Since Apple announced the iPhone and iPod Touch, hordes of developers have focused their efforts on bringing freedom to the masses. Whether you call the process "pwnage," "jailbreak" or something else altogether, the core ideas are always the same: allow people to do anything they wish with the device they purchased and own.
Do I support the idea? Entirely. I have been known to jailbreak my iPod Touch when I owned one and only a taste for applying security updates quickly prevents me from doing the same to my iPhone. There is no doubt that applications bring either device to the proverbial higher level and that many of the SDK limitations would prevent that from happening through official channels. Also, I do not appreciate anyone telling me what they consider "morally good" for me, and it seems Apple is intent on doing just that. Although I do not, personally, see the appeal of porn on the go, I do believe it should be allowed.
Rogue Amoeba is taking a very courageous stance on the SDK and I appreciate their speaking out loud. They are a very well respected developer of Mac OS X software and their opinions count, at least politically. (And of course, their set of technologies is a great demonstration of a legal application being discouraged by overly tight control.)
The only way to free ourselves from the iPhone SDK today is to jailbreak. Yet, I do not believe in all the jailbreaking efforts. Technically, they are very exciting, entertaining and we certainly learn a lot through them. They may also contribute to the security of the iPhone platform as there is nothing like financial incentives to foster security development.
Practically, however, they are utterly futile and I wish all the effort we are putting into these were put into other areas of development. (I am side-stepping the legal issues here, both for convenience and because the iPhone is sold in a great many markets.)
Only a small portion of iPhone users would ever consider jailbreaking their iPhones. Certainly, with the success of the platform, this may mean hundreds of thousands of people but believing the majority of users – who, let us remember, never change their Safari home page – will go through the motions of downloading a jailbreaker and installing it is wishful thinking.
The process is easy enough, and it is getting more reliable every day, but it requires time and effort, neither of which the average phone user is willing to spend – and especially not when the default set of applications is "good enough" for what it is they want to do.
Jailbreaking will not convince Apple to review its policies. They have much bigger things to worry about: lawsuits from certain consumer groups should iPorn ever appear, lawsuits from their carriers should competing applications become a threat to their business model, lawsuits from users if an iPhone ever crashes and deprives a dying soul of prompt medical help. It is not in Apple's immediate interests to open the iPhone, no matter how morally right and technically enlightening it would be. Business-wise, they made a sound decision and they have no reason to not stick to it.
In the long run, it may be: increased competition and innovation, technological breakthroughs, etc. But really, who thinks in the long run any more? We've seen cases where companies are being sued by their shareholders for sound long-run decisions because they failed to bring in the cash for the current term. I am sure someone at Apple is planning for the years to come and evaluating various options but any decision to relax the rules would certainly not be motivated by warm, gooey feelings.
iPhone developers, both inside and outside Apple, have demonstrated incredible talent and insight. Jailbreakers have worked magic. The iPhone is a potentially terrific platform. Jailbreaking, however, won't further its cause. We need to either embrace it as it is – and log enhancement requests – or move ahead, to greener pastures.
I have no doubt the current limitations will be lifted and brought to the masses. By Apple themselves. Sometime in the future. Not because of the jailbreak.
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Mac
Comments (4)
Read More Entries by FJ de Kermadec.
LOL, I very much love your analogy!
I do not believe that Jailbreaking and Apple-distribution are mutually exclusive.
Fundamentally, however, I believe we have different expectations for "grandma." My grandma – OK, the proverbial grandma as I imagine it, not mine personally - could not change Safari's home page to save her life. Nor has she really mastered the concept of file vs. application after years of computer use. Maybe my grandma is a bit extreme but a surprisingly large amount of computer users behave this way, as evidenced by the huge success of default programs and services like Outlook, MSN, Hotmail and even Internet Explorer when compared to arguably better alternatives like Thunderbird, Firefox and Mac OS X.
