Chris Dunphy ([info]radven) wrote,
@ 2007-09-30 21:16:00
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Current location:Butte, MT
Current music:Chimes of Freedom - Bob Dylan
Entry tags:geekery, iphone

Apple forgets what it means to "Think Different"
The iPhone is the most amazing, innovative, and truly inspiring mobile device to come along since the birth of the Palm Pilot. And I should know - I've played with pretty much every mobile gadget there is. Apple did a great job reinventing the phone - and this reinvention is long overdue.

Rather than innovating, Palm has spent the last five+ years chasing after "carrier requirements", ignoring end users, neglecting its once thriving ecosystem, and bandaging an increasingly obsolete operating system.

And Microsoft's Windows Mobile never even figured out what a mobile user experience is all about...

So it is little wonder that once the iPhone was hacked to allow for third party application development, there was an unprecedented flood of excitement and enthusiasm. Over the past two months, there has been more developer activity on the "officially closed" iPhone than on the "open" PalmOS. Some great stuff was starting to emerge - with immense possibilities for the future.

Apple was at first officially "neutral" on the concept - saying they would do nothing to guarantee that future iPhone OS updates wouldn't break iPhone applications, but they would do nothing "malicious" to stop developers either.

Fair enough.

But Apple has stopped playing fair, and has gotten VERY malicious.

The new iPhone 1.1.1 update locks down the iPhone so strongly that even if developers find a new way in, it is now clear that Apple's "neutral" stance is long gone - and every new update will slam the door hard shut yet again.

Where there was once unprecedented enthusiasm, there is now emerging a huge backlash of disgust. I don't think Apple realizes how much damage they have done - it is never wise to piss off your most enthusiastic fans, developers, and influencers. Conservative estimates show that fully 10% of the one million iPhone's sold so far have been "hacked" to install third party applications. The now stillborn Navizon soft-GPS program alone had been downloaded and installed 80k times.

The anti-Apple backlash is making news - it has been a top story on Google News all week. Gizmodo has revised its iPhone review to "Don't Buy" in response, Wired is writing about all the thing you can do with the iPhone 1.0.2 that you can't after "downgrading" to the new 1.1.1, and even the New York Times is taking a real critical look at how Apple has attacked its "most ardent fans".

Apple is certainly taking a hard-line - even a MacWorld editor was told his only recourse after bricking his iPhone by upgrading to 1.1.1 was that he was "screwed" and needed to buy a new one. Egads!

This video really nails the situation by turning Apple's own words against it - taking the audio from the classic "Think Different" campaign and overlaying it on top of a scrolling catalog of the iPhone applications that have emerged:

Apple has forgotten its own advertising - Apple has stopped "Thinking Different" and turned into 1984's Big Brother.

It is rare to see Apple stumble so badly.

And it is interesting to see Nokia trying to take advantage of the stumble - with new posters appearing saying "Phones should be open to anything. The best devices have no limits" and launching an "Open to Anything" marketing campaign.

If only Nokia had a phone even half as exciting as the iPhone...


(40 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]euneeblic
2007-10-01 07:34 am UTC (link)
There is a war between "open" and "closed." Closed options are great for vendors and terrible for customers. Open options are good for vendors and great for customers. So I also see it as a war between companies and their customers. In a capitalist economy, the customer always wins that war. Of course, capitalism gets the short shrift when monopolies enter the picture, which is why closed has worked so well for Microsoft. Other companies look at Microsoft's profit margins and salivate. Microsoft has won its monopoly on the desktop PC, but mobile market is still ripe for another vendor to swoop in and establish a monopoly, using Microsoft's famous bate-and-switch lock-in strategy: offer something as "open" and then lock it down once you have people depending on your technology. Apple foretold this when they took their neutral stance of not guaranteeing openness. They took this stance because they intended to lock it down later.

Apple is seeking a monopoly on the mobile market, just like Microsoft has on the desktop PC market. Don't expect them to give a rat's ass about its customers because, when you have your eye on a monopoly, customers no longer call the shots. Apple wants to get to the point where they can piss off all the customers they want and still force them to buy their stuff, just like Microsoft does.

