iPhone 3.1 Update Disables Tethering 684
jole writes "The newest iPhone 3.1 update intentionally removed tethering functionality from all phones operating in networks that are not Apple partners. This is not limited to hacked or jailbroken phones, but also includes expensive 'officially supported' factory-unlocked phones. To make the problem worse, Apple has made it impossible to downgrade back to a working 3.0 version for iPhone 3GS phones."
I think that (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a fan of the Green Bay Packers, after watching what happened with Brett Favre, I can tell you with almost complete certainty that Apple customers do not love abuse or complaining. In their blind adoration of Favre, err, Apple, they believe that Apple can do no wrong and any notion to the contrary is heretical. Their basic argument often follows this line of thought: "If it wasn't for everyone else trying to undermine what Apple is trying to do, they wouldn't need to take all of these measures. Apple only
Re:I think that (Score:5, Funny)
=)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I think that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think that (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
ACtually I only use my iphone because it is the best smart phone on the market. I tried all the others, Windows GUI isn't designed for small screens, so there goes every windows mobile device. and competitors like android and the pre only came out after Apple showed the world that to sell a smart phone to a non business person they needed to make it easier to use. I do have a small number of issues, but tethering isn't one of them. AT&T after all wants to charge you another $30 a month to allow it a
Re:I think that (Score:5, Insightful)
You may have forgotten, in your rush to insult, that by and large people don't care about things that have no effect on them. The majority of Apple customers aren't hurt by this and therefore have no reason to care. Your argument works for that small percentage of people who scream about software freedom, and of course that opinion gets modded up here so you feel like it's common - but in the real world, it doesn't make that much of a difference.
Re:I think that (Score:4, Insightful)
I know quite a few people with iPhones (and other Apple gear), and are quite happy with it, but not in your "look at how cool i am" way. It's the rest of the world that likes to apply that stereotype to them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Meanwhile, my "dozens of tiny little buttons" allow me to use my phone much more productively. And they don't get crap stuck beneath them, either.
Oh, and WinMo hasn't had a desktop UI since long before it was actually called WinMo.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I try not to show the iphone in public places, preferring to keep it in an inside pocket and use a bluetooth. No reason to tempt the snatch and run hoodies around here.
But the parent post is far too dismissive of the rampant fanboy-ism among apple users. Inspite of a dated interface, lock-down restrictions, and abusive corporate policy, they continue in their cliquish behavior in social settings, pretty much dissing any other phone that is not from Apple, while gushing over the latest fart app.
I
Re:I think that (Score:5, Informative)
"I believe that the typical iphone customer is a "look at me, I have a cool iphone" idiot."
I'm a typical iPhone user and I would like to give you another perspective. Let me take you back in time to the pre-iPhone days. I was a Verizon customer and I was constantly pissed off because every single phone I had with them would not allow me to sync ANYTHING with my Apple computer. I couldn't sync my contact, my music, my ringtones, nothing. I constantly saw all these neat little tools that allowed Windows users do this, but I was left out in the cold. I don't know if you ever had re-enter all your contacts in your phone manually, but I had to do this about 3 times and it sucked.
When the iPhone came out, I willing dumped Verizon and switched to AT&T. Not because their service is better, but because the iPhone actually allowed me to use the phone like I wanted to. Is Apple perfect? No. I think a lot of what they do is great, but things like this (disabling tethering) sucks. I'm not sure if it's completely Apple's fault. My guess is that they receive pressure from the carriers to do certain things. That's just a guess. But either way, my experience using a "phone" is about 1000% times better than what it was prior to the iPhone. Not sure if that makes me "cool" or not.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
[snip grammar nazi]...while calling someone idiot on the internet.
Ah, the tradition never fails.
Re: (Score:3)
Grammar fail. This use is not possessive at all, it's simply the plural form of Jones: Joneses.
Re:I think that (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
!Surprised (Score:4, Funny)
No one is surprised enough to comment.
Buy a Pre (Score:3, Insightful)
Palm Pre (and Pixi) has a Homebrew community with a FREE tether program.
WebOS phones are Open Source OS phones, so the Tether capability can't be disabled as it's based on Open functionality, not a closed API.
in the US, a Sprint Simply Everything plan (includes Unlimited data use) is around $1000.00 cheaper a year to have.
So, you can have an Open Source phone with a real Homebrew community, a cheaper unlimited plan and have your Tethering program UNBLOCKABLE. Sounds like the Pre is a better deal all around.
