MacDailyNews Take: Technically, “jailbreaking” refers to the latter and “unlocking” refers to the former.
NCB continues, “‘Current jailbreak technologies now in widespread use utilize unauthorized modifications to the copyrighted bootloader and operating system, resulting in the infringement of the copyrights in those programs,’ Apple told the U.S. Copyright Office.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not much meat in the NBC article, so it’s unclear what Apple’s asking for, if anything. Under the DMCA of 2010, both jailbreaking and unlocking are legal in the United States of America. More info: U.S. government makes iPhone jailbreaking, unlocking legal – July 26, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]
@Powers johnson sez: “I will always jailbreak UNTIL I GET . . . better password protection…”
Better password protection compared to what? If you are referring to the device passcode:
It’s somewhat obscure, but no one using iOS 4 is stuck with merely the 4 character password. You can change the Settings to use as monstrous a password as you can handle. Look through your iDevice manual and find instruction regarding Passcodes. For my iPod Touch 4 Apple state:
“A simple passcode is a four-digit number. To increase security, turn off Simple Passcode and use a longer passcode with a combination of numbers, letters, punctuation, and special characters.”
I had always assumed that Apple officially made changes to prevent the previous form of jailbreaking while taking no measures to prevent future jailbreaking. This allows them to see what people can do, without having to support experimental code.
So I was surprised to see this taken further, but mostly disappointed as it would mean that Apple is just incapable of securing its OS.
@ Brau sez: “[Apple] want profit, and as much of it as they can get by any means, freedom be damned.”
I’m not going to address the prospect of Apple being totalitarian. It certainly is in Apple’s financial interest to keep users ‘in the family’ of approved 3rd party software as well as the Apple App Stores and iTunes Store.
However, there are other reasons for Apple to want to limit jailbreaking/unlocking:
A) User Experience: Apple’s approach is a marriage of hardware with software. Everything “JUST WORKS”. Even to this day, Windows boxes are plagued with ye olde ‘Plug and PRAY’. Apple don’t want potentially screwed up iDevices out in the world for neophytes to see and believe to be Apple’s doing. They want happy, smiley, shiny customers and the company reputation that comes with it.
B) Tech Support Costs and Frustration: What company wants to be saddled with supporting a hacked piece of hardware and/or software. You hack it, you void the warranty. It’s that simple. And yet I can verify that disappointed or screwed over hackers frequently call the source company and waste their time and money ranting over what is entirely the CUSTOMER’S fault. It is a tech support NIGHTMARE. I’ve often been on the receiving end! No way does Apple want to deal with that garbage. Minimizing hackability and hacking consequences is entirely in Apple’s interest, if only to prevent Tech Support HELL.
If all humans took responsibility for their actions, what a better world this would be. But most humans do NOT! I can tell you that I LOVE having jailbroken my AppleTV v1, adding in a pile of lovely new software functionality. But no way would I go whining to Apple if my hack job fracked up! I also am smart enough to make sure I know how to UNDO my hack job should I wish to return my AppleTV v1 to pristine, Apple approved state.
How many people jailbreaking/unlocking their iDevices take personal responsibility?
No, making tools and/or provided the means to jailbreak the iPhone is patently illegal. The Librarian of Congress (LOC) in his recent opinion, which doesn’t carry the force of law, that it is Fair Use for individuals to jailbreak their personal iPhones, does not cover those who provides the tools or other means for individuals to jailbreak their iPhones. The LOC expressly stated in his opinion that nothing he did provided any protection to those who provided the means to jailbreak the iOS and expressly stated that those who provide tools for jailbreaking are still subject to the full rigor of the Copyright Act (Act), including its criminal provisions of the Act and the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). So those who provide the means for others to jailbreak their iPhones are breaking the law, and nothing that the LOC has done changes that.
Moreover, the LOC’s recent decision that an individual jailbreaking his iPhone is legal is far from settled law. Only an Article III judge of a United States’ court of competent jurisdiction, which for instant purposes would be a U.S. district court judge, can make a legal determination as to whether an act of copyright infringement is excused as Fair Use. At present, I am not aware of any case where a U.S. district court has held that an individual jailbreaking his iPhone is excused from infringing Apple’s copyright in its iOS as an instance of Fair Use, and until such a judge so holds and his holding is sustained on appeal, the LOC’s opinion is at best advisory, for the LOC has no power to definitively determine what constitutes Fair Use on any legal dispute, except where a court has already held an act of infringement to be an instance of Fair Use or where Fair Use provision of the Act expressly states that an act is Fair Use. Since neither a federal court has held jailbreaking to be Fair Use and since the Act does not state that jailbreaking is Fair Use, whether an individual jailbreaking his iPhone is Fair Use, notwithstanding the LOC’s recent opinion, is still not decided.