I think the only solution to this battle is to use the only power we have as customers and refuse to buy their product, which is hard to do when it's so damn compelling. Hopefully now that the iPhone has demonstrated the possibilities with mobile technology, another company, maybe Nokia, can imitate it fast enough and sell an open version. Of course, if that company has the same dreams of dominance that Apple has, then the whole cycle starts again. The best we can do is refuse to buy what we don't want to support, and then just wait patiently.

(Reply to this)


[info]euneeblic
2007-10-01 07:35 am UTC (link)
Music:Chimes of Freedom - Bob Dylan

Remind me to play you my version of this song next time I see you, which I expect won't be until Burning Man 2008. :( I hope we have a good memory!

(Reply to this)

Apple isn't all Wrong.. Think about it.
(Anonymous)
2007-10-01 09:10 am UTC (link)
When Ipods get all hacked up and returned to their owners and then something go wrong.. How does one know who caused the problem? Do we take the Ipod back to the hacker who set me up with some nice tricks or whatever? Will the hacker give me product warranty?

More than not the unit will go back to apple meaning apple will spend lots of time and money in support costs for problems that were created by someone else. Quality control is hard enough without someone hacking into your products.

Perhaps.. the hackers could get together and make their own perfect product.. then let other hackers break into it.. then they can receive all the hacked products and spend their money to repair.. Dont' forget you need to know all about "customer service"... customer is always right.. just fix it and return it to me at your costs... Let's see how long you'd last in the market place.

Of course you could shut it down so that no one would ruin your product for your... .

Oh... you got it now?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Apple isn't all Wrong.. Think about it.
[info]radven
2007-10-01 09:45 am UTC (link)
Apple is taking a reasonable course of action for a consumer electronics company - and they are getting a backlash because there is so much desire and expectation for Apple to act like a computer company.

Replace "hacker" with "developer" in your rant above. Quality control is indeed hard enough without developers creating software for your operating system - but would you buy Windows if only Microsoft was allowed to develop software that could run on it?

There is a massive hunger in the market for a great open phone. I know - I've seen the raw research. Palm has failed to evolve to satisfy this hunger, and Apple is shooting themselves in the foot by ignoring it. I honestly don't think they realized how much interest there would be in open iPhone applications. I don't think I've ever seen Apple so caught off guard before.

Apple was "neutral" when a small collection of hackers were creating cool toys to show off to each other with. But serious developers started to get involved, and some professional quality and even commercial software was in the works. When David Pogue starts reviewing and showing off upcoming iPhone applications in the New York Times - suddenly its a whole different ballgame that Apple never signed up to play. And suddenly Apple is running scared, making mistakes, and missing opportunities.

I think the wise course of action would be for Apple to create an "opt in" screen in iTunes that users will have to read and agree to before they can "open" their iPhone. The screen should warn that Apple is not responsible for ongoing future compatibility, crashes, incompatibility, death, whatever...

Only once an educated users chooses to get on board should Apple allow them to unlock their phone. And if the user does screw it up - iTunes can just wipe the phone back to default state.

There is a middle ground that Apple can take between being a computer company and a consumer electronics company.

It can be done. It is the smart thing to do.

And I really hope Apple is working on it.

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Hi there, snide astroturfing coward...
[info]orb2069
2007-10-02 01:51 am UTC (link)
Perhaps.. the hackers could get together and make their own perfect product..

Too late. If you're going to be this f'ing sarcastic, you could at least do some research.

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Re: Hi there, snide astroturfing coward...
[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-02 02:57 pm UTC (link)
I've been following the progress of Openmoko for about 18 months now, and briefly considered becoming a developer since I write OS internals for mobile platforms professionally. I didn't because it's a joke of a platform and suitable only for those who've drank too much Open Source Kool Aid. As is usual, though, it gets defense and promotion by those whose zeal is their primary asset. In five years, it will be in the dustbin of history, right next to Loki Games.

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[info]orb2069
2007-10-02 06:03 pm UTC (link)
'Defense and promotion'? Where? I mentioned it because it's relevant to the topic at hand. The poster was talking about the concept like it was flatly impossible, and it's already shipping.

suitable only for those who've drank too much Open Source Kool Aid. As is usual, though, it gets defense and promotion by those whose zeal is their primary asset.

Love you too, sweetie. Next time, put a little more passion into it? Frankly, your bile sounds really phoned-in.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-02 06:16 pm UTC (link)
'Defense and promotion'? Where? I mentioned it because it's relevant to the topic at hand.

