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Timothy P. Smith Thinks that Bricking the iPhone was Unfair

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iPhone in Hand

I am not normally one to name names and point fingers, but come on, how much warning did the world need. Apple hinted that the updates were going to brick the iPhone, they warned again and then they warned some more. When the updates were released and the phones were bricked, everyone was understandably upset, but Timothy P. Smith got litigious.

Smith’s claims are cause for amusement to some and incredulity to others:

(because the company) “took no steps to issue an update with unlocked firmware or otherwise issue its update to prevent damage to unlocked iPhones.”

The above is a reasonably fair call, but one would not think that it is in Apple’s interests to support hacked iPhones or to invest man-hours into making them work.

Apple forced plaintiff and the class members to pay substantially more for the iPhone and cell phone service than they would have paid in a competitive marketplace either for the iPhone or for AT&T’s cell phone service.

The last time I checked no one forced Timothy P. Smith or anyone else to purchase an iPhone. Everyone who bought an iPhone chose to buy an iPhone.

The vast majority of the people that unlocked their iPhones were aware of the risks that they were taking. They knew that they would be entering into a cat and mouse game that is far from over. Does it suck that the unlocked iPhones bricked? Of course it does, but I have news for you Timmy P., life is not fair and there will be tougher stuff that you have to go through than a bricked iPhone. Save your legal fees to drown your sorrows, this is a battle that you are bound to lose.

Source: Yahoo News

 

About the author: C. S. Magor

 

C.S. Magor is the editor-in-chief and reporter at large for Uberreview and We Interrupt. He currently resides in the Japanese countryside, approximately two hours from Tokyo - where both his bank balance and the lack of space in his home are testament to his addiction to all things shiny.

Website: http://www.uberreview.com

 

Recent posts in Op-Ed

 
  • Alexander

    All these people whining about the iPhone make me sick. Whenever they go on and on about the AT&T service or the lack of 3rd-party apps (Apple is supposedly releasing an SDK for it anyway, though, so that point is moot), I just feel like shoving them against a wall and screaming:

    “THEN… DON’T… BUY… ONE!”

    No one is holding a gun to your head and making you buy this phone. If you don’t like the limitations placed on the iPhone, let your dollars do the talking and go buy something else.

    And as for this guy, he’s just dumb. If you hack your iPhone, you should be aware that you are breaking it, and breaking your contract with Apple. Now, did anyone complain or file lawsuits about the locked-in service BEFORE the 1.1.1 update? Of course not. But now that Apple has EXERCISED THEIR RIGHTS and re-locked the phone, everyone’s complaining.

  • Paul

    The issue is not that you are not forced to buy the iphone. Nor is the issue that Apple does not have a right to defend its patents. The issue is that in defending those patents they do not have the right to damage other peoples personal property. iphones are not rental products, they were purchased and as such became the personal property of the purchaser. Under law you are not allowed to damage my personal property because you dont like the way I use it, Another example of the famous Jobs arrogance

  • D

    One assumption that everyone is making is that the EULA for the iPhone is a legally binding document, which it is not. EULAs do not carry the binding weight of a contract, and there are often cases where companies lose cases in court based soley on what is included in an end user license agreement.

    That said, I don’t think its necessary that apple brick unlocked iPhones. To be sure, it should void the warranty and the company has no obligation to *support* the unlocked phones, but I believe its a bit of an overreaction to disable the phones functionality entirely.

    It is not Apple’s “right” to brick the iPhone, as the EULA is not a legally binding contract as I stated before. Nor does “hacking” (when I use this term I mean installing 3rd party apps, not unlocking the phone for a different network) “break” the iphone.

    Blind defense of Apple just because they make pretty electronics doesn’t equate to an understanding of the situation.

    Personally, I don’t get what the hubub about this thing is.. It’s just a phone. I like that my phone makes calls and text messages. I have never had a business situation where I desperately needed to see a web site JUST how it looks on my pc. I used to love Apple products but recently they seem to be innovating only in terms of form and style, and not function.

  • Greg

    The FCC should have stopped proprietary phones long ago. I am sick of the “if you want this phone, you must be on our network” mentality. Hopefully the FCC will soon fix this and there will be real competition. Apple should consider that they would sell a lot more Iphones if they were available on any network. Stop the proprietary, price fixing BS!

  • Jon Meyer

    Let’s say you saw an apartment that had a rider on the lease saying you could not install cable. You liked the apartment, but you didn’t agree with this policy, so you decided to rent it and install cable anyway. Then the rental agency found out and bolted your door, without letting you collect your belongings – you’d probably sue too, saying that the agencies’ reaction was overly punitive.

    We have expectations about what we are allowed to do with rental apartments, and computers. For example, we expect to be able to choose our service providers.

    Apple is trying to establish a model for mobile computers that gives consumers less choice. If Apple succeeds with their model, other companies will follow suit, and consumers will quickly find the market flooded with mobile computers that are locked to one service provider, and become “bricked” if unlocked. We should resist this model.

  • cultcrit

    Does the iphone user agreement give Apple the right to do what it wants to hardware that the customer purchased? Usually a contract will say that tampering voids the warranty, but beyond that… the phones are the property of the customers who bought them. Buying a particular product doesn’t mean you grant the producer unfettered access to it in the future. I don’t know why no lawsuits seem to be taking this angle. Or what about an anti-trust bid?

  • Mukund Krishna

    Well.. firstly, I feel sorry for the american public for being forced by the mobile phone industry to choose one service and stick to it.. and yes they are being forced if you consider that the rest of the world (read asia) does not do that. Moreover, the quality of phones in general and service is much better!!
    Of course, it is apple’s prerogative to decide if someone violated their contract and do what they want… but they just lost a lot of potential customers.
    They don’t care? .. ok.. nor do we. Period.

