Bad Karma catching up?

I just read a blog post at AppleMatters title "Is It Me, Or Has Karma Finally Decided To Settle Up With Apple?" I also went through the comments there and found it strange how so many people seem to be thinking anyone hacking their iPhone being a looser. And that their whining is uncalled for.

What no one there seemed to mention is that until now, NEVER has a software hack rendered your hardware useless. Using undocumented toolbox APIs or finding clever work arounds, does not make your Mac useless in the next software update. Why then with the iPhone?

Apple could also have chosen the path to virginise a hacked iPhone via an iTunes restore. That way all hackers, including myself would be happy. No real hacker is complaining about Apple not doing the right thing by not releasing an API or "supporting" 3rd party applications as of now. Heck, it is perfectly acceptable that every software update even wipes out installed applications, forcing us to reinstall everything.

But to render the phone useless by applying a software update? And for Apple even, not to be able to fix it? Man, something must be wrong?

I fully agree with the article at AppleMatters. Bad PR move Apple. You might be on the clear legally. But you are losing the goodwill of some of your most loyal and vocal supporters. Release an iTunes update that "restores" an iPhone completely to factory defaults including the baseband firmware.

The iPhone Dev Team can take it from there. :) Way to go IPDT.

{ Filed in:  Apple }

Shashwat Parhi

12 Oct, 02:45 PM