aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The iPhone contrarians
DefectiveByDesign points to the DRM:
The iPhone hype hides a basic problem with the product - Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) inside the iPhone means that it wont be under your control. Apple has built this “smart” phone to dumb you down. They also want you to switch your cell phone service to AT&T - who collaborated with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data mine Americans’ communications.
Working Assets says don’t buy it:
Working Assets called for action through their online activism arm, Act For Change, which released a petition where consumers vowed to boycott the iPhone. "Apple's new iPhone could be easily portable across wireless carriers," the group complained on their mailing list.
An open market could mean cheaper service for consumers, they argued, and Apple "could use its influence to set an example…" Steve Jobs responded Thursday when questioned by Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg. One of the six questions Mossberg asked went straight to the controversy.
"Why does the iPhone only work with a single carrier, AT&T?" Jobs countered that AT&T had "been investing billions of dollars in the last couple of years to create a great network." Using a GSM network will allow Apple to make the iPhone "a world phone," according to Jobs — functional in "80% of the world." But Mossberg had also asked Jobs if iPhone owners would ever be allowed to use other U.S. carriers — and Jobs conveniently ducked the question.
Tim Wu says the iPhone isn’t yet a revolutionary device:
Seen as a phone, the iPhone is striking. Seen as a small computer, it’s limited, and compromised by the existing business models of the wireless industry. [...]
It is in some ways astonishing that AT&T and Apple are partners at all. AT&T is the oldest of the old school-the most ancient major high-tech firm in the United States, founded in 1878. Unfazed by spending the last 23 years in suspended animation (after the great breakup of 1984), AT&T is back to its classic business model: own the largest networks and everything on them. Apple, meanwhile, is the original hippie computer company, a child of the 1970s, not the 1870s. At least in its origins, Apple is an ideological foe of IBM and AT&T. (Remember that 1984 ad?) Considering that these firms were born on the opposite sides of the tech Kulturkampf, the iPhone cannot help but be a little strange.
He’s most frustrated that it’s locked - “Imagine buying a Dell that worked only with Comcast Internet access or a VCR that worked only with NBC” - and doesn’t have WiFi access.
Jack Shafer has the iPhone suck-up watch, “In their stories they first scorn the universal hype over the iPhone, then they multiply it by sending a tempered message of love to their favorite new piece of gear.”
If you’ve got one and got it activated, lucky you. Activation woes continue. Thomas Hawk’s been waiting all day.
Joe Nocera’s bugged by the battery - “Did Apple really expect people to mail their iPhones to Apple HQ and wait for the company to return it with a new battery? It was bad enough that the company did that with the iPod - but a cellphone?”
Me, I went to the 5th Avenue Apple Store last night and used one to call and leave a welcome home message for Doug. The shopping bags are really quite wonderful. I’m off now to the Central Park Carousel with a friend who collects shopping bags. He’ll love this one!