Ever considered I wasn't talking about you?

The poster was talking about the concept like it was flatly impossible, and it's already shipping.

Yeah. Shows how much you know about [info]radven.

Next time, put a little more passion into it? Frankly, your bile sounds really phoned-in.

It's not bile. It's base truth. It's a pointless platform, it's embraced mostly by "true believers", and will be a footnote before too much longer. I'm sorry that your love of flamebaiting has reached the point that you find flat truth lacking sufficient flavor.

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[info]orb2069
2007-10-02 06:34 pm UTC (link)
Yeah. Shows how much you know about radven.
I only know what he posts. Since he's only tangentally involved in this part of the conversation, I don't see where that's relevant.

I'm sorry that your love of flamebaiting has reached the point that you find flat truth lacking sufficient flavor.
I missed the part in 'How to win friends and influence people' where they explained the importance of insulting people. Could you refresh my memory?

Seriously, though, if you can hold off on insulting me for ten seconds and actually elaborate on your opinions(Or facts, if you prefer) on OpenMoko, I'd appreciate it. If nothing else, I'm looking for ideas for an independent study project I've got coming up.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-02 06:46 pm UTC (link)
missed the part in 'How to win friends and influence people' where they explained the importance of insulting people. Could you refresh my memory?


You're right that you missed it. You came in here and immediately went to insulting people. If you hadn't come charging in like a cowboy, kicking in the door and calling [info]radven an "astroturfing coward", you could have gotten the input of not just one but two mobile devices professionals. So, if you don't want the caliber of the conversation low, don't lower it. Yes, you set the tone. And while you see [info]radven as "tangentally" involved in this thread, I take the opinion that the owner of a given LJ is fully involved in every thread that happens on his or her journal.

If you want the opinions of people, it's best to not call them cowards, accuse them of astroturfing, or bait the flame.

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[info]orb2069
2007-10-03 02:21 am UTC (link)
...Ummm, I was responding to the unlogged-in post above - Which may not be readily apparent from the journal format - But I can't imagine that Radven posts to his own journal anonymously and then replies to it?

Whatever.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-02 08:48 pm UTC (link)
I actually have to stand corrected. I misread indents and thought you had called [info]radven an "astroturfing coward", when you called the Anonymous poster that.

It doesn't matter either way. It's an inappropriate lack of decorum on your behalf, especially given that I know at least one person in a social circle common to [info]radven and I who posts anonymously because he is required by contractual agreements and law to limit his online identity.

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[info]radven
2007-10-03 02:21 pm UTC (link)
I was wondering how long it would take you to realize he was responding to the troll and not me...

(I've been reading but unable to reply)

Sometimes LJ's threaded comment view leaves a bit to be desired...

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-03 02:38 pm UTC (link)
Most of the time, I prefer the threaded presentation. The indent, however, wasn't clear on the small screen I was using at the first time, and so his response looked like it was at the same level of indent as the anonymous poster.

So, I stand corrected. I still don't like the guy's attitude, though, and the Openmoko wiki still shows that their first device hasn't improved in stability in a full year.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Hi there, snide astroturfing coward...
[info]radven
2007-10-03 02:43 pm UTC (link)
I was mega-excited when I saw the hardware specs on the OpenMoko - and I've followed it off-and-on.

I was really disappointed when I had a chance to play with one though at LinuxWorld this year. The hardware was a bit clunky, the OS was slow and unresponsive, and the UI was near incomprehensible.

Polished products need competent (and ideally visionary) product managers to make the hard decisions around what is in/out. This is where OpenSource projects often tend to fall down - it is hard to tell a developer who has worked months on a feature that you are going to pull it. I'm not sure that the OpenMoko project has enough leadership to pull an actual polished finished product together.

But I love them for trying.

- chris

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[info]orb2069
2007-10-03 03:23 pm UTC (link)
UI Tends to be the failure of a lot of open source stuff... I mean, Xwindows is definitely not what I'd call user friendly - Or even all that programmer-friendly. The idea of porting all of that to a handheld seems like the worst of both worlds.

