And I lose the ability to use 3G Interwebs, apparently? These posts on LifeHack all talk about tethering, so I presume a jailbroken iPhone can't get online on its own through AT&T?
EDIT: I wonder if the vaunted new iPhone that's due out in the summer according to the rumours will pack a little more processing power, because I'm really feeling the pinch when trying to do stuff even in just plain old Safari.
So you still have access to 3G and the App Store and everything?
Yeah, I'm sorta wondering about this too. I have Verizon now, and I'm not really keen on switching providers, but I would really like an iPhone, if unlocking is a reliable practice... and won't totally screw me.
That being said, I could always switch providers, I guess, but c'mon. I love Verizon.
So you still have access to 3G and the App Store and everything?
Yeah, I'm sorta wondering about this too. I have Verizon now, and I'm not really keen on switching providers, but I would really like an iPhone, if unlocking is a reliable practice... and won't totally screw me.
That being said, I could always switch providers, I guess, but c'mon. I love Verizon.
There's no way to get the iPhone working on Verizon, so you'd be switching anyway. Different network technologies.
I'm kinda worried now that the new iPhone supposedly coming out this summer will make my iPhone 3G look like crap, and make me feel even worse when I fork over god knows how much for a slightly newer iPhone.
Apple's just got your balls in a big ol' vise, don't they?
It's what they do. I've already got a buyer lined up for my jailbroken, T-mo hacked 2G if they do the unthinkable and drop OLED models on the market this summer.
There's no risk to jailbreaking at all. You may have difficulty directly upgrading from, say, a jailbroken 2.2.1 to the official 3.0, but you can always restore the phone (or iPod Touch for that matter) to the official, unjailbroken 2.2.1 and upgrade from there. The risky part is if you try to unlock the iPhone for use on another carrier (such as T-Mobile). That makes (significant?) changes to the software controlling the cell modem itself that probably would break things in an different iPhone software version.
Wait, Unlocking your iPhone for use on other carriers would be more likely to brick your iPhone then Jailbreaking it?
Isn't Cellphone unlocking lawful and required if requested under US law now?
victor_c26 on
It's been so long since I've posted here, I've removed my signature since most of what I had here were broken links. Shows over, you can carry on to the next post.
Then AT&T and Apple are violating the FCC's rules as AFAIK they don't offer an unlocked iPhone anywhere in the US. AT&T does offer an iPhone without a contract for like $600, though, but it is still locked to AT&T's network.
Wiki says that it's legal in the US to NOT unlock phones..
United States
In the United States, one of the two national GSM carriers, T-Mobile [22], will unlock your handset if you have an active account in good standing for at least 90 days. As well, T-Mobile will unlock a phone if you pay full retail price and show proof of purchase through a faxed document. The other, AT&T Wireless [23], will usually do so after a period of 90 days or once you have concluded your contract, but may also unlock the phone in some other situations as well. Neither carrier is compelled to unlock phones by any law or regulation, and they may choose not to unlock certain phones. For example, AT&T has stated that they will not unlock the iPhones under any circumstances, even after customers are out of contract.[source]
In a 2006 submission to the US Library of Congress' Copyright Office with respect to DMCA exemptions, Stanford law professor, Jennifer Granick, specifically stated that the FCC does not prohibit handset locking. [source]
Where's the iPhone sold in Europe? I believe any purchased in most of the European countries may be unlocked by request. (UK also is not required to unlock, and the iPhone and Storm have been specifically pointed out that they will never be unlocked by the carriers)
I found this (from the second source) to be the most interesting:
Even if reprogramming is viewed as making an adaptation of the copyrighted work, the
adaptation is non-infringing under section 117. Section 117 authorizes the owner of a
copy of a computer program to adapt it “as an essential step in the utilization of the
computer program in conjunction with a machine” if it is used for no other purpose.
Under 17 U.S.C. 117, a legitimate owner of a copy of a program has the “right of
adaptation,” which includes “the right to add features to the program that were not
present at the time of rightful acquisition.”4 In Aymes v. Bonelli5, the Second Circuit held
that the rightful possessor of a copy of a software program can make modifications to that
program to suit his own needs. In Aymes, the appellate court stated that “uyers should
be able to adapt a purchased program for use on the buyer’s computer because without
modifications, the program may work improperly, if at all. No buyer would pay for a
program without such a right.”6 “[The defendants], as rightful owners of a copy of the
plaintiff’s program, did not infringe upon the copyright, because the changes made to the
program were necessary measures in their continuing use of the software in operating
their business and the program was not marketed, manufactured, distributed, transferred,
or used for any purpose other than the defendant’s own internal business needs.”7 As with
the defendants in Pfortmiller and Aymes, the mobile handset owner simply wants to
Basically, unlocking or jailbreaking a phone is perfectly legal (it's stated a few times in the writeup) and cannot be legally prevented by the carriers because you have the right to "modify" licensed code to your own liking. You just have to find a way to do so.
