Apple iPhone 3G: A Beautiful Jail

Published on July 25, 2008 in General by Rami Taibah

I have already ranted about my displeasure with the iPhone because it’s locked down like a brick and cannot be really used effectively on a Linux box. But if you thought that was bad then you have seen nothing! The Free Software Foundation published an alarming article titled 5 Reasons to Avoid iPhone 3G.

  • Say No to the Apple iPhone 3GiPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can’t be on everyone’s phones.
  • iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
  • iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.
  • iPhone won’t play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
  • iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don’t spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software — like the FreeRunner.

It’s a really interesting read, Johns goes on into more details on each of these points. If you are thinking of getting an iPhone 3G then i highly recommend reading FSF’s 5 Reasons to Avoid iPhone 3G to it’s entirety first before going out and splurging $400 to handcuff yourself.Apple Genius Bar? Doubt it!

The Free Software Foundation has done it’s part in preaching the dangers of the iPhone, but defective by design took it a step further and took action! Yesterday they issued an iPhone challenge called Ask Apple About the iPhone. The challenge urges everybody to reserve an appointment at the so called Apple Genius Bar using an online booking system. And ask these so called geniuses a series of 5 questions. Then rate them on a scale from 1-32 on each question, bringing the total to 160 IQ points (Einstien’s IQ):

  • Why do all developers have to submit their applications to Apple before they can be loaded onto an iPhone?
  • Why does iTunes still contain so much DRM-laden music?
  • The iPhone 3G has GPS support. How can users be sure that the GPS cannot be used to track their position, without their permission?
  • In ‘Thoughts on Music’, Steve Jobs said, “it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in ‘open’ licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC”. If Jobs really wants to see open formats, why doesn’t the iPhone play Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora video and FLAC?
  • Why can the iPhone 3G only be activated by Apple and AT&T?

Check out the ideal answers in the original Ask Apple About the iPhone article.

Of course one doesn’t really expect sincere and honest answers from these corporate geniuses, who have been probably spoonfed some marketing boo-ha! They already have been corrupted by Apple’s groupthink, but we will have to wait and see!

About

Rami Taibah the founder of The Linuxologist and a self proclaimed geek and Linux aficionado. This fall, he will be pursuing an MIMS degree at UC Berkeley, California. You can follow him on Twitter @rtaibah.

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  • Gerald Squelart

    The 4th “question” is not a question…

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    @Gerald: Fixed! Thanks :)

  • Scott

    Those are such nice questions but the average person should not be concerned about such non-sense. Everybody has choices to buy any phone they want. If you are a criminal, do not buy a iPhone. However, most phones have GPS’s and the cops can track calls. You can turn off your GPS anytime. Reward a company like Apple for inventing something new or go and buy just a plain phone that 89% of the population uses. Paying a fee to sell software could be a real money maker. If you want to give it away free….go right ahead…give it to Microsoft and let them put it on Vista.

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    Scott thank you for your comment.

    While an average person isn’t concerned about this, they usually vent their frustration to their Linux savvy friends. I have got numerous calls since the inception of the iPod/iPhone on why can’t I play this file or can’t do this or that. They probably think they are doing something wrong, where in reality someone in Cupertino decided not to play this OGG or FLAC file. This shouldn’t be the case, it’s my damn hardware that I payed with my hard earned cash and I am entitled to play whatever I deem appropriate, especially if its an open format like OGG.

    I for one had an old iPod and it worked beautifully on Linux and Amarok. However when it died, I decided to buy an iPod Touch without giving it much thought or research. Lo and behold, the touch has been locked down, and doesn’t work seamlessly like it’s previous model. How frustrating is that? Again it’s my hardware and I should be able to manage it with whatever OS I deem fit!

    About the GPS thingy, yes other phones also can be used to track you down, I never owned a GPS phone, and I don’t know if one can disable it or not. But still it’s a privacy risk that people should be aware of nonetheless.

  • Faz

    Don’t get me wrong as some apple freak, who would start arguing without thinking.
    However according to me, if you have internet and you are plugged in, you have an email, subscribe to a website. Its all being tracked. Every single government is power thirsty. They wanna control the people, rather than people controlling the government. Look at taxes, not necessarily a bad thing, but we pay them b’cuz they control the public.
    If you have any cell phone and you’re in trouble. Call 911, tell them you don’t know where you are. They will say just stay where you are and we will come and get you. How come? becuase they can track you. They could track you a decade ago man.
    As far as playing free content goes. Apple is a corporate company, with a soul purpose, to make money. Obviously they are not gonna let you play free content. Whats wrong with you.
    Look at sony. Anything you buy of sony, you gotta get a whole new shit of sony products just to make it work.
    Why do you think telecommunication companies lock the cell phones. So that you can only be with them, meaning “MAKE MORE MONEY”
    Thats the world we live in, you can’t run away from it!!!!!!

  • keon

    I’ll first note that I am typing this on an iPhone 3g.

    Now that I’ve given that full disclosure on this, I think that you aren’t really thinking through all of your options here. I for one would never own. Computer that doesn’t have some shell, preferably bash or zsh and mind you the iphone is a computer which doesn’t have prompt accesible to the end user. So I took the matter into my own hands and hacked the shit out of it thank you iPhone dev team. Now I have gcc I have javac help I even have a python interpreter. Sure apple doesn’t support it, but I don’t care unless there’s a hardware failure in which case it won’t matter. Plus have you ever even tried to get dell support when you don’t run windows? Large computer companies will always chain down their best products, but it’s up to us, not them, to break the shackles.

  • http://hehe2.net Rami Taibah

    @Keon and Faz, well mate not everybody could really break those shackles, not everybody has the technical ability. While Dell and other companies also follow such practices, none of them actually created products like Apple that make consumers salivate. I mean the iPhone seems to be the holy grail of phones. I always get responses like “you don’t have an iPhone?” or “how can you not like the iPhone or Apple”. They brainwashed people with their crap.

  • spedoinkle

    what the hell are you prople doing?!?!?! there is an open source phone that ahniallates the iphone! go to openmoko.com and check it out.

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  • http://twitter.com/bianconeri4ever/statuses/1028619680 bianconeri4ever (bianconeri4ever)

    @sodio thanks for following. I read bout your story with Apple, and am behind you 100%. I blogged about this some time ago http://is.gd/9qKB

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