“Apple, which has long been vocally opposed to any meddling with the iPhone, doesn’t seem particularly excited by the decision, but it’s not going to let a little thing like a copyright ruling alter its existing policy of voiding the warranties of jailbroken phones,” Heater reports. ‘Apple’s goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience,’ Apple said in a statement provided to Cult of Mac. ‘As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.'”
Heater reports, “Jailbreaking, the company said, leaves the phone open to the malicious attacks Apple works to avoid with its closed product ecosystem and App Store vetting process.”
Full article here.
Is this even an issue? Has Apple ever gone after someone for jailbreaking their iPhone? Jailbreak at your own peril.
You can modify your brand new BMW’s engine but don’t go crying to the dealer and ask for a free repair when the engine starts to smoke.
Jailbreak it, drop it in the toilet, stick a fork in it, use it as a hammer, whatever. Just don’t expect Apple to pick up the pieces or bits.
“”Jailbreaking, the government said, is ‘innocuous at worst and beneficial at best.'”
NO. The only malware for the iPhone is for those that have been jailbroken. (And please don’t troll this comment. Do your homework first and discover that I am 100% correct).
Is Apple going to support any jailbroken iPhones? The answer is NO and will remain NO. You’re on your own. Now you’re in Android-Wild-West-Mode where anything can happen. If that’s what you want, enjoy. If not, don’t jailbreak your iPhone.
And no, little trolls. This isn’t FUD. Apple lock their technology for an intelligent reason. Most iPhone users like it that way. It’s one reason I haven’t got the slightest interest in any Android phone. I’ll take the wall community, thanks. No way is the iPhone immune from hacking. But I like:
No crapware.
No malware.
Oh BTW: Are enterprise businesses going to let their employees jailbreak their iPhones? Guess.
The stupid thing is that this only applies to “wireless phone handsets.” What the hell is a phone? My iPod touch can use VOIP over wifi. Is it a phone? My iPad can too, but it’s not a handset. So I guess you can jailbreak an iPod touch or iPhone, but not an iPad? The main difference between an iPod touch and an iPad is the size. Is that the critical differentiator? Size? But the iPad can operate on a 3G network, which is typically a phone network, while the iPod touch cannot. So maybe the iPad is verboten too? Or not?
This is really a stupid ruling. Government should really think before acting. As a rule.
‘Radius’ sez: “Has Apple ever gone after someone for jailbreaking their iPhone?”
Of course not.
Has Apple denied service to someone who has jailbroken their iPhone?
Of course. And they will continue to do so.
∑ = An utter stooopid government dictum.
If Apple recieves any jailbroken iPhones, then query to the remaining amount of the contract.
If it is say 22 months, then keep it for 21 months, return it, and request that the owner re-explain the problem.
If Apple gets any inquiries as to the progress, then inform jailbreaker that lawyers; technicians; vice-presidents; janitor; et al.. are looking into it.
I don’t think it is reasonable to expect Apple to support a jailbroken phone. Apple’s tech support people are geniuses, not clairvoyants.
If you jailbreak a phone, buy the jailbreaker’s extended warranty. Then, if you bought AppleCare, take it to the Apple store so a genius can give you a pro rata refund on the AppleCare.
What? The jailbreaker doesn’t offer a warranty? Hm. That says something right there.
“Jailbreaking, the government said, is ‘innocuous at worst and beneficial at best.'” – How do they define ‘innocuous’? Jailbreaking without adding anything, sure, it’ll probably be no problem. Does the government then say to install unsigned software at your own risk?
Now watch somebody get a malware on a self-broken iPhone and sues the government for assuring that it is supposed to be a safe act.
Well, if I was running Apple, of course that is never going to happen, but I would be glad to encourage whatever share of folks want to, just jailbreak their phones. Just one less each time to warranty. Indeed I would encourage it to sell more to the geeks of the world. Heck with enough of those monkeys messing around maybe by accident they might develop some great apps for the rest of us. Win win for Apple.
Amen, brother. I am not a Kool-Aid drinking fanboy. I can be as cynical as anyone else. But there is a reason why Apple has made a walled garden that goes beyond what anyone will scream at Steve Jobs for being a control freak.
When someone jailbreaks their iPhone, it puts all of us connected on a network at risk. And I challenge the jailbreakers to demonstrate that real benefits exist from apps outside the App Store. Most of the jailbreakers want to tinker under the hood. And more often than not, they make a mess of things, because too many believe they know more than Apple engineers with real insight and experience.
As an investor in Apple, I am incensed by this decision. It might allow Adobe for example to try to slide Flash onto the iPhone. I will leave aside the fact that Flash is a train wreck. But the more insidious thing is that it gives Adobe and others an avenue to steal revenues from Apple by sliding in technology beneath iOS, and gives them an avenue to usurp control of the operating system created by Apple.
