Tag Archives: iphone

Hacking the iPhone is legal, ethical and lots of fun

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apple-hack.jpgLaw professor Tim Wu says there’s nothing illegal about an iPhone user unlocking his phone plus it’s so much fun:

The good news is that my iPhone works flawlessly. With my existing T-Mobile account, I get 1,300 more minutes of talk time than I would have received from AT&T for a comparably priced plan; I also now have a phone that I can take to Asia and Europe. I avoided a $200 termination fee, AT&T’s activation fee, and having to wait for AT&T to port my existing number. On the downside, I don’t have AT&T’s visual voicemail, and I have to stay away from Apple’s software upgrades, which might brick the phone. But it’s easy to download third-party apps, like iPong. Best of all, my geek friends are impressed.

Read the rest of Professor Wu’s article on Slate. In the meantime, Apple’s most recent attempt (version 1.1.1) to turn its customers’ iPhones into $500 paperweights has failed. Hackers have figured out a way to hack that as well, giving users, once again, the freedom to user their phones however they want to.

UPDATE: Dewayne Hendricks emailed me to say that hackers have read access to the filesystem on the iPhone, but not complete write access. They’re very close though. Click here to visit the iPhone hacker site.

iPhone users will want Wi-Fi everywhere

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iPhone users who are hoping to use the device for more than just voice calls will be clamoring for Wi-Fi everywhere when they find out how slow EDGE really is. Thank heavens for Wi-Fi! This article in Information Week says:

Wi-Fi is even more important for iPhone users in the U.K. where, according to media reports, the exclusive iPhone provider O2 covers just 30% of the British population. To help make up for the skimpy coverage, subscribers will be offered free connections to Wi-Fi provider the Cloud, which operates more than 7,500 Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.K.

T-Mobile has a lot of hotspots around the world and in Germany, so Apple’s choice of partner in that country is wise. However, will a T-Mobile Germany user be able to seamlessly log onto a T-Mobile hotspot in San Francisco? We shall see . . . .

Joke of the day: Apple to fight iPhone hacks

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apple-hack.jpgIt’s a dark, gloomy, rainy day in Amsterdam and I need a good laugh. This came in just in time to cure my blues (from Network World): Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Tuesday that it’s his company’s job to stymie hackers who try to unlock the iPhone — the first time the company has officially said it would fight attempts to use the popular device on unauthorized networks.

Why is this funny?

(1) Assuming I am an iPhone owner, which I am not, it’s MY phone. I bought it. The cellular operator isn’t even subsidizing it so I have every right to choose what I download onto the phone, how I use it, etc. When it leaves the store, Mr. Jobs has no right to tell me what the heck I am going to use it for and how. I can flush it right down the toilet, stomp on it, grind it into a thousand little pieces, it’s none of his damn business. He’s got his money, he should shut up and be happy.

(2) The hacker community “owns” the iPhone. Whatever fix Apple tries to apply to the device, the hacker community will come up with an update of its own to neutralize Apple’s “fix”. Apple is wasting time and money, and annoying its customers.

(3) Steve Jobs added: “People will try to break in, and it’s our job to stop them breaking in.” Wait – it’s my phone. I decided who to let in, not Apple. Apple’s “fixes” are intrusive. It’s Apple who’s breaking into MY phone.

But I don’t have to worry about this . . . for now because I don’t have an iPhone. I refuse to buy it unless it works on 21st century mobile networks – like 3G for a start.

More iPhone tales: AT&T discriminates against people with good credit?

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I know, it’s 2007 and most cellular carriers around the world will sell you a prepaid plan without much ado. Heck, they’re so thrilled you’re buying service from them and not from a competing operator! But not AT&T, according to VC Fred Wilson, who says AT&T sells prepaid subscriptions for the iPhone only to people who are deadbeats. I still can’t believe it, but read his post: After about five minutes, the manager got on the line. I repeated my case, asked him to authorize a prepaid plan for my phone. He said he could not do so. That it was AT&T policy to only issue pre-paid plans to people with valid social security numbers who fail a credit check.

Vincent Everts posted this solution on Fred’s blog:

Fred, I had the same problem. If you add 00000000 or 123456789 as a social security number then you will be automatically enrolled in the pre paid program. I am a dutch alien I did not have a number. The first time I used the social security number of my son which is one year old and who had bad credit. But easier is to go to www.iphonehacks.com and get the phone unlocked. Then you can use any sim card you like. Takes about 45 minutes.

I guess one of the ways to get an AT&T prepaid card is to NOT pay your monthly subscription plan, so they automatically classify you as a deadbeat and then move you to the prepaid plan. Good grief!

I don’t understand why Fred Wilson encountered this problem. When you visit AT&T’s website, their prepaid plans section does not mention any strange restrictions (i.e. that you need to be a deadbeat first before they sell it to you).

Telco-novela: iPhone customers get indecipherable bills

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David Pogue writes in the New York Times tech blog about this first AT&T bill for the iPhone. Of course it’s filled with the usual unintelligible telco jargon:

It’s a staggeringly, hatefully complex document, designed by some Monty Pythoneseque committee in charge of consumer confusion . . . I get SIX PAGES of listings of data tidbits that the iPhone has downloaded in the form of email and Web pages–KILOBYTE BY KILOBYTE! Every graphic on every Web page, every message sent or received–it’s all carefully listed by date and time. Not as anything helpful like NYTIMES.COM HOME PAGE or EMAIL–no, no. Instead, every single one of the hundreds of listings says the same thing: “Data Transfer” of type “Data” at rate code “MBRF,” along with how many kilobytes it was (usually 1K or 3K).

This is exactly what happens when you have a business based on billing by the kilobyte (a telco) attempting to deliver Internet access on an “unlimited” data plan.