  • http://www.sfrevolution.net r. decline

    “Buying a particular product doesn”t mean you grant the producer unfettered access to it in the future.”

    right…but the update was optional.

    “I am sick of the “if you want this phone, you must be on our network” mentality.” yeah but thats how it works. if i owned my own company i would want just as much right to say i can sell my product to work with whatever i want it to as well. either way it’s suing apple isn’t going to change the entire industry.

    “Hopefully the FCC will soon fix this…” LOL. frankly i would rather see an end to the FCC. they have “fixed” enough already if you ask me.

  • http://none Joe

    I hope all you fools that keep saying Apple is right get wacked by them on some issue someday. (Which I am sure you will cause if they get away with this one you can be sure they will push it even firther next time and they will also have companies like MS jumping on this bandwagon too) Be smart back the other consumers around you cause someday you might be looking for their backing. All you people that side with big business are a bunch of fools either that or you probably work for some big business and your only talking that way because of it. If you buy something you should own it and if you modify it you should only have to worry about the modification process bricking it. Not some careless “Patch” Apple releases. Keep backing the big corporations cause they will think NOTHING of stepping on you too when your in there way. BTW I didnt buy an iPhone cause Im not getting into the Steve Jobs BS Machine. I own a true iPhone its a XV6700 and it actually delivers on the BS Jobs spewed.

  • Mukund Krishna

    I totally agree with D, Greg, Cultcrit and Jon!! Its perfectly valid for apple to say that they won’t support the phone if you tamper with it or unlock it. But to “overreact” and make all the phones bricks, all you are doing is buying a HUGE amount of negative publicity. Even me, I like apple products.. but I am not going to buy the iphone for the simple and only reason that apple is over-reacting like this.

    And I totally agree that we as the public should not encourage this model of devices getting locked to networks. It is irritating enough as it is and we should go towards abolishing it, not encouraging it. Blindly glorifying companies like Apple for their products and not looking at what they are doing to the consumer is in the long term going to be very unhealthy.

    I seriously hope the FCC wakes up to this “proprietary price-fixing BS” as someone aptly put it and works against corporate dictatorships.
    amen.

  • Kyle Schlapkohl

    It is crazy to think that anybody has a right to sue Apple over bricking a consumer’s phone. AT&T invested millions into their network to support the phone and made a “bad” deal with Apple to get exclusive rights to the phone. While you may say that other parts of the world this and other parts of the world that, the US does things the way the US does things. There is nothing we can do about that until someone puts up enough fuss and gets enough supporters that things change. However, things have not changed and when you spend money on an iPhone you should expect to get locked into AT&T. There is nothing you can do about that. The phone is your property, congratulations, but Apple gave more than sufficient warning to you that you should have expected this. By the way, hold the flames because most likely, I’ll never check this post again. Never get into arguments with idiots, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

  • http://none Joe

    this site censors and calls it moderation!!!!

  • http://www.uberreview.com C. S. Magor

    I knew that I was throwing stones at a beehive when I wrote this article, but I wanted to promote some discussion on the topic.

    Firstly locking the phone to one provider is not price fixing. Price fixing is, for example, when all the gasoline stations in a particular area decide that they are going to bump their prices up 80% for the long weekend; or as they did in Australia, decide that diesel should be twice the price of regular gasoline. There are still any number of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, etc that you can buy.

    As I understand it, the update was a significant one not just a patch. The bricking could just be a consequence of that. It happens with software all the time, why should they create an update that is going to be safe for third party code? There are a ton of different ways that people have unlocked their iPhone, making a safe update takes longer and penalizes people that heeded the warnings.

    Of course people have a right to be pissed off, but they were warned well ahead of time. People knew that they were taking a chance. I am sure there will be a workaround for the update in due course. In the meantime, if you do not like being locked to one carrier, do not buy an iPhone. It only encourages them to do the same again.

    I live in Japan where every phone is locked, it sucks, I long for a GSM where I can switch SIM cards whenever I travel back to Australia. I want a phone with WiFi so I do not need to pay $50 a month if I want to use the Internet. I want to be able to install Skype so that I can use that WiFi to talk for free. Locking phones to one carrier will see such options disappear, because it is not in any carrier’s interest to offer a free alternative to their network. I could go on, but I am tired and have a lot of writing to do today.

    Who censored you Joe? It wasn’t me, but I always edit out language that might be excessively offensive eg profanity, religious or racial taunts.

    How many bricked iPhone owners do we have here?

  • Paul

    I dont own an iphone bricked or otherwise. Further I never would. 500 bucks for an overhyped gadget that doesn’t have all of the features of most smart phones, and can’t run 3rd party apps strikes me as silly. The reason I speak out about this is the fact that it caused damage to private property. pushing an update that kills the hacks is one thing. One could argue that is Apple protecting it’s investment. destroying the systems for being unlocked (which is perfectly legal by the way) is criminal. Not unlike Another “rental” product I can think of called Windows. Sue Apple–this was made for a class action lawsuit

  • http://www.uberreview.com C. S. Magor

    Can someone get a copy of the iPhone Terms of Service up here?

  • http://www.uberreview.com C. S. Magor

    Here it is: Looks like they have everything covered.
    http://www.apple.com/legal/iphone/us/terms/service_all.html#iphonesla

  • Jon Meyer

    I think its perfectly reasonably for Apple to wipe an iPhone and restore it to its factory state after the user has unlocked it. Bricking it is a step too far.

  • Dave Echelberger

    In November of 2006, the United Stated Copyright Office issued a statement that you have a right to unlock your cell phone. I have no idea how that impacts a EULA, but it would seem that his case has some merit in that there is a precedent.

 

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