Hey Josh Pigford, U learn up. U are the stupid here and not the person who filed a lawsuite.

So wat do u mean ?, you can give me your money and do what ever I say ? are you nuts ?

Thank you. I would agree that I are the stupid here. We should all file lawsuites and be nuts.

So wat do u mean ?, you can give me your money and do what ever I say ? are you nuts ?

My bet is Apple and AT&T will relent or lose big. Personally, I wouldn’t touch an iPhone until this issue is resolved.

Mark my words this case, which is a well thought out one, will eventually lead to to Apple having to “unlock” maybe not next month, but give it time. The guy knows what he’s doing. Apple will of seen this coming and is looking at a time frame of 1-2 years, within which they will off made the profit work for them.

The guy starting the suit is just a front, figure out the legal expenses in such a case, who do you is paying? … think of the current lobby on this matter ….

and josh–i’ll apologize for calling you pathetic when you apologize for calling the litigant and idiot.

For the first two months of the iPhone, Apple did nothing and made no public comment regarding hacking the phone. Surely, their skilled legal department understood what was going on within the user community. They also had to understand the implications of their own silence on the issue: that Apple was quietly endorsing those activities. They took no affirmative action to warn users of the likelihood that the phones would be bricked by a subsequent update.

That they waited until just a few days before the 1.1.1 update to take that action is, at best, irresponsible. Further, the warning was pretty ambiguous. “Could” and “might” render the phones inoperable were the critical words. I don’t think there’s much doubt that they *knew* it would brick a percentage.

I’ll grant that unlocking the phones is not, in my opinion, the smartest thing to do. That’s an activity that probably put Apple at risk of litigation from AT&T. Installing third-party apps, however, has never been a violation of a hardware warranty. And, even violations of a warranty have never given the hardware manufacturer the right to render the purchased equipment inoperable.

So, Apple screwed up in three ways: a) by not affirmatively discouraging (either in writing or verbally) hacking, b) by not allowing a sufficient period of time to correct the hacks they knew existed before delivering the 1.1.1 update, and c) by damaging or rendering inoperable third-party software that’s clearly allowed on any other hardware device.

I don’t think anyone, when they think about it, really likes the precedent this sets. A manufacturer is free to define their warranty terms in a way that best suits their business interests. Consumers are free to accept or reject that warranty, but not to negotiate it. Under those terms, Apple should be free to void the warranty on any phone hacked to work with other networks - it’s in their business interest to do so - but not to destroy the devices that are owned by the consumer.

Unfortunately, the way these things get worked out in the US is in the courts. Apple appears determined, by their actions, to expand manufacturers’ rights to include permanently disabling a modified device (a device now owned by the consumer), even when they already have the right to void the warranty and be done with it. That doesn’t bode well for any of us, Apple consumers all. Would it be okay if, when you installed the custom pipes on that new Mini Cooper, BMW came and stole the engine, even when they already had the right to void the warranty? Far-fetched, maybe. But the analogy matches the expansion of manufacturers’ rights (at the expense of consumer rights) that Apple’s action seems to lead. The courts are the way that expansion is contained - for all of us.

Thanks a lot, sue mongers.

When these sue happy morons are done trying to get their millions for being stupid, will they have to pay Apple’s court expenses? How does that work?

At the end of the day, if you don’t like the conditions that come with a product, then don’t buy it!

a couple of weeks ago you said apple’s tactic was bullish and that they weren’t playing nice. this week you’re attacking people for pushing back against apple for breaking their phones.

You’re having trouble separating opinion and business. I have never made any statement about Apple’s tactics not being a bit bullish. I think it’s lame for Apple to not open up the iPhone for easier development and to other carriers. But my opinion has nothing to do with the absurdity of the reasoning behind these two people’s lawsuit.

As for it being “bad form” to respond to you…welcome to TAB. All of the authors (myself included) gladly respond to comments and we won’t always agree with being called “pathetic.” This is an interactive site and I have no intention of just sitting back and letting it run itself. I enjoy having conversations like this and I apologize if you’ve been burned by such interaction in the past. It’s worked quite well for us for the past 3 years.

imagine you bought a desktop pc and you swapped out the hard drive effectively violating the manufacturer’s warranty. a week later, the manufacturer pushes out a firmware update that permanently disables your pc because they detected that you violated their warranty.

imagine this happening on every single piece of hardware you own — like your car, for instance: supe that sucker up, and the manufacturer pushes out firmware that disables the car’s computer rendering it useless.

for one thing, say goodbye to innovation. for another, say goodbye to fair use.

this behavior with the iphone is the same sort of issue critics of microsoft rage about when talking about hardware fingerprinting and visa, and the ability for software and hardware manufacturers to disable and delete their competitors products of your pc.

the is apple crossing the line in a big way, and lawsuits and more specifically case law are the manner in which precedence is set for what corporations may and may not get away with.

that’s not this guy’s fault — that’s the legal system’s fault for being structured in such a way that the courts become the interpreters of the law.

and btw-it’s bad form for a blogger to respond to a critic in such a way. trust me, i learned that the hard way.

Now, on to my reply to your comment.

Remind me how Apple not letting people hack the iPhone inherently makes it okay for people to sue them? I’m pretty sure those two have nothing to do with one another.

Maybe you’re not from America or maybe you’re just blind to the trend that has existed here for the past decade or so…but people will sue companies for anything. Tell me how on earth it’s okay for a woman to sue Apple for $1 million because they reduced the price of their product by $200. Tell me how on earth it’s okay for a man to sue Apple because he’s upset he broke the warranty on his phone. I would genuinely love to hear some logical reasoning behind that.

seriously, i like my mac. but with every greater move to lockdown their equipment and lockout their customers, i am hating apple corp. more and more.

and for being a pathetic apple fanboy blinded by his affinity for a corporation clearly abandoning its commitment to its customers, you’ve just lost a reader.