I guess I see a lot of what's going on with Palm now as a result of the (good at the time) hard decisions that were made around the DragonBall processors that have made growing up into the bigger hardware so difficult - But you'd probably know a lot more about that than I would. It'd be nice if the iPhone was a clean slate on all of this, but I fear that between Jobs' obsessive control over the User Experience and AT&T/Cingular's blood instinct...

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[info]radven
2007-10-03 04:10 pm UTC (link)
Indeed - the original Palm Pilot was a huge success in large part because Palm focused on doing less - and in particular, on not doing something at all unless it could be done well.

The Pilot had a fraction of the features of the Newton, or of the early WindowsCE devices. But less really is more, particularly on mobile devices. Simple and fast and intuitive wins.

The iPhone has embraced the same philosophy - and in many ways it has less features than most basic phones out now. It doesn't even have MMS, or more than basic bluetooth support, or...

The difference is that Palm was an open platform, and developers did amazing things on top of that simple base and a large and vibrant ecosystem emerged.

Apple has yet to fully grok the potential of that....

- chris

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-05 06:37 pm UTC (link)
In fact, the Palm I bought had a hardware mod for a pair of tilt sensors. You could play a game similar to Marble Madness on it by holding it flat in the palm of your hand and tilting your hand to make the marble roll. That's some good HW/SW developer support!

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Hi there, snide astroturfing coward...
[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-05 06:35 pm UTC (link)
I also wonder about the ability to really muster the amount of properly organized labor to make something like OpenMoko become a real product. In the first place, I look at the Q9h team and supporting teams from mechanical, RF, electrical, and advanced lifecycle testing. Our team is freaking huge, and I can't forget that Microsoft wrote a good half of the OS already. Technically, WM device development is portage. And we're not just a big team, but we have a lot of organization. The biggest moments...like first call, first full-speed data connection, etc...took place at one person's desk with probably ten people crowded around. If I need something from the cribs, I just walk down the hall and get it. This level of developer support is critical to "making the product right".

On the other side is what you mentioned-- good product managers to shape the project and discipline the troops. Supporting them, though, is one of the things open source projects rarely have, which is money. See, if I work months on a feature and it gets pulled from the phone, I might get a bit pissed, but that was the company's call, not mine, and unless my manager is an ass, I get the same paycheck either way. I can walk away from it and go where I'm needed. The only currency in most open source projects is ego, and you mention a big problem with that above. The other stabilizing force that money brings is that it can direct talent to where it's needed. If I leave right in the middle of data stack optimizations, Mot will hire someone else to finish them. In open source projects, a loss of one person can abort an entire feature. These are the things needed to "make the right device".

I think there's a really unmentioned aspect to the history of the open source movement-- most of the open source projects that really made an impact on the world secured funding. Stuff coming out of universities is generally funded through the grants to student researchers or professors. Things like Linux really found their biggest traction when major industrial players hired engineers just to work on Linux. Companies like JBoss were able to give their core developers time to develop JBoss by generating revenue through consulting services.

Sadly, I fear that, without sufficient organizing power and funding, OpenMoko is going to struggle. I see the labor hours that get laid down on comparable projects, and I see the need for "feature ownership" among key engineers, and I just don't see the general social model of other open source projects working.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-01 10:07 am UTC (link)
Surely you had to know their neutrality stance was an unsustainable one from the start, especially when it could circumvent vendor lock. I fundamentally see their failure here as a failure to take a stance from the beginning.

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[info]radven
2007-10-01 10:29 am UTC (link)
Apple has successfully managed to remain "neutral" around alternative firmware and hacking of the older model ipods for years. But then, that was only ever of interest to a small fringe group of tinkerers. Those hackers certainly weren't getting features written about them in the New York Times.

I saw this showdown coming from the moment Apple announced that the iPhone was going to be a closed device. But even I didn't expect how quickly such a range of quality applications would emerge. And particularly - how easy the end user installation experience would be.

It is actually easier to install software on an iPhone than on a Palm - and that is really an impressive achievement indeed. I am certain that Apple never expected it to be so easy for "average" users to play around with third party apps.

But I think we agree - the biggest failure here was one of not taking a proactive stance to manage this better from the start.

Any predictions on how this will play out over the next few months? I think Apple's dug themselves a pretty deep hole - I am curious to see how (if?) they dig out.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-01 12:54 pm UTC (link)
I may have some time to gaze into my cracked crystal ball this afternoon. It's hard to write that much on my MotoQ 9h at the ATL airport.

