Latest From EFF vs. Apple on Jailbreaking

[treble26]

Ha! I wonder how many Apple employees have a jailbroken iphone?

i bet all of them , i bet they just take the theme off when they enter the building. lol.

[AngryLemming]

What we do with our property is one thing, but if it affects their trademark its something else entirely. Legally, they can claim trademark dilution against jailbreaking. On the other hand, people like me wouldn't have bought an iPhone or the myriad of apps from the AppStore if jailbreaking wasn't an option.
It seems EFF made a mistake, as was pointed out above, in bringing this to the table. The real issue, of course is piracy, not jailbreaking. The Apple stance (given by Jobs) on DRM is "No more" which becomes an untenable position, if the music and movie industry can't rely on legit means provided being widely used enough to support further investments.
Granted Apple is a fortune 500 company, but that requires accounting for nickles and dimes, not quarters and dollars (those are relatively easy.) If they lose 30% of sales on a dozen popular apps, that may be the cost of a number of employees jobs. Competition is good, but usurping is bad.
Regardless of how one feels about their products in general, Apple is a company, and companies are made of individuals. I know a number of Apple employees who have jailbroken iPhones, for many of the same reasons we do. Some things just can't get the company stamp of approval, due to contract liability, general liability, and trademark dilution concerns. And yes, they do use the normal theme and hide the jailbreak apps when they are "on the clock." But, one of them told me to ask the AppleCare team when I was having trouble theming the Statusbar.
It's not about controlling what people do with their property, its a question of what people do with Apple's intellectual property. EFF shouldn't have opened this can of worms, because it will become too complex and passionate to be settled rationally. The fact that the movie and music industry is involved means Apple's "No more" stance on DRM is being tested, to some degree, and this means we stand a good chance of losing if EFF (or someone smarter) doesn't offer up the heads of Insta**us' devs as a token of good will to the people investing millions and billions of their (or their companies') money. A mutual agreement to fight piracy ("crackers") by the FOSS and "hacker" (by MIT's definition) communities is long overdue, as we are some of the best armed against pirates and we are the first to be grouped with them. If we make the first move, rather than being forced to go a certain way by litigation, we gain a very strong position for future debates of things like jailbreaking and modding.

[tjenvy]

jailbreaking is great and has allowed us to do many things (that were promised).

but i think the biggest perk is to customize and make it YOURphone!

lets say apple decides to allow apps so that you can change the theme on your phone. buy it like a ring tone for $2.00 or even $3.00 and everything is that theme. like ps3 the themes are awesome and only like $3.00. i would looovvveee it even more!

EXACTLY!!! Thats (from what I have read) is the main reason people jailbreak in the first place.... Don't get me wrong, I think the basic iPhone SB looks good, HOWEVER, spice it up a bit.. even just the icons.... can we say Candybar for iPhone??? I am all about the look and feel of my equipment... my Hack is so modified (desktop appearances wise) you would not even recognize it for an apple machine.... appearance is the main reason people buy Mac's... Not just because they function great... but FOR LOOKS ok thats my 2 cents...

[tdoyle10]

The Consumer Protection Act gives you the right to modify your hardware.

Gateway, Dell and A couple of other companies found that out years ago

[belo]

You don't need to be jailbroken to get cracked apps. IPA's are available all over the internet for download and sync to your iPhone through iTunes without ever having modified your phone, no need for Cydia, *********, or a jailbroken iPhone. ********* is just an automated program to download and install them on your phone. The ********* repo isn't even a part of Cydia's preinstalled repos when you first jailbreak and is not in the list of repos available to install either. You have to know the address and add it manually. That is only because Saurik does not believe in managed and locked software but he will not directly promote wares on his program. Apple needs to redirect their attention to securing developers apps so that they cannot be pirated if they're worrying about maintaining profits directly and basing jailbreaking on ethical arguments. We paid for our phones, we should be able to do what we want with them. Tell me how a video recorder hogs bandwidth, or theming the graphics? That's what jailbreaking is about, functionality, not pirating. Get your head out of your a**.

He means Hackul*us, I think. Sooo many crappy apps on App Store so you need cracked apps to test them. Jailbreaking does cut into Apples profits because of cracked apps.

[sleek]

Go jailbreaking !!! Am with you all way tru till tha end....

[ligart]

Thats ******* awsome!!! Well then, we have to wait and im pretty sure that in a week or 2 we will improve our jailbreakers abilities!!!