Unless you are an isnob, of course.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Funny)
No, I capitalized "Unlimited" because I have capsitis and tend to overuse the shift key. I was in a hurry to post and didn't spell/caps-check my post properly.
Sorry about that.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the equivalent iPhone plan truly unlimited? Or are you just going off on a tangent here?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You see there's this stuff called the fine print, and it explains that "unlimited" means unlimited time, as opposed to how the ISPs used to work - which was to bill $5 per hour of use and/or limit customers to XX hours per month (like Netzero does). A lot of customers make the false assumption it means unlimited gigabytes, and I suspect marketers LIKE that misinterpretation, but that isn't what your contract states - at least that's not what my Verizon contract states.
Back to article -
Anything amusing, cle
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You see there's this stuff called the fine print, and it explains that "unlimited" means unlimited time, as opposed to how the ISPs used to work - which was to bill $5 per hour of use and/or limit customers to XX hours per month (like Netzero does). A lot of customers make the false assumption it means unlimited gigabytes, and I suspect marketers LIKE that misinterpretation, but that isn't what your contract states - at least that's not what my Verizon contract states.
"Unlimited" means "unlimited". It indicates that there are no limits on what you can download or upload.
Re: (Score:2)
Hi,
how can it be a 1000$ cheaper? The Iphone's ATT plan is about 1000$ a year I believe (I don't have one so I never saw the bill...).
Could you elaborate?
Thanks
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They changed their plan, the basic(Smartphone Basic that is) $70/month plan includes unlimited mobile-mobile now.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:4, Funny)
Good point. So it's even cheaper now.
Also, I should correct my original post. Another poster stated that the claim is over the life of the contract (2 years) not one year. This is correct, I apologize for any confusion. it's around $500 - $600 US a year difference, which is $1000 - $1200 US per contract term.
But that's still a significant savings, and given the choice, I'd pick a cheaper, more compact, True Open Source phone over the iShackle any day.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'd rather not, thanks, I prefer to think of myself as someone with a life.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:4, Funny)
The fact that you're on slashdot is contradictory to your post.
Besides, it takes 10 seconds of middle school level math to do.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
An expensive one too if you can't be bothered to ever calculate the costs of anything. ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, my original statement is IN ERROR, which I pointed out in a later comment: http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1367713&cid=29413387 [slashdot.org]
It was only a few posts down from my original comment, would it have been THAT much trouble to read down a bit?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Palms $70/month plan includes unlimited data/texting/mobile-mobile(Any network) calls and 450minutes for landlines/business lines.
To get an equivalent plan on the iphone would cost near $120/month, the difference being $50/month or $600/year.
The employee referral plan, which the VP of Sprint has suggested anyone interested use (he even gave his email publicly for the referral form) is $60/month and includes a few features the $70/mo plan doesn't, I believe. Somehow the taxes are a lot lower than on my previous plans, too. I pay $63/month after taxes and fees.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sprint lowered the cost of their everything plan to $70/month. Big difference there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's worth noting that in Europe we don't count incoming SMS messages, only outgoing messages are paid for/deducted from our message allowance.
-- Pete.
PLan comparison: tmobile may be even better (Score:3, Interesting)
I use my iphone with T-mobile. for 1000 minutes it's $39. that's not unlimited, but I don't use that many minutes so for me it is. My data plan is $6.25 a week. I say week and not month because T-mobile lets you switch the data plan on and off at will without any impact on your plan (no new 2-year agreement). SO I only switch it on when I travel a few times a year. The rest of the time I just use WiFi for the internet. In my home town I really don't need to have google so bad that I can't just wal
Re: (Score:2)
Or unless the Sprint coverage sucks in your area.
I live in a major metropolitan area, and unfortunately AT&T has the best coverage, by far.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Informative)
The Nokia E90 Communicator looks like an even better phone but we're not going to see it in the USA, presumably because it has similar features. Other than the shiny Apple interface and the difficulty with making it work with a US provider, the E70 was a superior phone to the iPhone for my particular needs. If I could be guaranteed that the E90 would work with a US provider and would not have its features intentionally brain damaged by the telcos, I would drop my iPhone in a heartbeat for one.
