Teenager pokes a hole in the sinking ship that is crippled iTouch

A 13-year old has claimed to have created iJailbreak, applescript software to install third-party software on Apple’s iPhone. What makes this particular software interesting is the fact that its intended audience is non-hackers. link

So not only did a 13-year old get around the new software update for the iTouch which broke many of the third-party application installers, but they did it in a interface that a larger audience could use. I do not understand why Apple insists on crippling this device that prevents it from being used the way users want to.

AT&T used to make the argument with their landlines that if third parties were allowed to make the phones they might bring down the network. And it worked for many years. “Phone leasing was commonplace until the break up of Ma Bell more than 20 years ago. Since the break up, consumers have had a staggering array of choices for local and long-distance phone service, which includes buying their own telephones. Some of the original phone renters continued leasing and many are still paying.” Fred Minnick

The same rhetoric was dusted off for the release of the iPhone, which amusingly was also a joint venture with AT&T. Of course that didn’t take long for hackers to unlock the phone in various ways, making it available to other networks (ex: T-Mobile) and also third party applications. The iTouch of course is different. Even if you believe the fact that a rogue hacker could bring down AT&T’s network (in which case read Bruce Sterling’s “The Hacker Crackdown”), the iTouch is not connected to a network.

There is the potential for a large industry of third-party applications around these types of devices. Apple’s iPhone/iTouch are the slickest right now, but this sort of mentality where the user is treated as a criminal before they even by the product is bad for business. I think of Sony and how innovative they were with the Betamax and successfully arguing that the VCR was not simply a device for crooks who wanted to steal revinue from large media companies. Sony in recent history relies on DRM models (digital rights management) to lock their products down to prevent them for being used in ways unanticipated by Sony. This is not good for content producers or for content consumers. And companies that produce products that embrace 13-year old programmers rather than treating them as criminals will have a bright future.