Even if it has the best keypad in the industry. *wink*

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[info]radven
2007-10-03 04:17 pm UTC (link)
I was always fond of the keyboard on the original Sidekick - it is the only thumb keyboard I ever actually enjoyed having an IM conversation with.

And pre-phone era, I loved the keyboard on the Sony Clie NR70 and somewhat liked the UX50.

I've always hated most of the other thumb keyboards I've typed on. Particularly if they also lack a touchscreen. For my style of writing / editing - cursor control and cut and paste are key. And I've never seen a good implementation of the above without touch.

But - I'd love to play with a Q at some point. I've only ever had a few minutes with one. I no longer am tasked with buying every single cool phone on the market to play with... *grin*

- chris

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-03 04:27 pm UTC (link)
FYI, not all Qs are created equal. I can't stand the keyboard on the Q. My group's device is actually the Q9h, and our keypad is completely different. I'm a touch typist and don't actually care for touchscreen controls, so I'm fairly happy with it. I've owned two touchscreen devices-- a Palm 3 and a Cassiopeia, and I ultimately found touchscreen cumbersome compared to how I use my hands on a device.

I don't have a lot of keyboards to compare it with, but praise for the keyboard is the first thing I hear out of anyone who uses the Q9h. A reviewer even said, in the opening lines of his review:

Having a Motorola Q9 tacked to the wall should be a prerequisite in the engineering and design studios of every mobile manufacturer in the world, with a really big sign on it that states: "This is how you make a QWERTY keyboard, stupid!" [source]

I don't have a lot of point of reference, though, so I really can't say. And no, I'm not trying to shill my group's stuff excessively. Nobody I know did the keyboard design, and I never even knew keyboard design made that big of a difference.

If you're ever down my way, you're welcome to try my Q9h. I can guarantee you, though, that it meets all the complaints you have about other smartphones.

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[info]radven
2007-10-03 04:56 pm UTC (link)
Blackburial? *laugh* Nice review!

The one thing that set the thumb keyboards that I liked apart were that they featured rubberized keys that I could grip with my fingernails.

The more common plastic keys always leave my fingers feeling like they are slipping off, and my typing accuracy is crap.

I have big fingers.

I also tend to write then edit - and being able to highlight sections to type over and replace, or double tap to highlight a word... Or easily re-order sentence fragments... Ah so very nice. :-)

There are very different types of users, and very different usage models. So many devices end up trying to satisfy everyone that they end up a confused mess.

Blackberry nailed it because they focused on doing one thing extremely well - being a mobile delete button for email.

Less is often more...

- chris

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-03 07:27 pm UTC (link)
Blackburial? *laugh* Nice review!

Yeah. I wasn't sure if that guy was that smitten or if he was just on a British Wit bender. Either way, it's a funny word.

Interesting how use cases are so important. I touch type on everything, even my Q9h, and often type without even looking at the screen. As long as I can feel my target under the tip of my thumb bone, I'm good. Phones with those weird angular oblong keys often frustrate me because...well...they just don't feel like keys.

Likewise, typing is often the final step I take, so complex editing just isn't something I do a great deal of. In addition, I'm always losing the pointer and can't shake the feeling that the UI is like playing darts while drunk. Maybe it's the astigmatism.

Blackberry nailed it because they focused on doing one thing extremely well - being a mobile delete button for email.

Heh...yeah, there is that. I've been trying to become more of a user of my own project, and I've noticed that my use cases tend to fall into deleting email, dismissing appointments, playing games on the NES emulator, browsing Craigslist, and sometimes using Google maps. Optimizing for those cases would be amusing. I think I'd call it Project Timewaste.

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[info]radven
2007-10-04 04:33 am UTC (link)
Interesting how use cases are so important. I touch type on everything, even my Q9h, and often type without even looking at the screen.

I used to love Graffiti 1 - I could take notes rapidly without ever looking down. Once you learned it - you could really nail it blind. And that also got me into the habit of an edit pass later to fix the occasional missed character.

I even once wrote an essay with my eyes closed as an experiment.

Graffiti 2 killed the ability to write blind.

