IBooks detects jailbroken iphones
socialapples.com
socialapples.com
Why are you even buying iBook books? I can't understand the market proposition to them. Kindle books work on Apple and Amazon hardware, and have a wider selection. eBooks are already content-protected (this doesn't bother me, but bothers most geeks); why would you opt into the more protected of the two major options?
Kindle's DRM seems to be a sweet spot: effective enough to prevent casual piracy, but generally not annoying, and easy to bypass for anyone who cares about controlling their own media.
[edit: looks like there are some python scripts to do this. http://pastebin.com/f696ea728 This one claims to do the job. ]
Keep in mind that by doing so you would still be supporting a consumer-hostile ecosystem.
I find Kindle to be a massive upgrade over tangible books for me - I travel, so physical books get gifted away after finishing them, while I get to keep my Kindle books. And they're cheaper.
As a consumer, it's been a huge win for me. Could it be even better than now? Yeah sure probably, but I love paying less for books, getting them instantly, and being able to keep them instead of gifting them on for weight/space reasons.
I didn't say don't do it; just to be aware that by buying books from Amazon, you're sending a message that you're OK with DRM.
While I can't speak to why other buy via iBooks, I have made exactly one iBooks purchase which was for a title that was not available in Kindle format. Everything else I get is in Kindle format that gets the DRM stripped and is then put back into iBooks because I prefer it to the Kindle app for reading. I have no idea why some books come out in iBooks first, but what was a non-issue at the time is now a minor annoyance.
You know Apple, they are going to do this every time.
If you have a problem with that don't buy their products.
Apple has a very closed ecosystem and they like to exercise tight control over it. That is a fact.
Sigh. Someone else who doesn't understand our rights include the right to enter into a contract that places burdens on both parties.
There's no legal or moral reason that Apple can't say "I'll sell you this for $X plus your promise not to do $Y.". You don't have to like it -- in which case you shouldn't make the agreement -- but it's certainly not wrong.
Extreme ends of the spectrum are very clear: selling yourself into indentured servitude is a violation of basic human rights, while selling your time for eight hours a day is not.
Many advocates for digital freedom would argue that allowing customers (particularly the non-tech-savvy who don't know what they're agreeing to) to give up the rights to their devices and content is inherently immoral. I don't agree entirely, but I see their point, and if there was a ballot initiative proposing consumer protections against things like DRM lock-in, I would likely vote for it.
For example you can't sell yourself into slavery and you can't surrender your right to reverse engineer a technology (in most developed countries).
Anti-competitive practices is another area where the law has intervened in these sort of situations in the past. For example in the case of printer ink refills (although the law has chosen not to intervene in the console market).
I assume that we can all agree on the slavery part, but I'm not so sure about the reverse engineering one. Your personal feelings may differ, of course, but I'm having trouble constructing an argument against the signing-away of reverse engineering rights, from basic natural law principles.
Here's another fun example: clearly the right to free speech is fundamental, at least to those in our society. So how is it that a court can uphold, e.g., an NDA?
That should be the lesson learned.
Firstly, the Library of Congress hardle makes legal decisions, and additionally, if they did, that does not imply that a company can not lock them down.
Not to sound trollish, but have you looked at Android's notification system? It's absolutely wonderful, and I really don't think I'd change a thing about it. If you aren't too tied to iOS and are willing to switch, I'd say it's worth a look.
I had an iPhone for a year and now have used a Palm Pre for a year. I just bought my son an iPod Touch and yuck!! The celebrated UI of iOS is quite a turn off compared to webOS in my opinion.