Oh, Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve.

[prog]

Call me Cory if you must, but I found the lead graf of this story about Apple's latest response to iPhone hackers very disappointing.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” said Steve Jobs. “We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it’s our job to stop them breaking in.”

And by "people" he means "customers". I mean, by definition. The iPhone is a hunk of hardware that has been purchased for hundreds of dollars each by the people in question; there's no other way to obtain one. And Steve Jobs, who happily took their money, stands here and baldly states that it's now Apple's job to thwart their own customers against using their purchases as they like.

Gawd. I dunno.

And this isn't even getting into the conventional wisdom that these insulting maneuvers are all futile anyway, since any sufficiently charged-up hacker base will always circumvent your barriers within moments of their release...

Comments

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

You don't purchase Apple products, you give tribute. You are lucky Apple deigns to let you use their immaculately designed pieces of technological art. And you say you wish to sully them with your grubby non-Apple software? It would be like painting over a Picasso.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Well, that's not entirely true. I find Apple computers the most hackable of all PCs. I put them ahead of even Linux boxes because you can treat them like Unix machines or beautiful developer-friendly GUI-driven machines and in both cases they're a joy to work on.

This makes the contrast with the iPhone all the more stark!

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Apple has to take this stance. Otherwise their mobile partners will bitch and moan that Apple promised the exclusivity would give them big sales, yet the only one guaranteed to make money if iPhones get hacked is Apple.

[novalis.livejournal.com]

Apple could just tell AT&T that they tried, and that if they want to have any customers, they can try not treating them like shit and spying on them.

Apple is big enough to do this and get away with it. But Steve has always prefered control to freedom.