Even we are eager with iPad news – especially this variety. How long has the iPad been out and about in the US? A day or so? Yeah, pretty much. That’s all it took: the iPad has already been jailbroken. Rooted. This means that if you didn’t plan on buying the iPad because you don’t want to be shackled to Apple, and were waiting for a jailbreak, you won’t have to wait long.
It didn’t take an awful lot of new code or hunting for exploits to jailbreak the iPad. Known iPhone hacker MuscleNerd ported Comex’ “Spirit” iPhone jailbreak to the iPad, and got it working. It exploits a bug in iPhone 3.1.2 which apparently still exists in the iPad’s version (3.2). You want proof? Here you go.
The code hasn’t been released yet, and most likely won’t until the arrival fo the iPad 3G or iPhone OS 3.2, just to keep things consistent across devices. It’s great news for those that want to squeeze a little more out of their iPad than just Apple’s pre-approved functionality.
it only has 256MB of ram and because of the bigger screen, even less available memory for the programs to use than the 3GS has.
edit: incomplete comment
Edited 2010-04-04 22:51 UTC
What is a joke is comments like that and the belief that Apple are evil because they control their platform. The iPad has a target audience, and as such is spec’d for that target audience. If it doesn’t suit your needs that’s fine, but for those in it’s target demographic it will work just fine.
And with regards the jailbreaking, I find this part the most humorous of all. If Apple really wanted to prevent jailbreaking of the iPhone OS it would be trivial for them, just like it would be trivial for them to prevent jailbroken devices from accessing iTunes and the App Store. But frankly, THEY DON’T CARE. And why should they? You’ve bought their device, they’ve made their money. The target audience of their UI is very happy using it as it is, and those who feel they’re missing out on something can jailbreak it.
It actually saves Apple a lot of hassles if you think about it…
Wrong….
I recall apple complaining about jailbroken iphones causing catastrophic damage to the network and wanting to block it via dmca…
Yup. And thanks to the DMCA, jailbreaking isn’t just a civil offense, but a felony.
Well, it seems that Apple enforces DRM and such up to a point where it makes third parties happy. It is no secret that movie studios and record companies previously required DRM as a part of licensing deals. When iTunes had become such a large part of the revenue stream of the record companies, Apple was able to force them into dropping this requirement. Nobody has been able to do it at that scale before. Why are phones not open? Carriers want closed phones to charge you over and over (by not allowing tethering), game studios want it, etc. For the iPad there is yet another party: publishers. But I guess that Apple will try to kill DRM again if they provide a significant part of the revenue of publishers/movie studios/…
For their own products you can see their preferred policies: there is no activation in OS X, Aperture, iWorks, and others. OS X and iWork 09 install without a license key. And OS X upgrade disks can be changed into a retail disk by just removing one script from the disk.
I am not saying that Apple should be hailed as heroes of the free world. But they are certainly not the worst company. Especially compared with Microsofts annoying activation schemes and ‘lets degrade quality if you have an analog hole’, or Sony’s taste for rootkits and removing functionality to protect their entertainment system.
With Apple, there seem to be only two camps: those absolutely loving everything they do, and those thinking they are pure evil. It’s just one out of many companies, that happens to make cool products and DRM-wise is slightly less evil than many others, but not as saintly as, say, CDBaby.
I couldn’t disagree more with this statement. Apple uses DRM and the DMCA to enforce their restrictions on the App Store, and this is not a matter of making third parties happy. It makes many third parties quite unhappy.
I sincerely doubt any third party went to Apple and said “OK, we’ll only work with you if you prevent people from viewing Flash web sites and running Python interpreters on the iPhone”. This is all about Apple’s control over the platform and being able to approve or disapprove content. DRM is the means to their end.
I would put it to you that every form of DRM found in the iPad which is not found in Google Android devices is Apple’s choice, pure and simple. Google is not a saintly company either, but they have produced a much, much more open platform that Apple has, and had tremendous success with it. If they can do it, Apple could have too.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because Apple has been more open in the past, that they are in favor of open platforms today. Now that they have tasted success, their true colors will begin to show. As an underdog in the computer market they did what they needed to do to get traction. As the top dog in the smartphone, media player, and now tablet markets, they will do what they need to do to establish control. They had the opportunity to make different decisions and elected not to, so don’t kid yourself.
“And with regards the jailbreaking, I find this part the most humorous of all. If Apple really wanted to prevent jailbreaking of the iPhone OS it would be trivial for them, just like it would be trivial for them to prevent jailbroken devices from accessing iTunes and the App Store. But frankly, THEY DON’T CARE. And why should they? You’ve bought their device, they’ve made their money.”