This will be the downfall of Apple. It appears Apple is becoming more and more like Microsoft. Hey I bought the iPhone with MY money so I should be able to use it any way I want to. Why restrict me to just one carrier? Looks like Martial Law with Apple.
Not music related, but #Apple has got to be f@%cking kidding. If #SteveJobs was president, he’d be a brutal dictator.
Why don’t Apple just basically sell all FACTORY UNLOCK phones instead of restricting and making the lifestyles of buyers difficult with those carrier-locked phones which I can’t use anywhere I travel to? Apple has become a bunch of dictators! If this will be the case then I’m disillusioned by Apple and guess will have to stop buying their products.
One thing Disturbing About the Story is that the NBC Affiliate Interviewed a Hacker, this Hacker contacted them and is Mad cause Apple is trying to stop him from doing the hacking on other People’s phones cause he is CHARGING THEM $15.00 Per Hack.
Apple is not trying to stop the individual from Jailbreaking their own phones.
See this Story is Biased, Apple Has No Problem With Jail- breaking if You do it Yourself, But If Someone Charges to do it It Has A Problem.
So The NBC Affiliate made up a Big Story But Did Not Detail ALL The Facts, Apples Not At Fault, You Can Jail Break, But You Better Do it Yourself and if Someone Else Does it For You the Better Not Be Doing It For A Profit.
What we Do have is a New Verizon Phone, And Allot of People Very Nervous. Now The Smart People can put 2 and 2 Together and see all the negative stories this week trying to hurt Apple and take away from the Verizon iPhone.
Think People Think.
*****AGAIN******
So The NBC Affiliate made up a Big Story But Did Not Detail ALL The Facts, Apples Not At Fault, You Can JailBreak, But You Better Do it Yourself and if Someone Else Does it For You the Better Not Be Doing It For A Profit.
This has Been Blown So Far Out Of Proportion, and the idiots are so Desperate for a Apple Hate Story.
It’s F***ing Pathetic.
This NBC affiliate doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I’m glad MacDailyNews corrected some of NBC’s many mistakes, but I’m not sure the story should have even been covered in the first place. When someone can’t distinguish between jailbreaking and unlocking an iPhone, everything else they say about the subject is not trustworthy to me. And the most important thing is that this NBC affiliate doesn’t even have a source for their claims.
“Wow, if you close your eyes real tight you can coat anything in denial!”
You mean kind of like how you’re in denial about the article being unclear? Because it seriously is. It confuses jailbreaking with unlocking several times, first of all, and second, it’s truly vague.
What practice is Apple fighting against? Unlocking? Jailbreaking? People like Nadair Jackson who charge other people money to jailbreak their iPhones?
The article seems to heavily imply that Apple is asking feds to crack down on people charging money for jailbreaking, but it isn’t clear. I guess that was enough for you to fly off into a tirade about how Apple hates freedom, though, huh?
YAY! Go trolls!
MW: justice.
Idiots. Shouting gave bought an iPhone if you can’t handle the Garden Of Apple.
What else can jailbrakeing give you? Pretty themes? Get over it. More carriers? Who the he’ll uses T-Mobile or Sprint?
You knew what Apple wanted you, as the consumer to have when you signed your contract with Verizon or AT&T.
I purchased my iPhones unlocked from Apple Store in Canada for about $750.. I never have to worry about unlock but I still love my Jailbreak
No you idiot I mean a simply protection bought from Cydia where I don’t have to remember 10 digits only certain gestures obviously you have never even looked under ThE hood of your iPhone we call people like you sheep !!!! Hahaha and I can tether 5 devices with my iPhone under my Att unlimited contract know who says jailbreaking is for themes only it’s full control of YOUR PHONE !!! geesh people
The bottom line is if you gave 99.99 percent of all iPhones owners a jailbroke iPhone for a month and told them if they wanted to keep it that way after the thirty days I think only a true follower would want their old locked iPhone back I can’t really explain what I meant by better password protection to someone that’s never experienced anything besides poking a number in (-: I’m sorry but innovation comes from learning all you can not just what some one shows or allows you to learn or know !!! I love my iPhone and I love apple but I really love MY JAILBROKE IPHONE THAT IS TOTALLY unique not just out of The box like everyone elses like I said some people are sheep they are happy being told what they can AMD cannot do with their iPhone !!
This is a Joke!! they spend so much time stopping unlocking and jailbreaking that HTC is swooping the market.. All Good Things Come to an END. And i believe apple is starring it right in the face.
iPhone 5 coming out this summer and the white iphone 4 has not been release yet there sueing some poor asian in ny for something that they will make obsolete themselves..