Damn you Xeorox. *grrrr*

- chris

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-04 02:43 pm UTC (link)
Graffiti 1 did virtually nothing for me. I could write in it, but not fast enough, and it never felt natural to me. But then again, I've preferred typing to writing since I was 7, so I really don't feel as facile in any situation where I write things.

My Cassiopeia included handwriting recognition, too, but it wasn't just a horrible joke...it would engage the recognizer any time you lifted the stylus, practically forcing you to write in cursive, and I curse while writing in cursive.

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[info]serolynne
2007-10-03 05:55 pm UTC (link)
I would love to plan to make it down your way once we're in Florida. It has been far too long since we've had any face time, and I've missed you guys.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-03 07:28 pm UTC (link)
There's always mystery drinks and tropical maidens at the Mai Kai. They keep asking when you two will be there. Which is funny, because we never told them about you.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-01 07:20 pm UTC (link)
Okay...I'm going to warn you that this response is going to be fractured, partially because it's coming out of the opinions of someone who has read more on the chipsets of the iPhone than anything else, partially because my crystal ball is badly cracked, and partially because I'm going to be writing this in pieces throughout the afternoon.

I want to first stop and respond to a thing or two in your response, though...

Apple has successfully managed to remain "neutral" around alternative firmware and hacking of the older model ipods for years. But then, that was only ever of interest to a small fringe group of tinkerers. Those hackers certainly weren't getting features written about them in the New York Times.

It's also very important to realize who the stakeholders are here. If someone hacks iPod firmware, as long as it cannot circumvent DRM, the only stakeholder is Apple. I'd say that, in the case of iPod hacking, it's generally mostly Apple that will win or lose on it, so they can pick the stance they want. In the case of the iPhone, there are more stakeholders, and some of them maintain a fair amount of power in the situation. When you consider that an iPhone hack breaks vendor lock, Apple may not have a choice with respect to "neutrality". IIRC, unless their agreement with AT&T is different from most, they have a responsibility to antagonize a hack that can lead to subsidy lock violations.

I saw this showdown coming from the moment Apple announced that the iPhone was going to be a closed device.

Ditto. They made a smartphone. Smartphones run apps or they're crippled. Shit. My RAZR runs some rather interesting apps, and it's a pretty basic phone. IMHO, this was a catastrophic failure on their part, and it's been one of my biggest reasons for wanting to cut the hype.

This is where I start peeking in the crystal ball. Between various sources, some on the Internet and some not, I have a pretty good picture of the iPhone's chipset. To no surprise, its hardware smells a lot like a next-gen iPod with an EDGE chipset slapped in it. In fact, there's a lot of signs that nobody even considered the manufacturing process when they designed the thing. One report I got from a unit dismantlement said it was full of RF shielding tape that is, in other devices where it appears, known to be cut and laid by hand.

I have a suspicion that the iPhone was not...well...entirely intended. I think the iPod Touch was the item that was well on the roadmap, and someone got a great idea to exploit some extra resources available on the new AP to support a BP. It turned out to work really well, and the iPod Touch was already going to have a lot of great software that could be leveraged in this new product. I even think that Steve Jobs alluded to this in a comment he made about supporting third-party developers. He didn't call the phone "closed". He said it was "different"..."like an iPod". I think that, given the hardware platform the two devices share in common, that the iPhone was a highly successful experiment launched off the iPod Touch project.

The AP of the iPhone isn't quite something I can get a TRS for. So, I don't know all of its capabilities. I know that the AP I work with has a security system baked in, so it's very easy to separate trusted code from third-party stuff, enforce access control, and even encrypt and sign important parts of the software. It's an environment built for taking third-party stuff. It's possible that someone at Apple noted the iPod doesn't have to deal with this issue and that, because the iPhone is so whiz-bang and breaks Apple into a new market, that they would just skip the third-party apps issue and ship with the same model as the iPod. That means taking an anti-developer stance. Whereas you object to this on the moral grounds of what Apple stands for, kid cynical over here notes that it basically means entering the smartphone space on a crippled device.

It's interesting to note, too, that Jobs tried to backpedal on this by basically claiming that AJAX was the "new model" for app design and that people can write apps for the iPhone in AJAX.

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[info]radven
2007-10-04 04:47 am UTC (link)
When you consider that an iPhone hack breaks vendor lock, Apple may not have a choice with respect to "neutrality". IIRC, unless their agreement with AT&T is different from most, they have a responsibility to antagonize a hack that can lead to subsidy lock violations.