Not as humorous as your comment, given the following link:
http://www.iphonealley.com/news/apple-says-jailbreaking-iphones-is-…
Edit: Grammar
Edited 2010-04-05 04:27 UTC
Cool, now I can start thinking about buying one. As a interaction designer student, I think the ecosystem apple designed for their products is great, but also very concerning. I mean, you can get a great user experience with this model, but I have troubles in accepting limitations and constraints based purely on Apple’s thirst for money and Jobs emotional feelings (his campaign agains flash seems more emotional then rational I think, otherwise why not releasing APIs need to Adobe create a better plugin?).
If I can hack it to have what I want, not what Jobs thinks I need, it will be a great product for me. Seriously, I love their interface work and well designed ecosystem, but does that justify behaving like assholes by overpricing it and limiting what we can do just to sell more of their other products?
By the way, it would be great to have Textmate and a terminal for ssh work on it. It already has OmniGraffle that’s great for quick wireframing while visiting the client, Textmate and SSH would be great to quick fixes while travelling and working while I wait for the bus..
Edited 2010-04-04 23:24 UTC
I respect your statement because it is in general true.
But I believe it should be noted that Adobe/Macromedia had plenty of opportunity to create a stable flash plugin, and failed miserably.
They don’t even have a 64 bit plugin, and we have known about the need for one [coming up] for over half a decade.
So while he may be doing this on emotion, there are some practical examples of their incompetence that would lead him to not want it anywhere near his shiny new toy.
Very revealing language there. It is Jobs’ shiny new toy, right? Not the person who plonks down the cash for it, and then finds they have limited ability to control what actually happens on the device – with limits enforced by criminal law!
It is his company, so yes… in a sense it is his toy.
If you do not like it, you can a) not buy it, b) buy a competing alternative more to your liking, or if a nor b are an option…. c) make your own.
I disagree with Mr. Jobs’s tastes and as such I am not his target market (I just don’t care that much for their design). But I respect that at least he puts some skin in the products of his company.
If Mr. Jobs does not want to lose control over “his” device then he should not be selling it.
I choose the unlisted option d) to agitate to change the law that forbids me from doing as I please with the software running on an object that I rightfully own. Running an interpreter should not be a felony!
If you do not like it, you can a) not buy it, b) buy a competing alternative more to your liking, or if a nor b are an option…. c) make your own.
The problem is, what I do not like is not the product. What I do not want to see is a society in which what we read and what applications we run are dictated by large corporate interests. This is why this sort of lockin should be made unlawful.
We need it to be reversed. If you do not like people doing what they like with your hardware and software, well, you don’t have to sell it to them.
Oh and how would that work? You go to the Apple store and they ask if you plan on pirating software before selling it to you?
They also have a financial motivation to get you to buy media from their store. So if you don’t like their business model then you need to go elsewhere. They don’t have a responsibility to cater to your demands. You’re not their targeted demographic.
Wow, you need some serious help. You have an unhealthy obsession with piracy. One might wonder why…
Oh look it’s Darknexus, once again questioning my motivation instead of addressing any points that I made. And the point was not about piracy but that you can’t expect companies to determine a sale based on the word of a customer.
Yes I can see that every time I post it makes your blood boil.
You should visit my blog if you haven’t already.
http://www.jfplayhouse.com/2010/04/all-hail-flash-part-2.html
Edited 2010-04-05 20:15 UTC
To repeat, it has nothing to do with personal choice in what we buy. It has nothing to do with whether any particular person is the target demographic. It has nothing about whether someone should use software or media from anyone except Apple.
It is whether we want large corporations to have the power to dictate what buyers read and use on the consumer devices they sell.
So the answer to the question is, when you go into the store and buy the device, just as nowadays when you buy a PC, no employee of the seller should be able to ask you what you intend to do with it, as a condition of selling it to you. And you should be able to install whatever you want, that will run on it, and read whatever you want, from whatever source.
The last time I bought a car, I do not recall the seller asking me did I intend driving this to Alsace? Because that was forbidden by the EULA for this particular make. Just as buying TOTAL fuel was forbidden. On the other hand, I should feel free to drive to Provence….
Exactly on the decent Flash plugin. Adobe have had *years* to get it right on the Mac, yet still produce a plugin that hogs cpu cycles (my powerbook fans go into overdrive when watching a youtube flash video!). Which is funny, seeing as the Flip4Mac guys can produce a wmv plugin that seems to play well with the mac….