Last year I bought a new iPhone 4 to replace my 3G (2 year contract was up). The shop took my old SIM card but let me keep the iPhone 3G. I gave to to my son to use as an iPod. In order to synchronize it with his Mac, he chose to completely erase it (restore to factory settings or whatever it is called.) After that the iPhone would no longer sync with iTunes, or even start up past the emergency screen, because it had lost its activation when “restored”. So we were left with a $400, 2 year old device without any useful function. I still can’t understand why Apple would do this. Didn’t others have the same experience? I think that selling a device that will become unusable by design should be against the law. (I accept the phone part could be disabled without a valid sim but the “iPod touch” capabilities should not be.)
I’ve got all my old iPhones and each one I use as iPods !! I don’t know why your having that problem I did however spend a couple bucks on eBay for sim card factory reset then downloaded all my current songs so look into that as all my pod iPhones are my iPods I take one to work so my 4 doesn’t get messed up and such
I am not interested in jail breaking and getting illegal apps. However, it is frustrating to travel overseas and can’t use a local sim. I have been able to do that with all my phones before 2007. In a couple weeks, I am heading to the UK and France. I have to take along a second phone – an unlocked Blackberry Bold to use with a local sim. Either that, or incur very high roaming charges on my iPhone 4.
I pad for it and I should have the opportunity to unlock it when I travel. Frustrating.
They’re asking for more control. They are big brother. It is 1984. Sad.
Although jailbreaking is legal, infringing on copyright is not. If the method being used to jailbreak ends up infringing on some one else’s copyright, Apple maybe be within their legal right to ask the government to do something about that specific method of jailbreaking.
Also, while you may have a right to jailbreak your phone, you don’t have any right to hack the cell network those phones run on. If your method of jailbreak endangers the cell network’s security, the government may also take action, as well they should.
NBC is a shit lib web outfit. Who cares what they say.
Not sure why MDN would choose to post a link to this article, when it’s very much lacking in fact and detail and can only hurt Apple by spreading misinformation.
Still, at least MDN gets their clickbait hits. (And I fell for it too, dagnabbit.)
And it’s admittedly amusing, in a morbid way, to read the same old anti-Apple pro-jailbreaking tirades here – clearly *those* folks don’t worry much about checking their facts, either.
…”Sorry to correct you! But the number of jailbrokem unlocked iPhones hover around 10 % of all iOS users I think it is an exception to find an iPhone user who doesn’t know the term especially after they use the iPhone as I do everyday hour .. So check your facts do make your own !!!”
That is a perfect example of a made-up fact. The number of jailbroken iPhones (or iPads) is nowhere NEAR 10%. The number of UNLOCKED iPhones is nowhere NEAR 10% either. The percentage of iPhone users who even know that jailbreaking means is quite low. There’s plenty of data out there to refute your statement, and you apparently thought that nobody here is going to check. Lame.
Unlocking an iPhone is a quite legitimate expectation. Apple allows it and doesn’t have a problem with it. Carriers around the world have an issue with it, some allowing it, others not. In their negotiations with the carriers, Apple needed to concede this one issue, in accordance with the prevalent local practices. Thus, in the US, iPhone is locked, period. Meanwhile, in many EU countries, an unlocked version MUST be offered for sale, while in others, a locked version must be unlocked upon customer’s request.
Jailbreaking is a colossal hassle. While I’m technologically very savvy, and jailbreaking would be a trivial task for me to accomplish, I would simply never bother, since the consequences of it (the inability to automatically update the iOS) would far outweigh the few obscure benefits that I would get (and likely would never need to use). Not to mention that the tethering and Wifi Hotspot are legitimate features that normally cost extra in the US, so I would be breaking several various contracts if I were to jailbreak in order to get away with free tethering and WiFi hotspot. It is a whole other debate as to why these have to cost extra (they shouldn’t), but today, they do, and jailbreaking to avoid such cost is essentially stealing.
iphoneruez says: “I’m sure at least 99% of consumers that buy iPhones are not interested in jailbreaking them. The people that I’ve talked to with iPhones never even heard of the term. I’m sure it’s just a few tech-heads that want to tinker with their smartphones. The iPhone basically works well out of the box and there shouldn’t be much reason for most consumers to tinker with it. If consumers want to play around with their smartphones, they should probably be using Android which promotes tinkering.”
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My 17 year old daughter and her giggling girlfriends know all about jailbreaking, so that term is in common parlance with high school and college kids. How widespread the actual practice is I can’t say, and I can’t say why they want to jailbreak their iPhone.
The only reason I would jailbreak my iPhone is to install “MyWi” so I don’t have to pay a carrier $20 extra a month just to fully use the bandwidth I already pay dearly for each month. I will bet you that will be one of the biggest reasons why people will jailbreak their Verizon iPhones.