Shortly after the announcement yesterday, Phil Schiller spoke with the Associated Press about the potential damage that may happen to unlocked iPhones.
”This has nothing to do with proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview. ”It’s unfortunate that some of these programs have caused damage to the iPhone software, but Apple cannot be responsible for … those consequences.”
There will be a debate about this from now until the end of time about whether there is truly any danger from the unlocking applications – but the bottom line with this is that Apple is in no way responsible for making sure your unlocked (i.e. – hacked) iPhone works after the software update.
You can bet that once people get a good grip on how to lock them up, they’ll all be relocked – and as soon as the software update has been installed, a new unlock will be released.
It’s going to be a never-ending battle…on both sides.
7 thoughts on “Phil Schiller comments on Unlocked iPhones”
of course apple would be responsible for the bricking of an iphone. i seriously don’t see how unlocking an iphone “damages” its software, unless you define “damage” as “enabling featurtes that we don’t want”…
and i also don’t see how a software update that encounters those “damages” might UNdeliberately brick the phone. i mean, “brick” means “irreparable hardware damage” right? how do they want to achieve that via software? overclock the cpu until it burns out? because, um, the network unlock also unlocked the mhz restrictions of the cpu, and it is a common thing for software updates to, y’know, just for fun, increase the mhz rate of the cpu a bit even if it should do nothing bad at all unless you were a bad boy and unlocked your iphone? huh? huh?
sorry for all the sarcasm 😛
As the boss has mentioned “it a cat and dog game”.
But this game has been existed since the first locked phone appeared…
so the PR kicks in. first it’s their job to fight the unlocking guys, and now it’s a change to not being responsible. when MS gets sued for bundling their media player into vista, everybody claps their hands, but when the iphone’s cash generating powers get threatened, everybody bends out of shape. it’s sickening, you know.
btw, i am a Mac user and love it, but i don’t like those cultish knee-jerk reactions i’m seeing.
Phil, Apple is taking no responsibility for the consequences if you modify your iPhone by unlocking it. Phil Schiller says that Apple won’t go out of its way to sabotage your changes, but it’s not going to take responsibility either. This quite clear. You can’t dump on Apple the consequence of your modifications. Apple can change the software or firmware of its iPhone any way it wants and it doesn’t have to care about how that effects you. Either operate the iPhone in a manner agreeable to Apple or it’s all in your lap.
Well, yes and no.
Yes, I agree with Phil that if you unlock your phone and download an Apple update, Apple has no responsibility to make sure that your phone continues to work. If you sent it in to Apple for warranty repairs, all Apple would do is reinstall their software on it and send it back.
However, Apple cannot void your entire warranty. If you unlock your phone and, in six months, your touch-screen turns green, Apple must fix it at their expense or prove that the unlocking of the iPhone caused this problem.
I agree…
which is a ridiculous thing, now that you come to mention it simonas – suing ms for including a media player in their os. how dare they! i’d rather buy a system that can do nothing at all out of the box!
i mean, seriously – what’s wrong with providing your customers with a tool that they NEED ANYWAYS out of the box? nobody sues apple because they put quicktime on their macs. or for NOT including a wmv/avi player…
and anyone who does not like the ms media player can still get any alternative he likes with no trouble at all. it’s not like ms prohibits 3rd party software… like a certain OTHER company does with a certain phone of theirs… 😉
totally off topic post, i know… sorry 😛