The technology has been there for years, it's the telcos screwing things up.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Rubbish. I don't know what you're doing wrong, but I use an AT&T-branded Blackberry 8310 with my T-mobile account. T-mobile doesn't have a 8310, so I can assure you that T-mobile not only allows "unsigned clients" (whatever the fuck that means; unlocked? different vendor-id?), but their telephone support helped me do it.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been doing that for a long time now on Windows Mobile using home brew ROMs.
90% of the road warriors out there are not using and don't want to use home brew for their business needs.
I really hate hearing about all these awesome innovations by Palm, Apple, & Windows Mobile using home brew ROMs that I've been using for years on my Blackberry, but nobody cares because it's Research In Motion (RIM)!
Tethering un-modded for years!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is the internet. You can think before you start typing. No need to type "Um", which usually means "I'm about to say something". If you're using text to speech, you can edit out those extra filler words to make your post more clear.
Unless you used it in the "I can't believe all of you are so completely stupid" sense. In that case, you're right, nobody cares.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows Mobile isn't Open Source.
If Ms cared, they could shut out tethering any time they wanted. Thankfully for you, they apparently don't care.
You know what, I don't care if it's open source or not, because it does the job I want it to do. Plus, MS couldn't turn it off without disabling all network access for all apps. The tethering is an app just like a browser, a mail client or any of a thousand other OPEN SOURCE pieces of software written for Windows Mobile. Simply because they aren't all available in a handy little App Store doesn't mean they don't exist. You just actually have to do a Google search or two to find them.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Funny)
So you had to spend 6 months disabling copy&paste, tethering, MMS, multitasking, A2DP and other features so that your Windows Mobile phone behaves more like an iPhone?
Now that's crazy stuff.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Interesting)
The major difference is due to the fact that it's an M$ product it's APIs aren't open
Is that so? [microsoft.com]
they're buggy and overall the devices run slower and are less customizable.
Care to share an example? Sounds like you have plenty... or are you just recycling wrong, out-of-date groupthink?
Not the GP, but I have two (both on Sprint)
A) Moto Q9c. I thought this was the worst POS phone I ever put my hands on, with slow speeds, lockups, and misfeatures, so I stupidly reupped and got
B) Palm Pro (Treo 850e). I was wrong. This makes the Q9c look like a miracle of modern fucking engineering. All the problems of the Q9c, and more, including the fact that some genius decided a phone doesn't need a fucking power button, so you have to open the batter compartment and hard reset whenever WinMo decides to shit itself, which it does... often... at the worst possible times...
Baseband locking (Score:5, Interesting)
I was under the impression, perhaps wrongly, that apple was locking their phones basebands. That is the locking is occuring in the cell-phone part of the phone which has it's very own firmware and DSP not the main "operating system" CPU part of the phone. So this tethering denial may be just a side effect of the well known baseband locking that occurs when they lock the cell phone to a carrier class. The iphone Dev team has never cracked the Cell phone firmware.
I think it might be "pre"-mature to say the pre is completely open source. The CPU part of the phone might be, but does that assure that they won't permenantly lock the carrier class? I could imagine that some service providers might want Palm to do just that in return for subsidizing the phone.
We shall see. Right now there's not enough Pre phones out there for the main market let alone a gray market of re-banded phones to be siginficant. Apple did not start locking the phones this way till the 3G. the 2G phones supposedly, it is said, can't be locked that way. But I honestly don't know enough to argue the matter, I'm just repeating what i've gleaned on the iphone-dev team blogs.
Re:Baseband locking (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah... Except those Pre commercials are creepy as hell.
That's iSnob (Score:5, Funny)
Unless you are an isnob, of course.
According to the iMarketing department, all iWords must be written with the second letter in iCaps.
Re:Buy a Pre (Score:5, Interesting)
Seeking promotion so you can afford a 1200$ yearly phone bill is kind of crazy.
Also, i read your sig link "VICTIMS OF GOVERNMENT - Asthma Patients Left Gasping for Air - consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/09/asthma_hfa05.html"
I think that article should be renamed to "VICTIMS OF CORPORATE GREED". From the article, the government ban on CFCs is driven by citizens to preseve the environment. The even bigger problem is her insurance company turning her down on something she worked so hard to prepare for. Now she can't do anything, jump ship to another insurance company? Hope they accept pre-existing conditions (not likely).
Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck AT&T. I don't tether currently. I didn't cringe when I got charged $26 per line for "activation". I didn't cringe at signing a 2-year contract to get a phone for $300. I didn't even cringe at an "unlimited" data plan that limits downloads to 10MB files (which, coincidentally, is smaller than most of the apps on the "approved" app store).
