‘Jailbreaking’ Apple devices is becoming a hot underground industry

[unhappycamper]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/jailbreaking-apple-devices-is-becoming-a-hot-underground-industry/2013/12/31/0dc3aade-723a-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html



A man uses his phone as he walks past an Apple store in Hong Kong on Christmas Day.

‘Jailbreaking’ Apple devices is becoming a hot underground industry
By Craig Timberg, Published: December 31 E-mail the writer

Each year, Apple releases a new version of the software running its iconic mobile devices, the iPhone and iPad. And each year, a small but dogged community of hackers sets out to break it — or, in the words of the hackers, “jailbreak” it.

The liberation imagery long seemed apt. Apple puts strict limits on how its devices can be used, requiring, for example, that all apps be bought through the company’s lucrative iTunes store. By comparison, the hackers styled themselves as plucky hobbyists seeking freedom from what they derided as Apple’s “walled garden” and into a promised land of virtually limitless new software.

That image has taken a beating in recent days as prominent hackers have battled allegations that they’ve been working not for ideals but for money. The supposed payoffs would have come from Chinese investors eager to cash in on the spread of Apple products in that country.

Although there’s no evidence money changed hands, the controversy has highlighted how Apple’s restrictions on its mobile devices have fueled the creation of alternative marketplaces, where the thrill of trying to outsmart one of the world’s richest companies mixes with at least the possibility of fat profits for those who succeed.

[madrchsod]

1. there`s a market here in the usa

i have a brand new lg sitting on my self because i can`t sell it or give it away because it`s locked to one cell carrier.

we changed carriers and the lg was locked to the previous carrier. they gave my wife a 150 dollar credit to her new phone
so she did`t pay anything for the new one. the new moto is a really nice phone and it`s assembled in the usa.

[unhappycamper]

2. I am a cell phone Luddite.

Listening to horror stories like yours as well as a freebie land line from Verizon (retired after 21 years) has turned me off cell phones. Add in the (known) NSA shenanigans and I think I'll wait.

But like the dumb shit I am, I bought a Prius a few years ago with a navigation system.