The other interesting thing from this is that it also legally allows for new features, which essentially would legally protect Apple if it ever (hahahah!) decided to give away firmware upgrades to it's iPod touch users since the user would be "applying" the patch to add new features and modify the code they already licensed to use.
Apple doesn't need legal protection in the first place. There's nothing stopping them from releasing updates to the Touch; look at all the other companies that provide free hardware and software updates.
Apple doesn't need legal protection in the first place. There's nothing stopping them from releasing updates to the Touch; look at all the other companies that provide free hardware and software updates.
I know that there technically aren't any legal issues preventing them from doing so, but they always state some accounting legality that they are following when asked why they are charging for the upgrades for touch users. This is yet just another reason they could, and shows that they just want the money.
I am well overdue for a phone upgrade. I've had a Samsung A707 (aka Sync) for two years now, and I'm looking to move on to some sort of touchscreen phone. I just can't decide which one. Probably going to go for an iPhone, but the LG Incite and Samsung Eternity are both in this week's Best Buy ad for $50, and I was looking at those two as well. Anybody have any experience with them (or just want to convince me to buy/not buy an iPhone)?
Why is it that people think an iPhone revision is around the corner? At best all you'll see is an announcement. It would take some time for the new model to receive FCC approval so AT&T/Apple can, you know, sell it. I don't know how long that takes, but Apple initially announced the iPhone five months ahead of its release (I think the 3G announcement was similar, but I can't remember).
Why is it that people think an iPhone revision is around the corner? At best all you'll see is an announcement. It would take some time for the new model to receive FCC approval so AT&T/Apple can, you know, sell it. I don't know how long that takes, but Apple initially announced the iPhone five months ahead of its release (I think the 3G announcement was similar, but I can't remember).
um, do a search for the iphone 3g release. While they did announce the first iphone 6 months ahead of time, i can find articles speculating about the 3g three days before it was released
Fair enough. I'd forgotten how much time separated the 3G announcement and release. Still, you'd think they would have made any such announcement when the 3.0 software was demoed.
I think they want to continue to sell 3G iPhones for the next few months (especially since AT&T just opened up contract-less purchases of them).
Announce new hardware too soon and many people will probably decide to wait, and then may be swayed to purchase other phones that look good in the meantime.
I think they want to continue to sell 3G iPhones for the next few months (especially since AT&T just opened up contract-less purchases of them).
Announce new hardware too soon and many people will probably decide to wait, and then may be swayed to purchase other phones that look good in the meantime.
it really sucks for us people who know a refresh is probably coming, but want to get into a new plan and get an iphone now.
doesn't matter for att or apple, they win either way
I finally got around to upgrading my phone. I had an HTC 8525 running Windows Mobile and I really liked it. The Impression is a similar style of phone but it's not even in the same league. There's no wi-fi on it. Which for me was a problem but I was willing to overlook it. It has GPS but if you want to use it you gotta pay the 9.99 for AT&T navigator. I loaded Google Maps onto it and it's almost unusable. For starters it doesn't even use the phones GPS but rather the MyLocation Cell Tower triangulation, and then you can't use the touchscreen to navigate with. You have to use on screen arrow keys. If this wasn't enough every time you move the map around a screen pops-up to ask if you want to allow Google maps to use the data connection. Horrid all in all.
Next I tried the browser and in a lot of ways it was nice. The touch-screen makes browsing really smooth as long as you don't ever stop to read anything or wait for a page to load. For some reason there's no option to turn off the auto-dimmer on the touch screen while surfing. Consequently ever time I wait for a page to load my screen would go dark and then auto-lock itself forcing me to unlock the phone to keep surfing. Next I cruised over to Orb and tried to watch some of my TV shows, and that was a bust as well. The media player on this phone is pretty lame. Though even if it had worked the phone goes dark and locks itself anyways, making this feature unusable as well.