Why is Apple sticking with these people. The overall user experience of an "approved" iPhone is significantly worse because of AT&T's behavior as greedy little fucktards.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck AT&T. I don't tether currently. I didn't cringe when I got charged $26 per line for "activation". I didn't cringe at signing a 2-year contract to get a phone for $300. I didn't even cringe at an "unlimited" data plan that limits downloads to 10MB files (which, coincidentally, is smaller than most of the apps on the "approved" app store).
Why is Apple sticking with these people. The overall user experience of an "approved" iPhone is significantly worse because of AT&T's behavior as greedy little fucktards.
If you read the article you'll see that it's not just AT&T that Apple did it for. It's across all providers even if they have a legally unlocked phone and approved tethering in their contracts. I can only hope Apple gets a ton of bad press and negative feedback on this one and puts tethering back.
Especially since they are now effectively committing fraud: http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/tethering.html [apple.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.iphonewzealand.co.nz/2009/telecom/warning-for-xt-users-iphone-os-3-1-disables-tethering/ explains why your tethering stops working
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not all providers. Tethering still works fine in 3.1 on providers that support it, such as Fido/Rogers in Canada.
For example, my iPhone from Fido running 3.1 still has tethering support, just like it always has.
Tethering has only been disabled in 3.1 for providers that don't officially support the iPhone. That sucks, certainly, but let's not engage in hyperbole. If you buy a phone not supported by your carrier, you run the risk of this sort of thing. That's true with any phone, not just the iPhone.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"If you buy a phone not supported by your carrier..." What the heck? There is a reason why we have standards such as GSM and WCDMA. It SHOULD not matter what kind of a phone you have.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Insightful)
a phone not supported by your carrier
Listen to yourself. Your carrier is not supposed to support a phone, it is supposed to support a _standard_, whether it is CDMA, iMode or GSM like the rest of the world uses, This makes it possible to bring your phone overseas with you too, you know, and do things like buy a phone without the uncertainty of wondering if it will work where you live. The thing is, you've been in slavery so long that your level of expectation is so much lower than that of everyone else. Yes, you, American.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Tethering has only been disabled in 3.1 for providers that don't officially support the iPhone. That sucks, certainly, but let's not engage in hyperbole. If you buy a phone not supported by your carrier, you run the risk of this sort of thing. That's true with any phone, not just the iPhone.
That is completely not true. If I buy an unlocked phone I have the expectation that every feature supported by the phone will work unless the operator doesn't specifically have that feature (like an MMS server).
Tethering is totally different in that regard. The network can't tell if the bits come from the phone or a device using the phone as a modem. So it is completely artificial to limit tethering and Apple had no right to disable it for all non-partner networks. Whether I can use tethering is between me and the mobile operator. Apple has nothing to do with it and this.
This sort of action is so completely in line with Apple current practices though and I hope their asses get nailed to the wall because of it. It might teach them a lesson.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And that's precisely why you got such a crappy deal, which just got even worse.
Complain. Threaten to quit. If not listened to, quit, and explain why you did. And don
Please boycott Apple! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
So in summary, you are stoked on your iPhone despite the fact that Apple cashes in on your enthusiasm for their product by forcing you to subscribe to a money grubbing carrier with an inferior network that dictates reduced functionality (or at least locks out perfectly legitimate, achievable functionality). And despite heaping so much scorn on AT&T, you are not convinced that the situation would be any different on any other carrier because of Apple's desire to work with an exclusive carrier (which all
Purchased Feature (Score:5, Interesting)
FCC may be interested (Score:5, Insightful)
So the FCC has started looking into unfair business practices of cell providers. This could be a smoking gun. A 100% legal unbundled phone that will only support tethering on a single providers network, that previously did support tethering.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Tethering was never supported in the US. So the FCC would have no interest in this particular case.
This is why (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is why (Score:4, Informative)
XDA Developers [xda-developers.com] is somewhere you want to look before considering purchasing any smartphone, especially one you want to toy around with.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
it may also be easy to rob a bank but that doesn't make it legal.
Apple embraces Evil(tm) (Score:5, Funny)
After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with anything Apple or AT&T might vaguely think about in the far future and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) [today.com] as a corporate policy.
"Fuck it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it's pretty and it's cool and it works. It's not like you'll go back to Windows Mobile. Ha! Ha!"
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! Asshole."
