Comment Re:Civilization comes to the Internet? (Score 1) 266
The US Supreme Court has ruled that the owner of a iPhone (or other smartphone) has the legal right to circumvent the trusted computing measures built into the device. Apple is not telling you that you can't run software that they do not approve of. They are selling a device which is configured by default to only accept software from trusted sources. They are also telling you that if you circumvent the trusted computing measures, their warranty agreement may no longer apply. No Apple employees (or US law enforcement acting on the behalf of Apple) will show up at your house and penalize you for jailbreaking an iPhone. Mind you, they are under no obligation to provide a simple or supported method of disabling the trusted software source model. It is their product and they sell it as-is.
Part of the concept of competition is that there can be multiple varieties of a similar product, produced by different companies. If an individual chooses an iPhone or other "locked down" device over another device lacking such restrictions, they are indicating that they value the features of the iPhone more than the features of the open device. This is of course assuming that said individual is aware of the software source restriction. The fact that there is a large base of users that do not jailbreak their iOS devices, despite the relative ease with which it can be accomplished for most models, indicates that not all people value software freedom equally. Ultimately it is the freedom of choice of the end user which device and philosophy they carry around with them.
Part of the concept of competition is that there can be multiple varieties of a similar product, produced by different companies. If an individual chooses an iPhone or other "locked down" device over another device lacking such restrictions, they are indicating that they value the features of the iPhone more than the features of the open device. This is of course assuming that said individual is aware of the software source restriction. The fact that there is a large base of users that do not jailbreak their iOS devices, despite the relative ease with which it can be accomplished for most models, indicates that not all people value software freedom equally. Ultimately it is the freedom of choice of the end user which device and philosophy they carry around with them.