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Monday, October 1, 2007
Apple. What’s up? Why in three months all we have seen added to the feature list of the iPhone is some way for you to make more money and that’s it? Where’s the copy-and-paste? Full Exchange server support? vCal notices for new appointments to meeting attendees? Landscape mode for e-mail? Ringtones in your Bluetooth ear set? (Man, you’ve charged $2 for it, why not let us live a little?) Speaking of Bluetooth, how ’bout full support of the protocol? You know, “Beam Contact to Other iPhone”.
No, oddly in the last three months, all Apple really has done is fix bugs, disable custom ringtones (twice), bricked unlocked phones, and given users the iTunes Store. That’s it. Forget all these wish lists floating around the Internet. Forget the fact cooperate users have asked for more business support. Nope, the honeymoon is over and now it’s time to make AT&T happy. That’s about it.
This attitude begs the question. Is version 1.1.1 worthy of an upgrade? Like Sony’s PSP updates that broke homebrew hacks two years ago, Apple’s latest update prevents third-party applications from functioning including SIM unlocking software. Is a double-tap space bar really that cool? I don’t think so and I’m betting not many others feel the same way as well. In fact, if you think about it, none of the updates have been worthy of “gotta have” updates. It’s really quite funny if you think of it.
Apple wants to get peoples iPhones back in its control, yet it hasn’t given any incentive to do so! For me, custom ringtones is way more valuable than being able to buy David Matthews at Starbucks. I can buy him on Amazon — cheaper — when I get home. 
(Read more.) Nothing in any of these updates out weighs the advantages I get from staying with 1.0.2 and using all the wonderful third-party applications out there. If Apple doesn’t want to listen to its customers, that’s okay, we don’t have to listen to it. There’s no need to have any particular version installed to sync at this point and thus no reason to upgrade to the Evil 1.1.1. Now of course, Apple can really dig a hole for itself and force users to upgrade in order to continue syncing, but that would also require an iTunes upgrade. No, for now, I’m happy, well, kind of, with 1.0.2.
I actually rely on my custom ringtone to audible identify if I need to pull my iPhone out of my holster or not to answer the call or let it go to voicemail. I highly doubt I’ll ever see any song from Donut Man or Boney M as an iTunes Store download. But because those two artists have songs that identify two particular people perfectly, I’ll stick with iToner and version 1.0.2 on my iPhone. But, give me vCal and true Exchange sync support and then I’ll gladly find something on the iTunes store for those two suckers of my contacts. But as history is showing, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that for a loooong time.
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:50
This is much ado about nothing by the elite of the elite.
One million plus iPhones users are not hacking their phones.
Quit swiftboating Apple. You should have read your contract before buying the thing.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:13
Yep it’s true, all of those things you want won’t come until leopard ships. I agree that 1.1.1 really doesn’t do that much to trade it for loosing the ability to put your own ringtones on your phone. I do think it was an attempt to break phones that were trying to use other gsm carriers rolled up with the itunes store. Like you said, I can wait till I get home to buy my music, I’m not that impatient and gotta have it now, kinda like people who need the latest iPhone firmware updates. Don’t fix it unless it’s broken. With Apple, any update has the potential to break something, just look at 10.4.X or the new iPhoto.
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:21
Oh come on; get real! You have to have special songs or music to identify your callers. Well, the iPhone comes prepackaged with several different ones. And the iTunes Store has a number of other ones. It’s the best deal around, in all the cellular world for companies that sell ringtones. You’ve got all the options you need already. Apple has provided them.
As for these whiney and loudly-crying crybaby hackers, well, they need to “get real and get a life” for a change. The overwhelming and vast majority of iPhone users have no problems with the iPhone as it’s the best phone they’ve ever had, bar none, and they have no worries about bricking their phones, because they don’t go “mucking around” in them, and they have their full warranties intact.
The only place where these hackers get to whine up their alligator tears is on these geek-sites, as the mainline media doesn’t even want to bother with listening to a bunch of whiney crybabies and call that “news” in today’s papers or on television…
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:05
Hackers who STUPIDLY upgraded using Apple’s latest update after hacking their iPhone with their own update of the firmware DESERVE the brick they now have.
If you do your own upgrade of the iPhone firmware using a hacker software maker’s firmware update, you should NEVER EVER AGAIN use Apple’s software and firmware upgrades. You should realize you have taken complete responsibility of any further updates to YOUR iPhone by hacking it with your own updates.
If you are a hacker and are unhappy, SUE the hacker software makers for being so negligent as to make a firmware upgrade which is incompatible with future Apple updates – if that is what the hacker software maker guaranteed.
Of course, they don’t guarantee such a thing – foolish ones with the iPhone bricks. After all, the hacker software makers realize what they are fully doing – guaranteeing that the iPhone will never be compatible with future Apple updates. Duh!
So stop your whining. Buy another unhacked iPhone and enjoy your iPhone for what it is – a fantastic phone – not an open system you can hack at any time.
October 2nd, 2007 at 16:18
Well put! Homebrew, iToner and SIM freedom trumps the features of this update easily.
October 2nd, 2007 at 17:14
I’m no longer interested in either the iPhone or the iPod touch now that I know that all 3rd party apps will be blown away off the screen with every major Apple update. If OS X worked like that, I wouldn’t be interested in the Mac, either.
Plain and simple. And I don’t give a crap what the warranty agreement says. Why should I agree to that agreement? No thank you, goodbye. Apple, get back to me when you’ve decided to take your own technology seriously instead of trying to slap permanent training wheels on it and hope we will all cycle along.
The day I consider shelling out for a device with the power of an iPod touch or an iPhone, is the day that those who use that power to develop independently, do not have their creations directly interfered with and blocked by the maker of the device itself. This to me is like designing a car and then trying to block the purchaser of that car from driving onto certain streets.
Apple: you know where you can shove that philosophy. Maintaining a service contract lock is one thing. Playing ‘it’s all mine mine mine’ with potential 3rd-party developers is quite another.
And Steve Jobs: you ain’t so smart as people have been saying. That much is *very* clear.