marketplace apps without paying. it simply allowed one to get a developer unlock without paying.
2) Microsoft's other locked-down platform, the Xbox 360, already allows homebrew, so it does not seem unlikely Microsoft would provide a supported solution for Windows phone 7.
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