No, you still don't own it. The software it runs is still incredibly locked down, leaving you unable to inspect how it works at any reasonable level and unable to legally modify and resell it like you could with anything you actually own.
I don't have any interest in "hacking" into my car, dishwasher, or fridge. I want them to _just work_, and I want to know who to call when they break.
So then, it is entirely reasonable that most people simply want their electronics to work, rather than to somehow feel that just because they can't tinker and mod their device, their ownership is somehow hindered.
Although I do feel that media DRM (movies, music, DVD region codes) can often hinder the ownership experience, I simply don't see how these devices being locked down actually hurt MOST consumers who aren't even interested in such details.
I don't understand that. For example, few people care about taxes, war, or clean energy policies (less than 50% vote in much of North America). Does that mean the work done in these areas doesn't matter? The fact that most people don't care has little to do with the truth of the matter.
Only Apple owns iPhones. It doesn't matter that nobody cares about this, they still don't own their phone.
That’s the point of disagreement. I don’t understand what’s so bad about it.
As to why it's good or bad, that's entirely personal preference. For me, I want to own it because I want the option to change it. That's all. Therefore, for me, it's terrible to buy a device I don't own. That should answer your question about why it's bad.
Maybe it's not bad for you. Maybe it's good for you to not own the device. That's fine; I'm only here to remind you that you don't own it (after it was erroneously suggested up top that you do own it)
Some just cannot tell owning and controlling apart.
Or are we only having this discussion because we all here collectively care more about the hackability of electronics?
I, however, like to be more pragmatic.
1. As far as I know Apple never used that capability. They removed apps from the store, they never remotely removed apps from devices. (I think Apple claims that they only want to use this capability for removing maleware. Now, you might not believe them but their track record is pretty clean in that regard.)
2. Shitstorms will make anyone with such a capability think long and hard about actually using it. (I think Amazon at least apologized for what happened, I don’t know what else they did for the customers who lost their copies.) Apple can’t just treat their customers like crap.
It’s right to be vigilant about theoretical capability but I don’t think I’m completely irresponsible when I recognize factors that will prevent Apple from using their theoretical capability to its full extent.
But by every definition of ownership recognized by society and our laws (at least in the United States), you completely own your phone. You are lawfully allowed to do the following: - crush it, destroy it, put it in the dishwasher, or drive over it - open it up all you want - sell it to someone else - Install alternate software on it
You are under no obligation to anyone once you have purchased that phone. It is, by ANY definition, legally your property.
The WORST thing Apple can do to you, is void your warranty. And that is completely acceptable.
Whether you think it should be less or more difficult is a philosophical discussion. The fact is, you have all the same protections under any laws that most people who "own" things have.
Reply to VladRussian Below (I couldn't find a reply link): Won't get me to disagree with you on anything related to the DMCA. I think it is a pigheaded piece of evil legislation. :) But most of the things I'm talking about aren't related to the DMCA (at least I hope not).
before that the "WORST" was much worse http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/library-of-congress-adds-...
And this is the main point of all these discussions. It isn't about technical obstacles put in place by Apple and difficulty to break them as it only adds more interest to process, It is about criminalizing the very act of analysis of the system, ie. an act of mental activity, applied to the system you're supposedly own.
>I understand the need to confuse "ownership" with hackability, for the purposes of philosophizing on this site. We are all tinkerers.
Nobody tries to confuse ownership and hackability. They are orthogonal. What people still trying to bend their minds around is the ownership and off-limit (for your mind) holes in that ownership established by DMCA.
And in what way, shape or form does this require the device to be locked down to hell and back? That argument is a fallacy - correlation does not imply causation. The two things are completely unrelated to each other, yet people continue to assert that from one follows the other (locked -> just works), and that the opposite is also True (free -> doesn't just work).
It's bullshit, and I'm sick and tired of hearing it. There's absolutely no reason for locking down a device besides wanting to restrict the user's freedom. This isn't about "just working", it isn't about better support, it's about unjustified control over the user's actions.
Tell that to the iOS developer who is getting bad reviews because the app does not run correctly on jailbroken devices where some system modification has been installed.
In this sense, "Just works" relates to restrictions on users.
No. Still attacking a symptom. Standard compliance solves the same problem, without having to lock down the system. If programmers are unable or unwilling to conform to standards, then this is again not the fault of the system[1]. Give up on arguing that there is any sort of causation between "locked" and "just works". It's wrong.
[1] Actually, in this case it's the fault of the system. The lock places a false sense of security on programmers, which is pretty dangerous.
But standards compliance is a sort of restriction on the apps the user can run. If you make the standards stricter and stricter, you restrict the space of configurations more -- and make it easier to get configurations that work together.
Besides, standards, at least open ones, are usually collaborative efforts of multiple actively involved parties, while restricted systems are controlled by a single entity - which again is bad.
Jailbreaking and the third-party add-ons that it enables can increase the Just Works factor of a device.
Of course hackers define ownership that way.
Fundamentally, people will not purchase something unless they think (however fleetingly) that it will be of benefit to them. Your right; they might not know exactly what they are getting into. But companies can't lie about it. And in this day and age, the information is usually obtainable without too much work.
Thanks to the jailbreak, it is possible in principle to get Android running on the iPhone hardware. In practice, this may not be possible yet, but it has been accomplished before on earlier hardware.
Therefore, buying an iPhone is not that different from buying a Mac: You get a computer with a proprietary operating system, which (thanks to DevTeam) can be bypassed and replaced with anything that will run, which will eventually include Android assuming people care enough to make it work (they will).
The parent comment, that this is a win consumers shouldn't need to fight for, is one I support wholeheartedly.
bootlace works well on older iphones.
Is your definition of ownership including the software? That's not exactly fair, because you never own software unless you personally write it; any software is installed under a license.
Not at all. Software is sold. Until that changes the EULA is irrelevant.
Copyright law has specific exemptions for copying a program in memory, etc, for the purposes of executing it. No license has is needed, making the justification for EULAs nonexistent.
Technically this might be true, but Free Software licenses allow you varying degrees of do what the fuck you want, while proprietary licenses grant you a (temporary) right to use the software, and nothing else. With FS, I own the copy I received. With proprietary licenses, I don't.
I personally would prefer permissive licenses (or really, no licenses at all, but we're not going to arrive at this point any time soon), and actually use them for some stuff. It's just that the GPL is necessary to force change right now.
One means legal possession. The other means domination over something, eg., the locked out libraries cydia gives access to.