Jobs: "It's our job to stop them breaking in"

I agree with shutting out or breaking the software hacks. Like Iamkida says most people know what they are letting themselfs in for when they by the IPhone/IPod. If you want more features, buy yourself a Nokia or Sony Ericcson. When people use these hacks and their IPhone/IPod starts to go wrong who are they complaining to?, Apple for a free repair or exchange.

it doesn't make sense why they feel the need to constantly patch the hacks... its really not their job (like jobs claims). their job is provide a sensational product and OS, which they did... no need to constantly lock out developers only trying to make your product even better... seems kind of backwards to me.

Dammit Apple, stop trying to make money!

It makes absolutely no sense. Let's pretend Apple was 100% successful in locking down the iPhone the way they want to. In that case, X people would buy iPhones. Now hackers are able to unlock it and add additional functionality to the iPhone. X+Y people buy the iPhone. They make more money because someone else added more functionality to their product.

If I were Apple, I would take the Facebook approach with the iPhone. Make the hardware, and make the barest bones set of default OS and applications. Then let people do whatever they want with it. X people will buy it no matter what. They can maximize sales by not fighting back, or even helping. In effect, Apple is paying programmers to change their product in such a way that makes it worse and lowers its sales.

Wtf are they thinking?

Why would apple need to partner with anyone in the future? Think about it the unlocks have proven the phones can be used with any service, and since apple is making their money off the sells of the phones from what we know, why not sell them unlocked to begin with and let the phone companies sort it out.

The DMCA was ammended last year to allow for "hacking" of cell phones as long as the hacking was not intended to gain access to a cell companies network. i.e. you can not hack an iPhone to make free calls on at&t's network but you can hack it to make it work on T-Mobile. Apple is in the wrong on this one!!!

To those "sick of hearing people whine about not being able to use unlocked hardware" the issue isn't about apple supporting the hacked devices, it's about them actively causing them to not work anymore. It is technically illegal to not allow a cellular device to work with any carrier that the technology allows. They aren't obligated to unlock it for the consumer, but they are not allowed to stop the consumer from doing it either. If apple either relocks the phone, or worse, bricks it, they are causing more problems than they are solving. It is about $$. They don't care about people who love their devices being able to use them, they want the cut from AT&T plans.

It isn't about whether or not Apple will or won't support it, it's about Apple being the only company in the cellular field that would actively stop the unlocked devices from working. EVERY other cell phone is able to be unlocked and used, and the manufacturers and carriers don't get in the way of that. It voids the warranty on most, if not all, devices, but it doesn't cause the device to stop working.

My biggest problem with this is that Apple used to care a lot about the community and their users, but the AT&T deal seems to be killing that. Whether it's the AT&T deal, or some other inside goings on at Apple, they are going away from their users interests and after the interests of stockholders and the company's bottom line. Which, will be fine, most users will continue to buy it because they just want the status symbol of owning Apple, but there are a lot of core users that will search elsewhere just because they want to be able to improve the experience and add to the community by developing and customizing the products, those are very important customers, as they will likely have the loudest voice. Their friends and family typically listen to their opinions on technology, and their word of mouth is Apple's best advertising. Actively going after them is bad business.

@50: What the hell are you talking about? Palm crashes and burns with NO APPLICATIONS ADDED TO A SYSTEM. Their smartphone platform has never worked right out of the box, period. Instability has very little to do with 3rd-party apps, at least in their case.

Also, restoring has never been simple or easy with Palm. Apple has a superior operating system, superior interface, superior communications between computer and phone, and superior product engineering in general compared to Palm.

I have upwards of 30 applications installed on my iPhone. Do you know how many times it has crashed? Precisely ONCE.

The iPhone already has a reputation for being stable, useful and well-designed. Third-party apps cannot hurt that now; anyone who returned a phone because of what happened after they put third-party applications on it is an idiot.

Why is there a (tm) notation next to iPod touchâ„¢ but not any of the other trademarks?

how did this non-post of non-news from early this morning get floated back to the top of the blog at 1:30 PM? maybe THAT should be the story: floating one's personal agenda instead of reporting...