This is amplified by the core audience of the iPhone: telephone users. Phone users are still very much hardwired to think of their phone as a device that "places calls" and just works, as shown by the slower than hoped adoption rate of the "mobile web." (This, of course, is changing.)
You argue that Grandma can push the button and get Installer.app on her phone. I agree entirely: she has the brains and the motor control. The question, however, seems to be whether she will feel the need to or even be put in a situation to learn this is possible.
On a second note, Apple can wipe Jailbreak applications with any update, along with user data. Whether they would do this is another story, but they certainly can check for the presence of bundles on an iPhone and refuse to run if they are present. Certainly, the jailbreak community can work around this but how would "grandma" be told to wait until a patch is available while iTunes tells her there is a "recommended update" available? Would she listen to iTunes or to the unknown source? How would her trust in the Installer-provided software be affected?
I do not believe any corporate developer would use the jailbreak platform to develop software either because it is potentially illegal - emphasis on the "potentially," I have no opinion on the matter. Without corporate support and corporate money, how would Grandma be told about Installer.app?
We are very much in agreement over the worth of the Jailbreaking efforts and the ease of the process. I do not wish to belittle the work the community has done. However, I do not have the same faith in the "average user's" ability to wander off the beaten path when it comes to software.
> I would, however, be delighted to be proven wrong!
Wish granted!
And by Apple at that.
Most developers are not satisfied with the limited functionality of Apple's SDK. I equate it to putting a facade on your book store to make it look like a strip club, to attract more customers. As is the case with both, once the customer walks through the door, they become immediately bored and disenchanted.
So with that said, developers are building better apps using the open tool chain - free from Apple's technical limitations and DRM. So if a user can run a simple tool to jailbreak their phone (as they are now) and have access to both Apple's Cripple-Apps, and free software that has more features, what makes you think the jailbreak community would cease to exist? More the likely is that it will continue to get stronger, at least until Apple finally comes around and stops trying to monopolize the market.
Jailbreaking is effortless today - anybody can push a button to get it done, and the Installer is easier than iTunes in many respects. So, since grandma can now be an "uber hacker" by downloading a free jailbreak program, it seems like it would be a no-brainer that people would continue to use it, and complement it with Apple's store. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Jonathan,
Thanks for the comments and the data. Yes, I am very much aware of both Jailbreakme and Installer.app, having used both in the past. The distribution system put in place by the jailbreaking community certainly has nothing to envy to certain commercial equivalents.
The percentage of users who jailbreak their phones is, of course, dependent on the penetration of the iPhone in traditional markets. As the iPhone gets into the hands of increasingly less technical users - who purchase it as they renew their phones, not for the reasons we Apple or phone enthusiasts have -, I would be inclined to think this percentage will decrease sharply.
Also, as Apple expands international distribution of the iPhone, the "jailbreak shops" that account for a part of the jailbreaking population will no longer come into play.
Today's iPhone is a bit like the original iPod in that the device has not yet reached its full distribution potential. It is a great success but probably nothing like what Apple intends it to become as years go by and its popularity ramps up.
I certainly do not mean to imply that the Jailbreaking phenomenon did not meet with considerable success for an effort of its kind. I do not, however, believe that jailbreaking will influence Apple in its choices and I do not foresee the effort ever reaching the "masses."
I would, however, be delighted to be proven wrong!
FJ
>Only a small portion of iPhone users would ever consider jailbreaking their iPhones.
FJ,
Point of information - over one million users jailbroke their 1.1 phone within the first few weeks of jailbreakme.com. That's 25% of the market (about 33% back then). Today, it's believed over 50% of the market (over 2 million iPhones) are jailbroken. This is not small potatoes. In fact, the open community has their own community distribution network, via Installer.app, and hundreds of existing iPhone applications are still being distributed today on them. You may call jailbreaking futile, if you wish, but it's definitely inaccurate to call the market a small one. And as you've pointed out, running applications on a jailbroken phone is the only way we're likely to see some of the functionality that Apple has crippled in their SDK.