September 19th, 2007
Apple to fight iPhone hacks with firmware upgrades sent via iTunes
Apple CEO Steve Jobs says that the company will do its best to stop all these iPhone hacks.
“It’s a cat-and-mouse game,” Jobs remarked at the UK unveiling of the iPhone yesterday in London. “We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it’s our job to stop them breaking in.”
“At the moment, as a consumer, you need to be very careful about unlocking the iPhone, and know how you want to use it,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi, who attended the presentation. “If you unlock it, you are not going to have a flat rate, and you will not have access to the 7,500 hot spots.”
The “7,500 hot spots” she referred to are those of UK Wi-Fi provider Cloud, where use of iPhone will- unlike UK iPhone carrier O2 Ltd.,’s monthly flat rate plans of $70 to $110 a month- will be free.
Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer believes that Apple will try to fortify the iPhone with firmware updates sent via iTunes.
“Both of the firmware updates issued since the iPhone’s U.S. debut in late June have either broken other, non-unlocking hacks, or forced users to restore the device from scratch,” Gregg writes. “IPhoneSIMFree, for instance, does not guarantee that its unlocking tool will work after future firmware updates.”
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
