Apple Quietly Drops iOS Jailbreak Detection API 164
bednarz writes "Without explanation, Apple has disabled a jailbreak detection API in iOS, less than six months after introducing it. Device management vendors say the reasons for the decision are a mystery, but insist they can use alternatives to discover if an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad has been modified so it can load and alter applications outside of Apple's iTunes-based App Store."
Because they realized it was fruitless (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can jailbreak the phone, you can trick the detection API. Once the system is "untrustable" it is not trustable.
Re:Because they realized it was fruitless (Score:5, Funny)
If you can jailbreak the phone, you can trick the detection API. Once the system is "untrustable" it is not trustable.
My God. Someone actually RTFA.
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Still, why bother to disable it?
Perhaps there is some legal angle to this. Since jailbreak is not illegal, having a method to detect it allows third parties to disenfranchise an Apple customer from doing what they have a right to do. Perhaps Apple does not want that liability.
Or perhaps Apple is standing up for the rights of their customers.
Wait, thats crazy talk. Lemmie go take my meds.
Re:Because they realized it was fruitless (Score:4, Informative)
Still, why bother to disable it?
Because the alternative is to maintain it.
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How would you know, hmm? Unless... you read it, too!
Quick! Get the tar and feathers!
Re:Because they realized it was fruitless (Score:5, Funny)
Fruitless ....Apple ....
Ahahahahahahahah! Good one, man!
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In the case of Apple inc., it's only partly fruitless...
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Apple sells the jailbreak (Score:2, Funny)
You'd think they'd find it better to provide the jailbreak themselves so they can have SOME control over it.
Apple sells the jailbreak; it just costs $600 for a Mac plus $99 per year.
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I don't think that is a full jailbreak. It just lets you load your own applications. Plus if you want to distribute applications to regular phones you have to give them a 30% cut.
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You don't have to do business with them do you? You do have a choice.
Re:Apple sells the jailbreak (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks, Hobson.
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So Apple is the only smartphone provider with an app store? News to me.
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Not if you're willing to distribute the applications for free.
Re:Because they realized it was fruitless (Score:4, Interesting)
> You'd think at some point these companies would realize they're never
> going to be able to throw enough programming hours at a device to
> keep literally tens of thousands of basement tinkers from eventually hijacking it.
That's not the point. If that were the point, Apple could go all RIAA/MPAA DMCA-anti-circumvention on the authors of the jailbreak tools (and individual jailbreakers, for that matter). None of them are hard to find, after all. But Apple is still primarily a hardware company. And they get their money on said hardware whether you jailbreak or not. And even jailbreakers usually have a decent amount of AppStore purchases on their iPhones as well. After all, aside from Backgrounder and SBSettings, Cydia is pretty much a vast sea of crap.
The point is to keep the barrier to entry for jailbreaking high enough that the Genius Bars don't have to deal with morons who do things like install openSSH, don't bother to set passwords, and get their phones rickrolled.
To wit: Observe the reaction of the MPAA to DVD-Jon and deCSS vs Apple's reaction to him and PlayFair.
MPAA: Sue, sue, and sue some more. Who cares if he's Swedish and US law doesn't apply there? Sue anyway. Also sue journalists for mentioning the existence of deCSS. Try to get Jon extradited and/or prosecuted under everything from the Berne Convention to the Treaty of Versailles.
Apple: Ignore him until the RIAA squawks at them about the cracked DRM and do a minor point release to iTunes which breaks PlayFair which is, in turn, updated within 48 hours to work again. Carry on ignoring Jon until the RIAA squawks at them again.
Apple Relenting? (Score:2)
So can we jai - unlock our iPhones now?
Re:Apple Relenting? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe you could already legally unlock your phone.
You probably don't understand the intent of the DMCA. The purpose of it was to stop copyright infringement. It was never intended as a lock to protect a company's business practices. In fact, the write up from the Library of Congress specifically targetted that fact--that Apple had submitted their oral and written opposition asserting their attempts to protect their business model. The Library of Congress concluded that to mean that Apple wasn't really trying to protect the right's holder's copyright, instead they were trying to protect their business model.
This is what the Register (Library of Congress) stated (taken from the Ars Technica write-up):
"Apple is not concerned that the practice of jailbreaking will displace sales of its firmware or of iPhones," wrote the Register, explaining her thinking by running through the "four factors" of the fair use test. "Indeed, since one cannot engage in that practice unless one has acquired an iPhone, it would be difficult to make that argument. Rather, the harm that Apple fears is harm to its reputation. Apple is concerned that jailbreaking will breach the integrity of the iPhone's ecosystem. The Register concludes that such alleged adverse effects are not in the nature of the harm that the fourth fair use factor is intended to address."