Indeed. And I think that may be what happened here. I imagine Apple may have been "neutral" and actually even fairly pleased to see the hackers creating apps for the iPhone. They probably started to get nervous when the AT&T activation was bypassed - but with the iPod Touch coming - all bypassing activation got you was a more expensive iPod Touch that still couldn't make calls.

I don't think Apple expected the SIM unlock - particularly an open source tool with an easy GUI anyone could use. Not this quickly. Seeing that emerge is probably what freaked out Apple and AT&T, and forced Apple to jump.

With the SIM lock broken, suddenly iPhone's were showing up in France and China and all sorts of other markets Apple was trying to negotiate exclusive deals with massive revenue cuts.

No wonder they jumped to squash things.

I really do expect that they intended to eventually open the iPhone, but things happened faster than they were ready for.

One report I got from a unit dismantlement said it was full of RF shielding tape that is, in other devices where it appears, known to be cut and laid by hand.

That sort of hand tweaking may not be common for the experts like Moto and Nokia, but it is actually fairly common for the first production run of devices from pretty much all of the smaller makers, if I recall. I expect that the second million iPhones built will have the manufacturing process nailed. If not - shame on Apple.

I think that, given the hardware platform the two devices share in common, that the iPhone was a highly successful experiment launched off the iPod Touch project.

I am pretty sure it is actually the other way around. Apple has been working on an iPhone for years - and they've been through several internal-only iterations that never made it out the door. The Touch on the other hand shipped with an OS that still had errors saying things like "please disconnect the iPhone" and such. There were lots of other iPhone tweaks in the shipping touch OS image that have only just been cleaned up in the 1.1.1 release.

I know that the AP I work with has a security system baked in, so it's very easy to separate trusted code from third-party stuff, enforce access control, and even encrypt and sign important parts of the software. It's an environment built for taking third-party stuff. It's possible that someone at Apple noted the iPod doesn't have to deal with this issue and that, because the iPhone is so whiz-bang and breaks Apple into a new market, that they would just skip the third-party apps issue and ship with the same model as the iPod.

The iPhone (and iPod Touch) are running Mac OS X, with all the unixy goodness of user accounts and permissions. The iPhone could very easily support a security model to properly sandbox apps. And I think Apple intended to eventually expose this. The iPhone also runs a widget engine that is essentially identical to the WebKit driven Widget engine for OS X's DashBoard feature. It is trivial to get OS X Widgets running on the iPhone, some without even modification. (They are just HTML, CSS, and Javascript after all)

I expect Apple intends to role this out as the safe sandboxed environment for local apps at some point. The hackers just moved WAY more quickly than Apple ever anticipated.

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-04 02:40 pm UTC (link)
Hm...interesting. It would seem LJ ate a giant response I made to you here.

So, the short version.

I'd actually previously believed the iPod Touch was a quick spinoff from the iPhone, but was told by another insider that "there is absolutely no way that's true" and got laughed at a little bit, so I guess I'd reversed my position. I'm glad to find out I was right after all.

As for the security model, I'd be interested in really getting to know the filesystem and other parts of OSX to see if they truly kept the user-based security model. I've seen small-space ports of OSes where that's thrown out because there's only one user. Either way, my point wasn't that they couldn't make a proper sandbox but that perhaps the one they planned didn't please AT&T. They've asked us for some very specific hardware support for different classes of software, from digital signatures for certain packages on down to a very strong hardware-backed encryption for critical components. Apple might not have gotten all the things AT&T wanted, resulting in a conversation that went:

AT&T: "...and so the result is we can't accept third-party software on this phone."

Apple: "Not even widgets?"

AT&T: "No."

Apple: "But the exact same code for a widget could run in the browser?"

AT&T: "Yes. That's not third party software."

Apple: *mute button engaged on phone* *laughter*

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-01 07:20 pm UTC (link)
The problem here is with being neutral. "Neutral" in this case boils down to a realpolitik of leaving security holes in a device on AT&T's network and also not fighting for the vendor lock in your contract. So, they don't have a choice. They have to be antagonistic to the hacking community, just like every other mobile devices manufacturer. They always had to do this, and they should have known that. If my guesses have even a partial truth, there was a lot of naivete that went into this product.