"Of course, we're still not evil," said Sergey Brin of Google. "You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. I mean, 'Bing.' Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."
I remember... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not an issue of AT&T, Apple, or "Fanboys" (Score:5, Funny)
... but of entertainment for the rest of us. Seriously, this is hilarious. It's like being back in high school again and watching the heartrending saga of Jill and her cavalcade of BFFs finally have a tragic argument destined to elicit tears at every juncture. For the participants, tears of frustration and despair, and for the viewing public, tears of laughter.
I mean, really.
Apple: "Our new phone is awesome!"
Fans: "Yes, it is! Wait... where's cut and paste, and media messaging?"
AT&T: LOLwhat?
Then...
Apple: "We now have cut and paste... kinda! And the phone is faster!"
Fans: "Yay! Wait... I want a refund on the difference!"
AT&T: "I'm sitting this one out!"
And now...
Apple: "We now have tethering, and media messaging!"
AT&T: "No we don't! In fact, you're killing our network by using the extra capacity you paid for!"
Fans: "I'll cut you!"
I just... don't even know what to say. Kudos, to all participants. You've provided more drama than money could buy, and for that, I thank you!
*sigh* ... (Score:2, Offtopic)
Apple. It just...works? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except when they don't want it to.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re-possession of already purchased functionality (Score:4, Informative)
Ha ha, just kidding. Welcome to America.
It's worse. (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the 3.1 update also removes any ability of an unlock because they upgrade the baseband as well. I use the term upgrade loosely because they removed most of the minicom commands the baseband will accept to limit their exposure to exploits.
That being said I'm happy with my iPhone because I'm in the small minority of people who jailbreak their phones and don't hit update until a dev team member has a solution for me to upgrade without losing the functionality I've come to enjoy.
Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:4, Informative)
A hack that has been disabled at AT&T's request, just like it would be on any other phone that has updates. Apple didn't "remove a feature" - the iPhone can still tether just fine - as long as your carrier supports it.
Does it suck? Hell yes. Is it unexpected? Hell no.
This was in all of the betas, and known about two months ago. If you were "in the know" enough to install a hacked carrier profile on your device, then you should have been following closely enough to know not to install the update. (Oh, and the Pre and it's "free" homebrew community? What about those mandatory updates that install themselves after ten days? And the data collection Palm does? Apple doesn't even do either of those.)
Throw this down at AT&T's feet, not Apple's. Apple certainly has no interest in you tethering or not. If anything, it makes their device more valuable, so they have an interest in allowing it. But clearly AT&T would rather rape you at an unspecified future date for an unspecified amount of money. All the more reason for Apple to leave AT&T as soon as possible.
Re:Tethering on AT&T was a hack (Score:5, Informative)
A hack that has been disabled at AT&T's request, just like it would be on any other phone that has updates. Apple didn't "remove a feature" - the iPhone can still tether just fine - as long as your carrier supports it.
This doesn't appear to be true. Based on what I've read, tethering is only possible now if your carrier supports it *and* Apple supports your carrier. For instance, Orange here in the UK support tethering on most plans. But Orange isn't a supported carrier for iPhone (as Apple have an exclusive deal with O2), so even if a buy an unlocked iPhone from Apple, I wouldn't be able to use it for tethering on Orange.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As the owner of a carrier-neutral iPhone (I actually paid the full amount in Belgium for a phone without strings attached), I use a "hacked" profile. It's actually perfectly legal for me to do so, as I pay my carrier for "full" data bundle, including tethering support. In this specific case, tethering is still enabled after the 3.1 update. So either Apple makes an exception for simlock-free phones, or my profile slipped through the checks. Any ideas?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In the US no network (to my knowledge) allows 'free' tethering from devices, that costs extra. So your 'as long as your carries supports it' still sort of works, but if T-Mobile decided to start sup
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A hack that has been disabled at AT&T's request, just like it would be on any other phone that has updates. Apple didn't "remove a feature" - the iPhone can still tether just fine - as long as your carrier supports it.
No, it disables tethering on all ISPs worldwide except those blessed by Apple, including those that have no problem with it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Throw this down at AT&T's feet, not Apple's.
Nope, I'd definitely lay it at Apples feet.
Compare Apple to Nokia. Both allow the phones they sell to be locked down. Both do it in a similar way - the carrier loads a file into the phone. It's called the mobileconfig by Apple, I gather. The difference? If you buy a Nokia outright, nothing is locked down. That makes sense - it is your phone after all. The only way a carrier can lock a Nokia down is to sell it to you locked - presumably at a discount for the privilege.