Copyright protection is granted to protect the rights holder from illegal distribution of their content and not to prohibit owners of the hardware from doing other things with it once they own it.
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Did you not understand a word of what the GP stated?
Jailbreaking is not illegal, and is your right.
Apples objections were based on untenable arguments and had nothing to do with copyright infringements.
So Apple was wrong. Its still your right to jailbreak.
Apple is not obligated to honor the warranty on any jailbroken device. But that is an entirely separate issue.
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Except that Apple IS legally obligated to honor the warranty on any jailbroken device, unless the jailbreak itself caused the failure, at least in the US. They may claim otherwise, but Magnuson-Moss overrides their claim.
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What part of Magnuson-Moss puts the burden on the manufacturer to prove that a user modification was the cause of failure?
There are an infinite number of modifications that users might make. There is only one (or a very few) configurations tested, released and warranted by a manufacturer. How could any manufacturer possibly test an infinite number of combinations and permutations of unknown future hacks? There isn't enough time. There aren't enough engineers.
I suspect there is a little self serving inte
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You need to reread, and to do so carefully.
Copyright is a legal concept designed to protect one's intellectual property. Apple wasn't defending their intellectual property, they were defending their business practice which isn't covered by copyright.
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Business model patents are as onerous as software patents.
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You certainly can try, but unlocking (to my understanding) requires reprogramming parts of the GSM chip's firmware. Jailbreaking is merely getting root access. Which allows you to unlock the phone, but you still have to know what you're doing - and if you screw it up, the phone is probably dead for good even if the rest of the device remains functional.
Even if you CAN unlock, do you really want to? In the US, your only frequency-compatible option is T-Mobile, and you often lose 3G capability too. It's prob
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I recently ceased my AT&T relationship after having an iPhone for nearly 3 years. Later I realized that I could take a simcard out of a cheap pay as you go cell phone, and that if I unlocked it I could use it on that carrier, albeit with limits. So, yes, some would. My 1st gen iPhone works perfectly (except battery life issues) and if I can make use of it at significantly (and I do mean significant) reduced cost I will.
Re:Apple Relenting? (Score:4, Informative)
And you can.
PwnageTool has a very easy unlock option for the 1st gen iPhone, just check the box as you're configuring the jailbroken firmware. I think the version you want is 3.1.5, easily available on Pirate Bay (which is the official release location).
For later iPhones, it's simple enough to run UltraSn0w and unlock once you've jailbroken.
(I'm assuming from the tone of your post that you may well already know all of this, but GP appears to have no understanding of the ease of the process.)
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Reasons (Score:2)
the reasons for the decision are a mystery
Sudden outbreak of common sense was too far-fetched? It's none of their business if I jailbreak my phone.
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Nonsense, for fans of lock down "common sense" means that you do like the vast majority of people and leave control of the device to whoever locked it down. You're just a consumer, you shouldn't be doing that. You're supposed to visit the AppStore and consume.
It's a broken, twisted, and borderline abusive view on the world but that's what we have.
Re:Reasons (Score:5, Interesting)
Damn skippy you don't jailbreak the phone that your workplace gave you. After all, they own that phone. Literally.
Which is what the article is actually about - functionality that allows enterprise software to detect whether a phone deployed through that enterprise has been jailbroken. It's a simple part of compliance testing of work issued equipment.
Re:Reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
Assuming that is the only basis upon which it was used. However the vast, vast majority of iPhones I've seen used with work systems are personal devices and as the first poster noted once a phone is Jailbroken it can lie to you about everything.
So they may be jailbreaking what is most likely their personal device, and they could easily load a hack that made it go "yeah I'm not jailbroken."
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and they could easily load a hack that made it go "yeah I'm not jailbroken."
There's an app for that!
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It seems like the API is running a checksum against OS files. How can you spoof that?
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Have a copy of the virgin OS files on disk, and modify the checksum function to check those files instead of the real OS's files. In effect, put the checksum function in its own jail, which I think qualifies as irony.
I think AOL did this once in the AIM protocl to prevent third party clients like Pidgin (or Gaim as it used to be known) from connecting to their network. I forget how Gaim's developer solved it...