I don't know that this will play out to be a whole lot, though. Apple might come up with some AJAX devkit that lets you better exploit iPhone features and maybe even help you forget you're programming in AJAX. Ultimately, most people I've talked to who own iPhones don't care about third-party applications because they feel that the iPhone already does everything they want it to. To boot, so many people are so Yellow Dog about Apple that they don't see it as a big deal either way. I think Apple ultimately hopes that most people will buy an iPhone because other people buy them, and won't mind the complaints from a subset of its community.

I think the even bigger question to ask here is what has driven so many people, most of them folk who should have known better about the risks involved, to do things that can lead to bricking their phones. I've bricked a couple of my prototypes before, and that's precisely why I ignore the hacker community for every device I actually pay for. I have too much respect for my own money to ruin the utility I purchase with it. Buying an expensive iPhone because you intend to hack it as part of its general use sounds to me like a very losing proposition.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]radven
2007-10-05 04:20 am UTC (link)
I think the even bigger question to ask here is what has driven so many people, most of them folk who should have known better about the risks involved, to do things that can lead to bricking their phones.

Indeed - Apple should be asking this.

And instead of telling these customers how wrong they are, Apple should be trying to satisfy what their customers are asking for.

Also - essentially none of the hacks bricked any iPhones. The bricking was done by Apple's update. They should have been able to do a non-destructive update, and indeed - so far the technical analysis seems to show that they very easily could have.

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]roadriverrail
2007-10-05 06:19 pm UTC (link)
My comment about bricking was a general statement about mobile devices. I don't hack anything I can't disassemble and repair myself. There are a number of PSP hacks, for example, but it's possible to brick the PSP if you screw up. I have a knack for finding corner cases by walking into them, and so I don't want to waste my money. If I want the joy of hacking, I can buy a SoC devkit.

And that's my personal feeling about it, even if Apple has practiced some jackassery here. When you hack a device, you alienate its maker. So, yeah...big blue asshole ribbons for Apple, but I personally would have never hacked my phone in the first place.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]tacit
2007-10-02 10:00 pm UTC (link)
Qute honestly, I do not see how Apple's latest firmware for the iPhone represents a departure from their neutral stance toward hacking the iPhone.

The new firmware is not designed to disable hacked phones; that's merely a side effect. Remember that "firmware" in this case means, essentially, a full-fledged operating system.

Te new firmware may be only a point-release, but it affects very large swaths of OS X. It's essentially a near-complete replacement of the operating system. If you take a complex operating system, modify it, and then replace most of it, you can reasonably expect that the modifications won't work any more, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that the whole shebang won't work any more.

That's "neutral." They do not actively take steps aimed at the sole purpose of disabling hacks...but they also don't test hacked phones and don't care if a firmware update plays nicely with the hacked versions or not. Seems pretty neutral to me.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]radven
2007-10-03 01:51 pm UTC (link)
"Neutral" would have been updating the OS - perhaps changing and breaking some API's, and certainly the update would overwrite everything currently installed.

What Apple did was much more extreme than neutral - they significantly changed the way the device is locked down, making it much harder / near impossible to access the device file system and make changes.

They also detected devices that have been SIM unlocked and overwrote their IMEI numbers with an invalid code that disables the phone function, and says to Apple support "this phone has been hacked - warranty void". That is certainly not a "neutral" move.

Amusingly - this IMEI overwrite also seemingly killed phones legitimately using AT&T prepaid SIM's.

As [info]roadriverrail points out - Apple may have contractually had no choice but to take a hard line. But it still sucks, and the move is going to hurt them.

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]radven
2007-10-03 02:16 pm UTC (link)
BTW - here is an interview with one of the leading Mac developers, discussing how Apple has been anything but neutral:

TUAW Interview with Ambrosia Software

Apple is upsetting a lot of their most ardent fans, supporters, and developers with how they have been responding lately. I don't think Apple expected this. I hope they wake up and change course.

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]james_the_evil1
2007-10-05 07:16 am UTC (link)
Oh those silly iPhone buyers.
No one believed me when I said Apple was evil & it was all part of their scam to get people to drink the Kool-Aid.
Now they all see.

*hugs my Dash*

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