It’s not at all like that. Talking about Crapple’s bad intentions, Adobe is releasing a version of Flash (I’m running it currently) that use hardware acceleration on Windows and use far less CPU cycles that any HTML 5.
Adobe can’t do the same on Os X because Crapple obstinately refuses to unveil the hooks.
what a load of crap. Even without hardware acceleration flash has always run better under windows (by that I mean rubbish, but on other platforms it is pure misery).
The fact that there are a ton of codec implementations on various platforms that manage to do it including OSS (which has nowhere near the resources and manpower available to adobe)
He’s not doing it for emotional reasons, he is aware that allowing Flash means you can buy media outside the itunes store. It also means can you play thousands of free Flash games.
But it looks like Jobs will soon have to come up with a new excuse:
http://androidcommunity.com/flash-10-1-vs-html5-on-nexus-one-adobe-…
Might as well buy a device I don’t need to jail break that I am sure to be able todo OS updates.
There are a lot of android tablets coming with better features than the ipad has anyhow.
Its like rockbox yes it can be installed on a ipod’s but the developer would only prefer for jail breaking on ipods is done for cases where you were given the device or the device was going to the scrap heap.
Give some press time to the upcoming androids. Heck they are way cheaper than the ipads as well.
“Shackled” to Apple? A little bit of an agenda here?
Buying products from Apple makes you a slave, even if you enjoy them.
If you buy a product from a local company you’re not a slave, even if you don’t enjoy it. That’s a free exchange of goods and services. But if you buy an iPad and a couple games from the itunes store then you might as well be picking cotton in the sun all day. It’s pretty much the same thing.
Doesn’t make sense? Doesn’t have to, that’s the beauty of being tech-hip.
What term would you prefer using?
how about something less rhetorical like tied to the app store?
Great! This is what I need before I can even consider buying one. The lack of multitasking is a real no-go for me. Being someone who likes to enjoy spotify or MSN in the background of safari, etc. Hopefully this will being launching background apps in the same way you can on the jailbroken iPhone.
Its likely been ‘broken’ by iPad developers from within Apple, to make it marketable to more people after the dismal initial sales figures come in now that we are at end of the weekend. Go Crapple, nothing like overpriced iTouch Shrek-land device for the idiots in the world.
Ok, I’m going to ignore the vitriol and name calling, but I’d like to address this snippet from your post:
If that is true, why then is there still no jailbreak for my MC-model 8GB iPod touch? I know the community is supposed to try and release one in mid-April, but I’m not holding my breath. My point being, the 8GB touch is the weakest of the new lineup — in both storage capacity and horsepower — and by your logic it would make sense for Apple to also discreetly allow jailbreaking on it.
In other words, I don’t think Apple wants any of their products jailbroken, or they’d all be trivial to do. Fact is, they patch the holes that allow jailbreaking with every point update, probably because it cuts into App Store sales. They don’t exactly sell the devices as loss leaders, but it’s a fact that they get a great deal of revenue from App Store purchases. Everyone (including Apple) knows that for nearly every paid legit app, there’s at least one free Cydia app to match or beat it, and in some cases two or three free alternatives.
As for me, I’m happy enough with a virgin iPod touch; most of what I use it for is done by the built in apps, and the only third party app I use every day is Stanza, which is free. Sure, I’ll jailbreak it once it’s possible, but I honestly have no idea if I’ll get any benefit from it at all. It does what I bought it for right now.
Edited 2010-04-05 03:21 UTC
Why should I have to hack a product that I own. Apple would make me very happy if I could install my own apps and software on a device like this.
You’re not worth the effort to them. Most of the people who buy the iPad are fine with buying from the iTunes store. I just read an article the other day about people who were standing in line to buy the iPad because they had nothing better to do. When there are people willing to wait in line with cash to buy a locked-down device a company like Apple could care less about how you would like them to make it differently.
There’s also a security compromise that goes with allowing people to install software outside a central store where applications are not only checked but can also be immediately pulled from all existing devices if malware is found.
Do I think this model should be applied to all computers? No but some devices should be locked down for people that can’t be trusted to make their own security decisions.
I won’t bash Apple about it’s new ipad. Enough people have done it already. I just can’t understand why the public would accept a product like this without a SD card slot or at least one standard USB port.
… Until the next software update from Apple comes in and locks it again. Thanks but no thanks. I don’t want their dumbed down computer just like I don’t want their dumbed down smartphone.