I want to reminisce a little bit before I go straight into the topic at hand. The first temporal stop in my mind will be around spring of 2005.
Back then, the iMac G5 had just come out a few months ago. Christine and I were still using her slightly-outdated iMac G3, one of the last of the CRT monitor integrated computers from Apple (besides the eMac!), and I was trying to figure out the best way to upgrade her computer. The operating system was sorely out of date (10.1.5) and in order to at least get to 10.2, the iMac needed at the very least a Firewire connection, which it didn’t come with. The cost to do all the modifications was going to be well over $600. Dropping that much money into upgrades is nonsensical for a 7 year old computer. So, I took the financial dive and ordered up, directly from Apple, a iMac G5 complete with the bigger hard drive and more memory. Then the thought hit me… as long as I was dropping that much into a new computer, I might as well spring for an iPod. I didn’t get one before that because it wouldn’t work on the old G3. A couple weeks later, I used the iPod and quickly fell in love. Since then, between Christine and I, we now have two 4G iPods, a color 4G iPod (mine), an iPod Nano (hers) and a 5.5G Video iPod (mine).
From that time until now, I’ve seen plenty of hacks for the various generations of iPods. The most popular of which involves the iPod Linux project… putting a Linux kernel on the iPod for enhanced capabilities to record and play other media and other cool things. Recently I had the opportunity to avail myself of a neat little hack that would have given me fourteen iPod Games, unlocked and registration free (there are now 17 games). All it would take is using Terminal and TextEdit to hack and rewrite the iPod firmware to allow for the games to be unlocked. Well, it was a tempting offer (I love having a variety of games!), but I refused to do it. I knew that, once the next firmware update was available from iTunes, the hacked firmware would be overwritten and… POOF… no more games, period. Not to mention what else could possibly happen. I know my limits.
Now I’ll get to the point. There has been a lot of talk in the Mac, iPod and hacker communities about the iPhone and the fact that Apple has not opened it up more to developers. This has given the hackers and developers even more impetuous to try and see what additional functions users would like to see on the iPhone, and then create those functions. Even if it means hacking the iPhone firmware. I definitely can sympathize with them; the iPhone has the potential to be so much more that what it already is, which is saying volumes considering what it does in its unhacked state! When I saw the iPhone user guide video on Apple’s site, I had to chain my hands down to keep from reaching for my credit card! Even so, with all the capabilities that the iPhone has, it is capable of so much as far as media and web applications. Think of VOip alone!
On the other hand, I can also think of it from the strictly consumer, not to mention the business, point of view. Almost every electronic device or piece of software or firmware basically has the agreement in their warranty that the product is only intended for use as is and not to be modified. If modifications are made, the warranty is voided and there’s not a darned thing that the company should be doing for you afterwards. With this kind of product, I think of it like this… it may be your phone, but it’s Apple’s product. You’re buying a product that is subject to continual updates from the company that designed, built and programmed it. They download these updates to the consumers so as to give either added capabilities or enhanced performance to these iPhones. Unhacked iPhones shouldn’t be affected, while the hacked units stand a chance of becoming what has affectionately been referred to as “iBricks”. When you perform a hack to a gadget’s firmware and operating systems, and an update rewrites either whole or part of them, it has the distinct possibility of rendering the device inoperable either temporarily or permanently. It’s not the manufacturer’s, programmer’s, or company’s fault and it’s not done out of malicious intent to the hackers. It’s done out of providing a better product, at least in that company’s eyes.
Lately I’ve read lots of articles about the iPhone hacking situations and the subsequent iBrick-ing of said iPhones. Some hackers think Apple did this on purpose to thwart hacking. I don’t think so. When you mess with someone’s product, even when you own the actual unit, that’s the chance you take. Apple didn’t design build and program the iPhone to be user-extensible. If one wants that, they should look to a phone running Palm, a WinOS or possibly Linux. Besides, the iPhone already makes good use of webapps. To all the people whining about their hacked and broken iPhones… I say shut up, find a way to fix what was done, plead your case with Apple or their stores, or buy another iPhone. It serves you right when you mess with someone else’s product and programming because you’re not completely happy with what you got.
Cheers!