Lastly I tried connecting it to my computer and trying to load some MP3's. No ActiveSync on this phone so I had to use Samsung's software. It's not bad but it is strictly for loading/unloading media. No other options are available. The software is a bloated hog though. Takes almost 2 minutes to load on my machine and I'm not running a slow rig. The software also seemed to get confused after the first time I unplugged the phone. I could see the phone but it would tell me that it couldn't connect because something else was using it. I had to reboot my machine to get it to work again. Once I got some MP3's on there I wanted to change around some ringtones. Forget it. If it's not under 300k you can't use it as a ringer. I had to edit a song down to ~30sec, Mono, at 92k to get under the limit.
I will say that the interface is nice. It's pretty snappy and I can use it one handed fairly well. It's surprisingly thin considering it has a slide out full qwerty keyboard. The keyboard also works well. The Buttons are well spaced and slightly raised, as well as back lit. The 3mp camera is also pretty nice, and the dedicated camera button makes it easy to use.
Bottom line: This phone is good for light web browsing, text messaging, okay for media with a decent camera. The battery life is pretty good and the phone works fairly well also.
I'll be taking mine back to get a Fuze tonight though. Wish the Touch Pro 2 was out now. Or that At&t carried the Android.
Roland of Gilead on
0
Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
edited April 2009
Knowing my luck, no one will be looking at the thread that can answer this, but here goes:
Thinkgeek is running a sale for the next 30 minutes (it has actually been going for longer but I have been hemming and hawing) where all orders over $25 are shipped free. I have been looking at that cool BluAlert bracelet they have--basically, it vibrates when your phone rings so you can stick the phone in a pocket/bag somewhere and not have to worry about it. Anyone have any experience with it good/bad?
So, what's out there right now in terms of afforable smart phones?
I'm still under contract with Helio. Ugh. I'll spare that rant for another time. Suffice it to say that I'm sick to fucking death of this godawful Ocean. I'll be out of my contract soon, however, and aside from the Pre, nothing that isn't pushing $600+ seems even vaguely interesting. But then again, I'm not all that familiar with what's available.
And no, I have absolutely no interest at all in the iPhone or letting Apple's godawful iSoftware take a big, steaming iShit all over my PC.
I'd also like to avoid Sprint, which is why I'm not just sold on the Pre. The phone looks awesome, but if I were to name the five worst customer service experiences I've had in my entire life, they would all stem from Sprint. I'd prefer to not be stuck with them.
sero works with the cheapest of phones, right? is there something I need to be wary of, where sero wouldn't work with a phone and so they change it when i buy a new phone?
So I need this, but for Windows. So I can add all the song lyrics to my iPhone. Any ideas? EvilLyrics actually tags 'em, but I need to you know. Not play all 3000 songs.
sero works with the cheapest of phones, right? is there something I need to be wary of, where sero wouldn't work with a phone and so they change it when i buy a new phone?
Sero should work with most dumphones that don't have an advanced browser.
waiting on fedex to bring me my free samsung alias. thoughts?
Great dumbphone. Alias 2 details have come out so it's near end of life. Just make sure you at least get an extended warranty on that thing and you're set.
Posts
cons: bricking when it updates or something, which can be reversed easily, supposedly.
EDIT: I wonder if the vaunted new iPhone that's due out in the summer according to the rumours will pack a little more processing power, because I'm really feeling the pinch when trying to do stuff even in just plain old Safari.
So you still have access to 3G and the App Store and everything?
Yeah, I'm sorta wondering about this too. I have Verizon now, and I'm not really keen on switching providers, but I would really like an iPhone, if unlocking is a reliable practice... and won't totally screw me.
That being said, I could always switch providers, I guess, but c'mon. I love Verizon.
There's no way to get the iPhone working on Verizon, so you'd be switching anyway. Different network technologies.
It doesn't need an everything plan, so it ought to, though I'm not 100% sure.
It's what they do. I've already got a buyer lined up for my jailbroken, T-mo hacked 2G if they do the unthinkable and drop OLED models on the market this summer.
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
Isn't Cellphone unlocking lawful and required if requested under US law now?
Where's the iPhone sold in Europe? I believe any purchased in most of the European countries may be unlocked by request. (UK also is not required to unlock, and the iPhone and Storm have been specifically pointed out that they will never be unlocked by the carriers)
I found this (from the second source) to be the most interesting:
Basically, unlocking or jailbreaking a phone is perfectly legal (it's stated a few times in the writeup) and cannot be legally prevented by the carriers because you have the right to "modify" licensed code to your own liking. You just have to find a way to do so.
The other interesting thing from this is that it also legally allows for new features, which essentially would legally protect Apple if it ever (hahahah!) decided to give away firmware upgrades to it's iPod touch users since the user would be "applying" the patch to add new features and modify the code they already licensed to use.
