The FSF lists five reasons to avoid iPhone 3G, and I agree with most of them. (The FSF, of course, is the guerilla phalanx of the mindset that applications are often steadily improved by exposing source code and accepting changes. I agree with some of their points, but not with their policy writ large, where their way will liberate the world, and where “liberate” means that you can use any license you’d like, as long as it’s the GNU GPL.)
Their reasons are:
iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can’t be on everyone’s phones.
Officially. The original iPhone took months to jailbreak; the iPhone 3G has already been cracked open, and tools will be publicly available at least before the month is over, and likely before the week is over.
Apple’s policy still sucks, and I am still embarrassed by such arrogance towards a community that has largely helped build the iPhone. (Settings → General → About → Legal tells this story without abandon.) But there has never been any doubt that the device would eventually be pried open to development outside of the handcuffs. If there had been, I’d have been more wary of getting mine.
And contrary to what some people think, this is not about getting paid, although I suspect the FSF could give you a different answer to this question. It ought to bug very many people that Apple feels that it is justified in being an arbiter for what is okay to stick on your iPhone (or iPod touch) in terms of software. If it doesn’t bug you, imagine them doing so on Mac OS X.
iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.
That Apple supports any DRM is completely horrible. That Apple introduces more DRM to the new applications system is beyond the pale. This is 2008.
Code signing is an appropriate measure to take against rogue software. Code signing with a central, obligatory trust root and no way around it is an oppressive, walled-garden measure.
iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.
This is slightly dishonest. iPhone provides features to track a location; the Maps app uses this and the Camera app uses this. Both pop up an alert asking for permission before allowing access to this data, as does any app attempting to use this data. It’s built into the framework and you can turn the ability to track off permanently for any app. The FSF saves itself on a technicality — the reason the Camera app uses it is because the photos are tagged with coordinates, and it’s not immediately obvious that this data is present or how to remove it. And of course, it’s always possible that someone else might open the Camera app, tap OK and then return to the home screen, where the permission will remain for some time.
Shawn Medero reflected that this sounds like willful conflation of visibility and privacy, e.g. that this argument is no better than “Your computer is currently broadcasting your IP address!!!!” banner ads. The rhetorical question might be “If you wanted to be private, why take a photo and share it on the Internet?”, which is common sense but it not completely bullet-proof, since you should always be free to decide what kind of metadata goes into your files. (Then again, there are plenty of free, Open Source, and yeah, even Free Software utilities to control this metadata for any image.)
iPhone won’t play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.
Completely valid, and it’s time Apple adopted them, and FLAC. Apple’s got plenty of money in the bank to pay a few lawyers, if it’s going to come to that.
iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don’t spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software — like the FreeRunner.
Here is where the reasons start to smell like Kalashnikov-waving.
Google’s Android platform will be as, if not more, capable as the Openmoko platform of which the FreeRunner is the first incarnation. I suspect the only reason Android isn’t mentioned is because Openmoko uses the Free Software GNU GPL license, and Android uses the Apache license, which isn’t viral.
Apple, through its marketing and visual design techniques, is manufacturing an illusion that merely buying an Apple makes you part of an alternative community.
Well, no, they are manufacturing a phone which main appeal is that it’s got a better user interface than any other phone; the rest is manufactured by everyone else.
The extreme here is represented by Jobs and Apple. The iPhone is an attack on very old and fundamental values — the value of people having control over their stuff rather than their stuff having control over them, the right to freely communicate and share with others, and the importance of privacy.
Here, I couldn’t agree more.
Like I said, I agree with most of the article. It’s the part where they back only the completely GPL alternative Openmoko to complete exclusion of the Android platform that gives off wafts of a prepared politburo speech. It’s the part where they don’t take Apple to task for not offering unlocked phones and instead opting to throw in with carriers in a rotten system, like notable privacy nightmare AT&T (that has already helped the most seclusive and citizen-disdaining US government since Nixon), that makes me wonder if the reasons picked were really the best they could muster to support their argument.