In typical Apple fashion however,
MAC WORLD story time again! (Score:5, Funny)
I've always been a PC at heart.
Not like the rest, the others. Everyone around me. I was at odds with my society and knew it early since birth. Unlike them, I did not "Think Different!"--the mantra of the Macs around me, the phrase on all the billboards in the city that served as a reminder to its citizenry. Sameness pervaded the essence of my being and no amount of self-conditioning I did could change that. Eventually, I gave up and isolated myself emotionally from society.
I gaze at the faces going by, the white earphones contrasting their black turtlenecks, connecting their ears to their pockets, their blank faces engrossed in hip Indie rock music and various garage bands. I envied them for their perfection against my flaws and my compulsive nature to expand, to burden my life with troubles instead of remaining, like them, simple and easy to deal with. The grandest of virtues, simplicity... the philosophy by our loyal benefactor Steve Jobs, who descended from the heavens, creating the Earth, the iron, the wind and the rain. Steve Jobs, who defined the parameters of existence, the one who set about the patterns of reality, the constants, the variables. He who made gravity, electromagnetic energy, and shaped atomic structures and brought forth motion. From these things, he crafted the elements, processed them, refined them, and from these things engineered Apple products through the purity of his mind. Each Apple product was individually crafted by his own hands with the programming code used to run each device having being compiled in his brain and uploaded to each device telepathically, breathing life and perfection into each and every unit.
Except, it seems, for me, for I was not among the many. I was a PC. They were Macs. I've always been a cold, stiff person. I got by, disguising myself by keeping my non-Ipod music player safely out of sight, which I use because of my depraved nature demanding more functionality than the simple and easy-to-use Ipods have to offer.. In the safety of my own home, behind locked doors, I ran a Forbidden, a contraband computer from more depraved, earlier days that was not given the love and blessing of being birthed by Steve Jobs. I dual booted, out of the great sin of curiosity-- curiosity, a shameful value of a PC, as curiosity has no place where simplicity matters most--using two of the great unutterable blasphemies-- something called "Windows Vista" and something else called "Linux." Although, as I mentioned before, although my tendency to be a PC and towards conformity has always been inherent to me, I was truly transformed when I found these old things in a hidden cache of computer parts predating The Purging. Perhaps the greatest sin of all, the single evil that, if discovered, would damn me forever, was the fact that my mouse had more than one button.
As I walk among the Macs on the streets, passing the Starbuckses as I went along, I wondered how it all came to this. I glanced at The Holy Marks on the foreheads as the people wandered down the streets, the Bitten Apple tattooed on all our of us at birth, and wondered if, perhaps, there could be something more to life. But again, this was a PC's thought, and not, like everyone elses', a Mac's. We were to hold ourselves to the philosophy of Steve Jobs--so as his products were designed for idiots, so too were we to be idiots. But I was not a Mac--I was not an idiot. I was simply too complicated to be a worthwhile person.
Nature called. I found a nearby public iPoo--squeaky clean and sparkly white, things weren't all bad--and let myself go, expelling the waste that had accumulated inside me. After relieving myself and committing the overly-complicated and thus illegal act of wiping my ass (I did not flush as iPoos, designed to be idiot-proof, did not flush) I left and once again wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping to find some meaning in a world where I simply did not belong, a world where if my true nature was discovered, I would be endlessly persecuted by smug, self-righteous sons of bitches.
Uh. y'all sure its been disabled? (Score:5, Interesting)
Weird. Tethering is on my 3.1 phone. Not sure whats happening to you folks.
General menu -> Netowork ->Tethering -> On.
About says:
Network: YES OPTUS (australian carrier)
Line: Virgin Mobile
Version: 3.1 (7C144)
I'm on the developer program so maybe developers get extra goodies?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yep, it's gone. I'm in the US, where AT&T is still dragging their feet on tethering and MMS. I didn't jailbreak my iPhone, but I did download the Network configuration file that unlocked Apple's built-in tethering capability. After reading this story, I went and checked it in the Settings; still there. I switched it on. Nothing happened. I go back into Settings, and now the tethering option is gone. They spiked it.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no freedom on smartphones (Score:5, Insightful)
So yeah - NONE of these phones are remotely free out of the box. All of them can be hacked to do what you want with them. Pick your poison.