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Am I the only one preoccupied that employers are shoving their employees with tracking devices? And given that you can't turn off or remove the battery form an iPhone what recourse these people have besides quitting their jobs? Dropping their phones in a metal lunch box?
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How can't you turn off an iPhone? Did you lose your fingers or something?
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Last time heard of it the iPhone still calls home when off so it's never really off.
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[citation needed]
Hold down the top button for many seconds. A slider comes up saying "slide to power off".
When you power back on, it takes MUCH longer than waking the device, and you see it booting.
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As another poster has mentioned, you can turn the iPhone off -- the standard state most customers think of as "off" only really turns off the display.
However, a much easier way of doing the same thing is to just put the iPhone in Airplane mode. That mode disables all of the wireless subsystems at the hardware level, preventing it from being able to "phone home" in any way, shape, or form (I think airlines and various international air transport authorities would have a problem if the iPhone randomly overro
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That doesn't mean that GPS is turned off (after all it's a receiver) and it doesn't mean it can't report your route up as soon as you turn it back on again.
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The biggest reason is the distance to cell towers when you are 30,000 feet above ground.
The cell phones would be sending at max power to talk with those distant towers. At the speed of an airplane, multiple towers would get the phone's weak requests to connect, and would each set aside a "slot" while waiting for the phone to complete handshake, which might never complete.
Re:Reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
> The base station is a long way down, and even at maximum transmit power
> the connection is too unreliable for voice.
No, do the math. 30,000 feet of empty air vs a mile of urban environment. The problem is a cell in a plane throws a very clear signal to every tower for miles around; All of which try to reply, hilarity ensues. And in the days of analog cell service there were only a couple hundred channels usable from any one cell site (to allow overlap) so a planeload of idiots trying to make calls would present a moving cellphone jammer to the system. And with digital the problem is only a little less horrible. The root of the problem is the cell network was conceived as a 2D environment and the problem of the Z axis's existence was left undefined.
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And given that you can't turn off
Can't turn it off? Have you ever actually used one of these things?
tracking devices
Crackberries and WinMo had GPS before iPhones, and they also had the ability to run corporate code without hacks.
If your employer wants to track you, they can do it with any current-generation smart phone.
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Leave it at your desk, they'll think you're a model employee.
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You're forgetting one part, when a user-land exploit has managed to jailbreak the phone and install malware onto it, essentially being a rogue node inside the corporation's nework. Of course it's only theoretical so far, but an all-in-one spying software that can run undetected in iPhones would fetch quite a sum of money. As for the user-land exploit, that's real: the Spirit jailbreak used a bug in the PDF rendering library that got it all the way into the kernel...
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Did I word that properly? I meant when the bad guys (e.g. the Chinese government) has used a user-land exploit to queitly jailbreak and install malware on your/the employee's iPhone...
If they had not patched that PDF bug (which, I believe is the case for iPhoneOS 3 and less), the bad guy can just send the iPhone user an e-mail with a PDF attachment, "take a look at this". User clicks the PDF, and boom, the exploit can fake a reboot (show the white Apple) while it downloads and installs itself from the inter
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That's a bullshit response, and I have to call it.
Common sense says that it is your device and you do to it what you will once you own it. The vast majority of people feel that way too. Just imagine the automotive industry locking down their vehicles and claiming no one can perform maintenance or modification outside of their purview.
We are not just the customer, we are the owner of the device. We "were" a customer but we became the owner once the transaction was complete. I am not renting the phone/ipo
Re:Reasons (Score:4)
You aren't looking at it from the skewed perspective of a carrier or vendor like Apple.
They may, but the vendors are banking on their ignorance.
Sure, but you aren't the kind of customer that companies selling locked down devices want.
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I am buying it by trading my money in exchange.
This is true. However, I bought it with the full knowledge of what I was getting into. I don't have a smartphone, but I do have an iPod Touch. I had no need for jailbreaking, so I don't really care that the device is locked down.
Would I rather that Apple didn't lock the device down? Sure. But until a competent competitor comes around, they are the best in town and worth the trade-off. If someone made a polished Android media player, maybe I would buy that instead. There's an Archos device that you can hack
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I don't need to: They already do. While simple damage to the bodywork, worn tires and such are still repairable at any garage, any engine fault is impossible to even diagnose in a modern car without access to the engine control unit. Those things invariably use a propritary, closed and very secretive protocol. The only garages with access to the software ne
Re:Reasons (Score:4, Informative)
But with the Android phones there's little reason to unlock it, unless one wants to run a custom UI, as you can already convenient install apps from elsewhere.
