The PhoneBoy Blog

Apple–Please Adopt More Customer-Friendly iPhone Policies

30 Jul 2009

Here is some feedback I have sent to Apple regarding the latest issues related to Apple killing “Google Voice” type applications in the App Store and Apple’s statements that jailbreaking your iPhone will cause the world to end. I would encourage you all to do the same.

I’ve seen a number of news stories that says that Apple thinks people shouldn’t hack the baseband software in their iPhones because it can cause damage to the mobile phone network. If there was a simple way to unlock the iPhone people paid for without hacking the baseband, people wouldn’t be hacking the baseband. Make it dead simple like a Nokia–enter a code into the phone, boom, the device is unlocked.

People would not be as interested in jailbreaking iPhones, either, if there was some way for people to install apps that Apple does not approve of. The best app on a Nokia is something called Gravity. It is digitally signed, but frequently not by Symbian (who is owned by Nokia). Other platforms have this concept as well.

Both of these issues–and resulting bad PR–is entirely self-inflicted. Please consider changing your policies in these areas to more customer-friendly ones. Permit people to unlock their legitimately paid for iPhones and install applications of their own choosing.