James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, and the author of the ruling, is a brilliant man. I worked for him once. But truth be told, the esteemed Mr. Billington is not a technologist. I have a hunch that he viewed the basis of his ruling on legal or copyright issues, or an interpretation of DMCA. But if he viewed how this could play out in terms of causing large-scale virus or trojan attacks, or the destruction of a highly successful engine of our economy and stock market, I wonder if he would reconsider his flawed reasoning.
Apple’s problem is that they may spend the time and expense to deal with potentially jail broken phones and they don’t want that.
We have a nice generous 1 year warranty with their products because Apple knows they will work as they designed it. If people are allowed to meddle with the intended design then it will be a great expense to Apple and they may limit the warranty coverage or charge us for it.
Bad idea G men.
Jailbreaking is it’s own punishment. Want to show how cool your new icons look? Watch them as they steal your personal info. Better yet try to convince the Apple genius that you don’t know how or why the extra code that bricked your phone got in your phone and voided the warranty. Apple should be delighted at the extra income stream provided by those too dumb to listen.
This ruling applies to all cell phones not just iPhones, the media of course has turned this into another us against them tempest in a teapot reason for FUD journalism.
I won’t comment on the pro and cons of jailbreaking but would like just point out that Apple spends very little money on Washington lobbying. Comcast spent 13m, Msft spent 7m, Google 4m and Apple spent 1.5m in 2009. (note that as Google’s revenues are lower than Apple’s, the amount Google spent on lobbying compared to revenue is even more striking). Did this have an effect on the ruling?
“This is really a stupid ruling. Government should really think before acting. As a rule.”
Sadly, as a rule, government doe not think.
Apple’s goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience,’ Apple said in a statement provided to Cult of Mac.
[emphasis added by me]
Insure? Really? I’m surprised the folks at Apple’s PR didn’t do a better job of proofing the copy before its release.
This decision by the government means nothing. It doesn’t affect Apples’s policy in the least, which remains unchanged. And I don’t think anyone ever went to jail for jailbreaking a phone, so it will have no effect there. Just another example of government bureaucrats wasting their time and our money..
I think the main effect of the ruling is that third-parties can create software for “jail-breaking” an iPhone without it being something that is considered “hacking.” From the customer’s (user’s) perspective, Apple has not previously gone after “jail-breaking” as an illegal activity, so it makes little difference. I don’t think it was considered “illegal” for the customer to jail-break their own iPhone; the “illegal” activity was by the people who created and distributed tools for jail-breaking.
But doing so will be just as dumb. And Apple is right to void the warranty, since removing control over what software can and cannot do may cause damage to the hardware (such as overheating).
I think the whole world is reading this wrong. Absolutely nothing has changed. This is simply a clarification of whether jailbreaking a phone is considered a violation of the DMCA, given the ramifications it could have in that sphere.
It has never been illegal and remains so. Apple has never supported it and continues not to.
Tra la!
Unlocking is not jailbreaking. The real story is that iPhones must be unlocked if the owner requests. This means that any out of contract iPhone is eligible to be used on T-Mobile. Should keep the resale value of used iPhones up.
Did the government just inadvertently endorse, or sanction jailbreaking, and therefore by definition, hacking a company’s product and call it a harmless act, at worst?
How long before we see a government-backed law suit from Psystar, contesting Apple’s warranty policy for those who choose to jailbreak any of their Apple products?
Where does the government stand on hacking XBox and PS3s?
I suspect we’ll see a number of manufacturers rally behind Apple, to condemn this policy’s verbiage.
In my opinion, the only impact that this ruling will have it that Apple will not be able to legally intentionally “break” the jailbreaks. However, it will be very difficult to prove that Apple was targeting jailbreakers as opposed to modifying code for legitimate reasons that happened to cause problems for jailbreakers.
In general, I agree that this is a non-issue. But isn’t it interesting that the ruling only occurred because someone finally produced a handset worth jailbreaking…Stuff was locked before (and many products still are) and, yet, few people cared.
Harvey writes, “If you jailbreak a phone, buy the jailbreaker’s extended warranty. Then, if you bought AppleCare, take it to the Apple store so a genius can give you a pro rata refund on the AppleCare.”
I don’t see how Apple owes them anything, even if they purchased AppleCare.
Whether jail-broken or not, the phone becomes “unstable and not work reliably”, so what’s new?
Solution: redesign the antenna, and replace my iP4 with one that works. Thank you.
And, oh, I don’t want a rubber band or any kind of case – that’s simply a cover up and has nothing to do with fixing the phone.