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You missed the biggest reason, to run the latest OS version. Hardware vendors and carriers make updates slow and infrequent. On top of this they will stop updating a phone soon after release to ensure you upgrade to a newer model and get another contract.
I say this as someone who own a Moto Droid and for the most part likes it. I probably won't get another android device other than a pure google one like the Nexus line. Other than that I might get a meego/meebo device.
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Original iPhone -- released in June 2007 and was capable of running the latest OS until Jun 2010
iPhone 3G -- released in June 2008, still capable of running the latest OS (with limitations)
iPhone 3GS -- released in June 2009, capable of running the latest O
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Your point is?
Wow, their device was allowed to live 3 years instead of 2. There are G1s running the latest and greatest android right now.
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Yeah because normal consumers are going to troll the Internet,root their phones and install an unofficial OS....
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So the carrier feels the need to install the Sense UI on HTC phones, MotoBlur on Motorola phones and TouchWiz on Samsung phones?
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I like it better on the N900, where I add a repository and install a package. My warranty is still intact, even. In any case, all phones should do at least what the Nexus One does.
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Any idea if meego/meebo/whatever crazy name they pick next will continue this trend?
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It's always been MeeGo. Currently the N900 runs Maemo, which has been around since the 770 back in 2005. Whether or not that trend continues depends on who uses it. Nokia hopefully will continue it on whatever successors running MeeGo appear. No guarantees for other vendors.
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That still doesn't void the warranty. It just means that OEM wouldn't be obligated to provide technical support.
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> It's none of their business if I jailbreak my phone.
Agreed. It is, however, your company's business if you jailbreak the phone they gave you. THEIR phone. Which is what the article is about - enterprise software detecting whether you jailbroke THEIR phone.
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That's my thought too. Developers should not be looking at my phone for any purpose other than running programs. What I do outside their tiny little sandbox is none of their business.
Re:Reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Reasons (Score:5, Funny)
I realize you are new here, but it is a long and proud slashdot tradion to not read the linked article. Many really hardcore slashdot users do not even read the summary.
Re:Reasons (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot has summaries?
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He never said he was worried about them preventing, rather he said it was none of their business and that they shouldn't even be looking. To me it means that it's a breach of privacy and of good faith.
The implication was that Apple removed it for whatever reason (most likely to protect themselves), yet program authors could look anyway using their own methodology. That implies they can and will. Making the determination of whether a phone is jailbroken is not their business.
Its your phone (Score:2)
But its not your network.
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Irrelevant. All my phone needs is to communicate via the protocol used for the network and have some means of authenticating. Given a SIM and a compliant radio, the carrier can STFU and GBTW.
My phone not being locked down has nothing whatsoever to do with that.
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Class action? (Score:5, Interesting)
Jailbreaking became legally protected recently. Disabling functionality when a jailbreak is detected seems like it might open Apple to a class action lawsuit.
I'm sure they're legally allowed to say that jailbreaking voids the warranty, but I'm not sure they're willing to risk crippling a jailbreaker's device with an api flag.
"Sorry, you can't play our game because you jailbroke your phone" -- if Apple encouraged app developers to do this, things could get nasty.
IANAL - this post is total speculation
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I think API was more for IT Admins so they could disable phones or throw them off ActiveSync server if they get jailbroken. I know we only support Android with TouchDown after we found users installing No Lock application on their Android phones that would remove password requirement. Our sales group decided that locking screen after 10 minutes was too annoying.
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I guess that's what I get for not reading the article. If a company owns the phones, they can do whatever monitoring they want on them. It might simply have been a case of Apple realizing that a call to is_this_device_jailbroken() would be the first thing any new jailbreaks subvert..
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How does touchdown get around that?
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Tell them to install screeble instead, that way the phone stays unlocked while in the range of orientation that it has when you hold it.
Microsoft has got away with it (Score:2)
I'm sure they're legally allowed to say that jailbreaking voids the warranty, but I'm not sure they're willing to risk crippling a jailbreaker's device with an api flag.
Microsoft has got away with it on Xbox and Xbox 360, banning jailbreakers from Xbox Live.
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Now that ARM CPUs is starting to support virtualization I expect to see tougher protection on cell phones, similar to what's on the PS3 and 360, though it's a bit expensive since you need to embed a ROM on the CPU.
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That is the most likely answer. That and the "cat and mouse game" gets expensive after a while too.