Re:There is no freedom on smartphones (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference with Android, versus the other two options, is that the hardware manufacturer and the OS implementer are decoupled.
Android supports root just fine. However, device manufacturers offer no official means to get to root and no official means to flash root-enabled system images. This is no different than Linux supporting root but TiVo not exactly enabling it on their DVRs.
What Android needs is some manufacturer to step up and offer root-capable devices, with limited muss or fuss.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't about pleasing Slashdot or nerds with strange entitlement issues it's about selling a device for profi
Re:There is no freedom on smartphones (Score:5, Informative)
Getting a root shell using the building Xterm is very easy for those that want to do it, and are a bit technically inclined. Add a certain repo, add the rootsh
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can buy the developer version of the android from google directly that comes with root access.
What could possibly have motivated this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be the abusive wireless companies? No... they have shown time and time again that they do not improperly influence or direct Apple to do any of the things they have done lately such as removing the Google voice suite from the App store. Nope! Not a move pushed by AT&T and all the congressional investigations will show is that they didn't do it and/or don't "recall" doing it. That of course depends on the definition of what "it" means.
Cue the Apple apologists and the others who say "well? don't buy an iPhone!"
What about the poor souls who bought one with expected functionality and had it only to have it yanked out from under them.
What is really wrong here is the lines of ownership. Once someone owns something, is it proper for the previous owner to change and manage how you can use it? Sure, users don't "own" the software, but that is a matter of question there as it has been shown in other instances that copyright holders don't always have the right to control how a work is used. (yes, I know there are exceptions such as playing a DVD in a bar/club... but frankly, I don't think that limitation should be allowed either.) With every push like this, the rights of consumers are being trampled and removed. This is a big and growing problem. Consumers need to push back.
Tethering Isn't Disabled (Score:3, Informative)
Tethering isn't disabled. What is disabled is tethering without the carrier giving you a signed configuration bundle to use.
I've talked to a few people who use AT&T and still have tethering on their iPhones after upgrading. They got the new configuration bundle and have no problems.
Apparently, this was a request from almost all of the official carriers to prevent the iPhone from tethering without their permission (which can be had for another $20 or so per month). This was originally aimed at supported carriers, but it is also affecting unsupported carriers too.
That's what happens when you tie the hardware to the provider.
FUD (Score:4, Informative)
This is a surprise how? (Score:4, Informative)
I mean, come on, seriously. ANY time you;re doing something with an Apple device that's against the EULA or the provider's terms, Apple ALLWAYS turns off that function in the next release.
Further, you were TOLD WEEKS AGO that 3.1 broke the provider file hack and that only jailbroken devices and phones runnin 3.0.1 and older would be able to maintain tethering.
The hackers will win out and fix it soon enough, that is if AT&T doesn't start enabling it now anyway as they're doing with MMS.
Plus, adding tethering to an iPhone is $25 more per month, not $60 like it is on the crackberry or the Pre.
they actually killed tethering in 3.0.1 (Score:3, Informative)
I noticed that the tethering functionality enabled by the profile from http://help.benm.at/tethering.php [help.benm.at] stopped working after my upgrade to 3.0.1
The use of this profile works on even an un-jailbroken phone.
They did it in a rather sneaky way. The UI for tethering is still there, and active. It even says 'tethered', when plugged in â" but the update causes the iPhone to ignore DHCP requests for an IP address from the external device, which then times out.
The problem was immediately resolved by revving back to the 3.0 firmware.
I tested both jailbroken and un-jailbroken, on both 3.0 and 3.0.1.
3.0 tethering works, jailbreak or not, 3.0.1 tethering does NOT work, jailbreak or not.
Shame on you Apple. If you're going to intentionally break functionality, at least be man enough not to lie about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Tethering is not currently offered in the U.S. and some other countries. See your carrier for availability.
So if I lived in one of the "some other countries" with a vendor who sold factory unlocked iPhones and supported tethering, like Vodafone New Zealand, I would be filing against Vodafone (not Apple) for false advertising.
Apple won't listen to its customers, but it will listen when its foreign partners start suing them in retaliation.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
Did you RTFA? Apple disables tethering for companies that aren't Apple partners. It has nothing to do with whether or not the carrier allows tethering. Apple is still living in a world where they can shove an authorized provider down their customer's throats, as if they weren't doing business in Europe, where the phone and the service are supposed to be separate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)