- Friday, 27 November 2009
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With Q in decline and disarray, Carly (Fiorina) might well be acquiring the island of Atlantis - James C. Blasius
Apple uses Iphone push to enforce network deals
A CZECH DEVELOPER has complained that Jobs' Mob is enforcing its lucrative network deals by blocking push notifications on unlocked Iphones.
PoweryBase, writing in its bog, said that investigation shows that Apple may be blocking its Push Notification Service on purpose to fight users who break carrier monthly plan agreements by unlocking the phones to work with other carriers with which Apple is not partnered.
PoweryBase's NotifyMe is highly dependant on the latest Push technology provided by Apple which has only been publicly available for the last three weeks since the Iphone OS 3.0 was released.
However the outfit's help desk has been flooded with hundreds of support request in the last few days since its NotifyMe application appeared on Apple's App Store.
More than 80 per cent of the support requests are from the users with unlocked Iphones who have bought the application and are "angry and sad" that they can't use it.
What makes matters worse is that resolution of the problem is out of PoweryBase's hands as Push does not work reliably or does not work at all on any unlocked device, no matter what Push application is used.
It seems that every Push application has to request the unique token from Apple's APNS servers to identify the device it's running on. Thanks to that token, APNS servers always know which device is yours.
On any unlocked Iphone, the application that requests the token is stuck. APNS does not provide any response at all and the application can either cancel the request completely by automatic timeout or let user wait with the progress bar forever, the bog says.
Thus Apple enforces its network contracts and its customers who may have bought the Iphone but failed to do what they were told lose out. µ
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I always told people, that the Iphone LOOKS nice but they know nothing about business, hence why I am still using my trusty HTC touch diamond, on BT mobile, with exhange and PUSH email,... it always works...
Unlocked iPhone = hacked Apple software
By Nick's definition it MUST be Apple's fault that this hack results in the software no-longer working correctly in all circumstances. Has he actually found anyone with an officially unlocked iPhone (yes, they do exist, they are legally required to be sold or unlocked by the carrier after a period in France for example) where push isn't working?
I have a factory-unlocked phone bought from Italy (and used in Romania) and Push works perfectly. The not-working Push is certainly related to the way the iPhone is jailbroken. The jailbreak software breaks something related to Push.
It is not the jailbreak
I have a jailbroken phone that is running on AT&T push works fine. It is the Unlock that breaks Push. The way it is done now affects the baseband and removed the ability of the phone to request and recive push notifications.
While Apple may have a legal responsibility to unlock the phone in the EU in the US they have no such restriction. If you buy one you are stuck with AT&T unless you unlock. I personally do not agree with exclusive phone sales. They limit competition and hurt the market.
But that is just my opinion there.
When faced with a company producing a product with an abhorrent misfeature - in this case, proprietor lock-in - the correct response is not to buy the product until such time as it is fixed (if ever).
If you buy the product in spite of such designed-in crapness but delude yourself that "its OK because I can always unlock it" then, quite frankly, you deserve all you get.
And even if (as some are suggesting) this story turns out to be false, then just because Apple arent coming for you *now* doesnt mean they wont do it in the future. And there will be nothing you can do about it, and it will be your own fault.
The moral of the story is simple, and it is to do with DRM in *all* its forms, and if you havent figured it out by now you probably never will.
Now... unleash the fanbois.
Not much to say that hasn't already been said really. Apple is one of the most DRM-infested outfits out there... is anyone surprised? Only the macbois that pretend it isn't true, apparently. Apple isn't interested in selling a lot of hardware, as that would undermine its position as 'cool' and 'exclusive'. Apple sells useful products: no one who has a brain will deny that. What pisses people off is that Apple insists that ALL of its products are COOLER and BETTER than everyone else's products, and in order to EARN the right to be COOL, you have to ONLY buy Apple products, as they tend not to play nice with other products... not cool enough.
When iPhones are unlocked and easily work on other networks, it just reminds people that the phone manufacturers and the phone networks are in cahoots and are out to trick you into buying things.
Yeah iPhone looks good and locks good.
which doesn't support 'hacked devices'???? Please refresh me, but I thought that Microsoft actually BANNED folks from MS Live for hacking their (proprietary) hard drives. . . .
And surely my brother's LG phone is locked to AT&T. If he hacked it and switched to another network, should LG be responsible for servicing it if something goes wrong?
BTW, my iPhone 3GS is jailbroken and still works perfectly well with push notifications. I have no use for the slower T-Mobile EDGE network at this time, so I'm not tempted to switch. But if I did, I wouldn't expect it to be Apple's problem to sort out- I would wait for a fix from the Dev Team. . .