September 2007: Monthly Archive

figure 1: Magnuson Moss Esq., lawyer extraordinaire and warranty expert. He drafted the language of the Magnuson Moss act of 1975.

As far as I can tell, this article was written by someone that understands the Magnuson-Moss Act very well. I’ve never even heard of it, but it governs the aspects of a limited warranty and sets what you can and cannot do in terms of legally limiting a warranty and for what purposes. The legal mumbo-jumbo is strong in this one — the phrase “I am not a lawyer” really hits home trying to read this, but if you’ve got an eye for the law-talkin’ boilerplate, then it’s worth a read.

To the best of my understanding, the iPhone unlocking situation is analogous to using 3rd party ink cartridges in printers. Or buying a 3rd party garage-door opener for your garage door. Also, Apple could require you to re-lock your iPhone before they’d provide any kind of warranty service.

Otherwise, there could be a bit of trouble for Apple if they ditch warranties on iPhone unlockers:

The conclusion here is simple: Apple has, at least in a minor and reversible way, violated the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Apple should take action to correct their policy, and require that iPhone customers seeking warranty service, return their iPhone’s to locked condition. Apple could also release a software tool that aides in this process, though legally they are not required to… it would make the job of the Genius Bar easier to have such a tool in-house.

Everybody hold your breath for the next iPhone lawsuit.

The iPhone Dev Team, the same folks that have set the stage for 3rd party applications and more recently, the free iPhone unlock methods, released a statement via Erica Sadun of TUAW about Apple’s positioning on the iPhone unlock and the possible bricking of iPhones. Their statement is to wait to install the patch if you’ve unlocked your iPhone; if you really need the update, they have a tool in the works that will restore your iPhone to its factory condition. The ‘restore-to-factory-condition’ tool would be useful for anyone that wanted to sell their iPhone and be assured that there’s no personal information on the iPhone. The text of their statement is reproduced below:

9/25 Statement from the iPhone unlockers

Based on download numbers, the iPhone Dev Team believes that, worldwide, several hundred thousand people have unlocked their iPhones. That number continues growing every day. The removal of the lock, a bug, was a major step forward in the iPhone development. It made the iPhone free and useful to anyone, not only to those in certain countries.

Apple now announces that the next firmware update, expected later this week, will possibly break the handset of all of us free users in the World. It speaks of “damage” done to the firmware and “unauthorized access” to our own property, The removal of those firmware problems, which were built in in favor for AT&T, does not cause “damage” as they want to make us believe.

We will provide you with a tool in the next week which will be able to recover your nck counter and seczones and even enables you to restore your phone to a Factory-like state.

In the meantime we advise you not to update your free iPhone with the upcoming firmware. Wait for the next version to be fixed to work properly with your carrier and not break your phone.

figure 1: I spent so much time hunched over Legos that it’s a miracle I don’t have a hunchback

Lego artist Nathan Sawaya put together a rather awesome Lego iPhone. His art piece is available for just $399. Of course, just buying the Lego pieces individually would cost you dramatically less, but exactly how much less depends on the weakening strength of the U.S. dollar against the Euro. Of course, Sawaya’s review of the iPhone is short and sweet:

“It is just about actual size. The service is spotty. And before you ask, yes, it costs $399.”

figure 1: dirty hippie 3rd-party-developing AppTapp Installer.app-installing AnySIM-unlockers Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Though Jobs’ Apple Support crew would void your warranty for installing them, Steve went as far to say that some of the 3rd party apps were being looked at very closely by Apple:

“Meanwhile, Jobs acknowledged that third-party developers have started to produce several intriguing, yet unofficial iPhone applications. He said Apple is looking at some of them closely, especially those that don’t require a connection to the Internet. It’s likely that those applications would be the first of any to receive an official endorsement from Apple, according to Jobs’ comments, as those that require Internet access could threaten the ‘high standard’ of experience customers have come to expect with the iPhone.”

Mark/Space’s Missing Sync for the iPhone will be coming out in the next 3 months. I’ve used their products in the past, and while their product was frustrating, it rendered what was previously impossible to be simply annoying (in case you’re curious, I needed to sync a Windows Mobile phone to a mac). What does the new program promise to deliver? Well, it creates an archive of SMS messages and preserves the threaded view, and it offers much, much better call management for anyone that needs to track calls for time logs and the like.

Again, it goes without saying, If you’ve unlocked your iPhone, wait a while before applying the patch. Before you apply the patch, search for news of if the update is bricking locked phones. If it is, you’ll want to relock your phone before you update, if you choose to apply Apple’s update at all. The relocking instructions aren’t exactly for the faint of heart, but they’re not out of reach either. I believe that this could find its way into Installer.app one of these days…

Google has unveiled Google Calendar for the iPhone. Should one visit that link on their iPhone, you should see something like the image below. It looks to be very nice, especially if you want to be able to tell the difference between separate calendars, like say “work” and “home.”

figure 1: This is not my schedule for the day, I swear.

If you hate the Marker Felt font in the iPhone and are willing to go the extra mile to remove it, then John Gruber is your man. Just so we’re clear, this does void your warranty. But it goes without saying that if you really hate marker felt, you won’t care.

A bit of friendly advice — if you’ve unlocked your iPhone, you should be careful with the next firmware update — don’t apply it immediately. Check with news sites and forums to see if the update works fine with unlocks first. Apple released a press release that noted that the current methods of unlock can cause “irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software.” And as such, they’re going to void the warranty of anyone that unlocks their phone, and they’ll mark your phone as ineligible for warranty service. There are some reports of people that have been “blacklisted.” There’s a full rundown of this story after the cut.

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Apple’s number two man, Phill Schiller, speaks out on unlocking and the unforeseen consequences preventing future firmware updates. As you might expect, Schiller’s comments are little more than a reiteration of yesterday’s press release, scolding users and threatening castration of warranty obligations. His most notable soundbite…

”This has nothing to do with proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked. It’s unfortunate that some of these programs have caused damage to the iPhone software, but Apple cannot be responsible for … those consequences.”

Translation: “Yeah, see the thing is, AT&T is really riding our ass to do something about all the iPhone unlocking going on. So we’re issuing a press release to put the fear of Jobs God into users.”

Folks, this is a scare tactic and nothing more. Any changes unlock scripts make to system files is reversible, and Apple knows that. Unlocking an iPhone is not equivalent to ripping the device open with a pry bar and hacking it with a soldering iron. Software is software, nothing a simple reflash can’t undo.

This policy of “you use, you lose” is simply a way to appease AT&T. I can see Stan Sigman’s feet sticking out from behind the curtain, holding his cue cards.

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