I know that there technically aren't any legal issues preventing them from doing so, but they always state some accounting legality that they are following when asked why they are charging for the upgrades for touch users. This is yet just another reason they could, and shows that they just want the money.
Yeah, that's my only issue with the iPhone at the moment.
That has hardware buttons, or at least a hardware dpad
um, do a search for the iphone 3g release. While they did announce the first iphone 6 months ahead of time, i can find articles speculating about the 3g three days before it was released
okay, so i made that mistake of confusing june and july
still not that long of a wait
Announce new hardware too soon and many people will probably decide to wait, and then may be swayed to purchase other phones that look good in the meantime.
it really sucks for us people who know a refresh is probably coming, but want to get into a new plan and get an iphone now.
doesn't matter for att or apple, they win either way
I finally got around to upgrading my phone. I had an HTC 8525 running Windows Mobile and I really liked it. The Impression is a similar style of phone but it's not even in the same league. There's no wi-fi on it. Which for me was a problem but I was willing to overlook it. It has GPS but if you want to use it you gotta pay the 9.99 for AT&T navigator. I loaded Google Maps onto it and it's almost unusable. For starters it doesn't even use the phones GPS but rather the MyLocation Cell Tower triangulation, and then you can't use the touchscreen to navigate with. You have to use on screen arrow keys. If this wasn't enough every time you move the map around a screen pops-up to ask if you want to allow Google maps to use the data connection. Horrid all in all.
Next I tried the browser and in a lot of ways it was nice. The touch-screen makes browsing really smooth as long as you don't ever stop to read anything or wait for a page to load. For some reason there's no option to turn off the auto-dimmer on the touch screen while surfing. Consequently ever time I wait for a page to load my screen would go dark and then auto-lock itself forcing me to unlock the phone to keep surfing. Next I cruised over to Orb and tried to watch some of my TV shows, and that was a bust as well. The media player on this phone is pretty lame. Though even if it had worked the phone goes dark and locks itself anyways, making this feature unusable as well.
Lastly I tried connecting it to my computer and trying to load some MP3's. No ActiveSync on this phone so I had to use Samsung's software. It's not bad but it is strictly for loading/unloading media. No other options are available. The software is a bloated hog though. Takes almost 2 minutes to load on my machine and I'm not running a slow rig. The software also seemed to get confused after the first time I unplugged the phone. I could see the phone but it would tell me that it couldn't connect because something else was using it. I had to reboot my machine to get it to work again. Once I got some MP3's on there I wanted to change around some ringtones. Forget it. If it's not under 300k you can't use it as a ringer. I had to edit a song down to ~30sec, Mono, at 92k to get under the limit.
I will say that the interface is nice. It's pretty snappy and I can use it one handed fairly well. It's surprisingly thin considering it has a slide out full qwerty keyboard. The keyboard also works well. The Buttons are well spaced and slightly raised, as well as back lit. The 3mp camera is also pretty nice, and the dedicated camera button makes it easy to use.
Bottom line: This phone is good for light web browsing, text messaging, okay for media with a decent camera. The battery life is pretty good and the phone works fairly well also.
I'll be taking mine back to get a Fuze tonight though. Wish the Touch Pro 2 was out now. Or that At&t carried the Android.
Thinkgeek is running a sale for the next 30 minutes (it has actually been going for longer but I have been hemming and hawing) where all orders over $25 are shipped free. I have been looking at that cool BluAlert bracelet they have--basically, it vibrates when your phone rings so you can stick the phone in a pocket/bag somewhere and not have to worry about it. Anyone have any experience with it good/bad?
I'm still under contract with Helio. Ugh. I'll spare that rant for another time. Suffice it to say that I'm sick to fucking death of this godawful Ocean. I'll be out of my contract soon, however, and aside from the Pre, nothing that isn't pushing $600+ seems even vaguely interesting. But then again, I'm not all that familiar with what's available.
And no, I have absolutely no interest at all in the iPhone or letting Apple's godawful iSoftware take a big, steaming iShit all over my PC.
I'd also like to avoid Sprint, which is why I'm not just sold on the Pre. The phone looks awesome, but if I were to name the five worst customer service experiences I've had in my entire life, they would all stem from Sprint. I'd prefer to not be stuck with them.
So I need this, but for Windows. So I can add all the song lyrics to my iPhone. Any ideas? EvilLyrics actually tags 'em, but I need to you know. Not play all 3000 songs.
SniperGuyGaming on PSN / SniperGuy710 on Xbone Live
Love the OS, but I really dislike the hardware. Waiting to see if another Android phone makes an appearance.