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I think it could be argued that by undoing a jailbreak would put Apple (or any entity doing so) in legal peril. What technically is being said is that since it is legal to jailbreak it would be illegal to violate the integrity of the device, which the DMCA exemption clearly identifies as the consumer's property.
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Uh, last I checked, the iPhone warranty is one year [apple.com].
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The original iPhone warranty was 9 months. When I had to get my iPhone replaced Apple claimed a 9 month warranty. Because of the nature of the problem with the phone (dead areas on the screen) and due to the fact that Apple had know of the issue before manufacture they replaced it free of charge.
So, I get the "9 months" because that's what Apple told me the warranty was back then.
Re:Class action? (Score:5, Informative)
"The original iPhone warranty was 9 months"
The leaflet that came in the box with my original iPhone (Summer 2007) says one year.
A.
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Likewise. I'm pretty sure Apple has never had any product with less than a year warranty on hardware, or at least not since I started using their hardware in the mid 90s. Maybe the original poster is thinking of the three month warranty for random (non-hardware) user problems?
You're incorrect about iPhone warranty length (Score:4, Informative)
Where did you get 9 months? It's 1 year, and has been as long as I can remember. See link [apple.com].
Apple's Limited Warranty for iPhone covers your iPhone for one year from the date of original purchase. Apple's Limited Warranty begins on the date that the iPhone was originally purchased. To determine your warranty coverage, enter the serial number of your iPhone in the Online Service Assistant section on the Apple Support site. Apple may need to examine your proof of purchase document to verify your iPhone's warranty status.
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drop or hide? (Score:3)
super_secret_function()
Re:drop or hide? (Score:5, Funny)
are ya sure it hasn't just been retooled to become super_secret_function()
I don't think you've seen the iOS SDK.
I'd guess something more like [NSReallyInternalDeviceIdiomDetector superSecretFunction:host:port:withDelegate:inSection:byAppendingString:context]
Android pod touch (Score:2)
The android platform seems to be gaining a large market share recently
Android is gaining on iPhone, but not on iPod touch, and it's all Google's fault. Google reportedly requires all devices that can access Android Market to have a camera, GPS, and other things more suited for a telephone than a PDA, leaving the pure-PDA market to Apple.
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And don't forget about Google TV. Seems like trying to compete with the iPod touch would be a distraction, and they haven't demonstrated any interest in it up to this point.
the iPod Touch is the iPad Mini (Score:4, Insightful)
I might be missing something, but the iPod touch isn't a phone. And I'm not really sure why Google would even want to compete with it.
ie, it's basically a tiny tablet. It's mobile computing just like the iPhone (but without a phone or mobile data). Seems like Google does want to compete or be involved in that market (see Galaxy Tab, Android Honeycomb, supposed hundreds of tablet models next year, etc).
The iPod Touch is a great device and probably accounts for a bit of the iPhone success in that folks who can't afford (or are too young) to own their own cell phone can still participate in the AppStore goodness.
Perhaps Google isn't competing because it would pretty much be a full-out declaration of war against Apple, and that would be bad for business.
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And I'm not really sure why Google would even want to compete with it.
It's a locked-down internet device. Not only can you get content without searching the wider web, but Apple even gets all of the ad revenue. Google wants you to think "Web!" when you want a book, movie, or song. Not the iBook store or iTunes... Google has zero chance to get a cut that way. Even the weather can be fetched without a single Adword visit. :)
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You keep saying that, yet many folks have pointed out devices you could be using. The pure PDA market is dead. the iPod touch is not a PDA, it is just the nicest iPod. That it happens to act as a PDA is only a side effect.
Android does not mean you get market access, you can use other stores. Heck, you could buy an old iPhone not get a phone plan and install android, if you wanted.
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Android is gaining on iPhone, but not on iPod touch, and it's all Google's fault. Google reportedly requires all devices that can access Android Market to have a camera, GPS, and other things more suited for a telephone than a PDA, leaving the pure-PDA market to Apple.
What? Those are all things I want in a "pure PDA". The reason Android isn't gaining on iPad (I *think* that's what you really meant) is that there aren't very many tablet products released yet. On the other hand, Samsung quickly sold over a million Android tablets. I would call that gaining.
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No it does not.Get off my lawn, then go back to dig or where ever you came from.
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It's Apple, so if they advertise they are doing some /.er yells about slashvertisment and spam and if they don't say anything about it they are trying to hide it and should be yelled at.