Apple blacklisting hacked iPhones?
Say it ain’t so! It seems that Apple is responding to the recent spate of iPhone hacks, third party applications, and unlocks in a rather unsavory manner. The company is reportedly "blacklisting" hacked devices that are brought in for service and/or return. According to a customer who experienced the wrath of Apple’s increasingly evil empire, he was informed that because his phone had been unlocked without Apple’s consent, it was blacklisted and therefore ineligible for return, service, or replacement. Bummer! To be fair, the customer was eventually able to return the phone (minus a 10% restocking fee), but the process involved several exchanges with the store’s manager. The important thing to note, however, is that unless the employees that initially denied the man service were acting our of company line, Apple now has an official policy in place to deal with hacked iPhones. Not cool. Thankfully most of the popular modifications are easily reversed by way of a software restore, but the trend is disturbing nonetheless. Come on, Apple!
Welcome to the beautifil world of end user license agreements.
iPhone users AGREE not to hack their iPhones accepting the EULA, so if you breach…Apple can do pretty much what ever they want, INCLUDING not returning your phone.
But hey! It’s the iPhone!!! it’s so cool!
I wonder how long it will take for people to snap out of the media hype and actually rate the iphone for what it really is.
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yeah…
ya didn’t see this COMING?
are ya STUPID?
you had to know apple would do this didn’t you? Didn’t You?? DIDN’T YOU ??!!??
fools.
sorry…but even I saw this coming down the pike…
where’s all the IPhone love now hunh???
-db
but I could be wrong…maybe we apple is overreacting…
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God knows I’m doing crazy stuff to my iPhone, but I sure don’t expect to take it back if I violate the warranty. If you want to hack, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences, not go running back like a little kid saying “Fix!”
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
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Yo nitwits…
I am not familiar with any company that will let you fool with the internal workings of their product and be happy about it. Especially if the fooling screws them out of money in some way (i.e. loss of kickback money from AT&T).
Are you really that big of an idiot?
Would you let someone hack your product if you owned the company?
Dummies!
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Swapping chips on cars voids warranties — so how is this different?
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I’m amazed we didn’t hear about this sooner. It took apple this long to do something about it, amazing. You’d think JOBS would’ve gone on a press spree and said “anybody who hacks the iPhone will get screwed in the ass by me personally, sorry what I mean is blacklisted. No screwed in the ass, yea that more disturbing.”
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And just like that….
Google’s *Do no evil* approach gains in popularity…
More stock gains…
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This makes me glad that I’m a RIM consumer and customer of T-Mobile. I know a lot of people on here bash T-Mobile for not having 3G, RIM for the same reason, etc. Say what you will about T-Mobile, they remain probably the most consumer-centric, consumer-friendly carrier. When I upgraded my OS to a non-T-Mobile OS (I’m one of those people who upgrades my OS as soon as a new one gets posted on the BlackBerryForums), they didn’t even balk at it. The representative I initially talked to and the tech that I helped were both seemingly impressed that I did the upgrade, and the tech walked me through the issue.
(To be fair, I do happen to be a customer of AT&T for my DSL, but not for wireless.)
You know, it’s Apples’ product. They can build it the way they want to. But there’s also a thing we often forget called Fair Use. The exact definition of Fair Use is more in question these days than it ever has been. What constitues Fair Use? It’s certainly not a black-and-white line-in-the-sand type of issue, I admit. I would argue that Fair Use gives one the right to hack their iPhone, but Apple is under no (legal) obligation to service them. However, where Apple won’t, some other company will. So I would further argue that it would be in Apple’s better (financial) interests to charge a price for servicing hacked iPhones rather than let some company pick up the financial benefits.
And @ Usually Named, that’s not entirely true. Speaking from experience, I have a high performance chipset in my Ford F250SD. It doesn’t automatically void the warranty, that’s a minor misnomer. It does mean, however, that a dealership is not obligated to fix it, but the choice ultimately is theirs to make. I have found only one dealership that didn’t service Duke (my truck) out of concern over the chip. I went to another dealership and they did. (And I still use them today.)
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How is it uncool? It is in the license of the iphone (and any other phone) that you can’t do that. I don’t care what phone it is … if you flash an unsupported firmware to it, it will instantly void your warranty and make it not eligable for returns. So how is this different? We live with it on every other phone, but because it is iPhone all of a sudden it is stupid? Give me a break.
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Isn’t there a new law in place that a cellular provider that sells you a cell phone must provide an unlock code upon request?
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I don’t care what carrier you are from. If you purchase a phone (even from tmobile), you have a 14 day grace period in which you can return the phone. During that 14 days, if Tmobile finds that you hacked the firmware, I will GUARANTEE that they will not take the return back, nor will they survice it by swapping out the unit with something else. The moment they started doing that, would be the moment Tmobile loses money due to tinkerers who know they can purchase a tmobile phone, they can return it and get their money back. Tmobile would lose so much money because you know the vendors of said phones would not take them back. As good as Tmobile is in customer service, they are not in the business to lose money. Tmobile may not have blacklisted the phone, but I seriously doubt the customer would have gotten their money back or be allowed to return it.
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I think I heard something about a law allowing a customer to unlock your phone after contract. I know AT&T will if you call their support line after 2 years is up. You may be able to unlock it also if you pay full RETAIL price for the phone without contract at the $800 or whatever it is, but it would not make much sense to allow it during a contract, because the carrier loses money on the phones by providing it to you for cheap, but gaining it back during your term as a contracted customer. So allowing unlock during contract your contract, in which the carrier recoups its lost money on the cheap phone sale would be idiotic on their part, because they would lose money. There should be no reason to unlock during contract term unless you were thinking of jumping ship.
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I went to at&t and the guys there said it WON’T void your warranty if you flashed a new OS on to it (i.e. WM5 on Blackjack to leaked WM6) because it is still an OS and it would be only an upgrade to your current OS.
If I am wrong correct me, but that’s what I got out of the guys at my local AT&T store.
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For one thing, the guys in the AT&T store are morons and know absolutely nothing about the internal workins of the organization. The are last to know anything, and will tell you whatever to make the sale or make you happy. Most people here will attest to the idiocy of in-store workers.
And second, it WILL void you warranty if you flash the OS with an UNSUPPORTED OS. WM6 made by AT&T may be okay even though it was leak, but if you install an OS made by any of the other hacking groups, you will never get support. A long time before WM6 was announced by AT&T, people were using WM6 by installing hacked versions by other groups. When you downloaded the software, you were warned by the group that it would void your warranty.
I had an iPaq 5455 a while ago, where I updated the OS on it, and HP would not even look at it because it had an unsupported version. AT&T is the same way. I know its not AT&T, but the TMobile rep warned me against installing WM6 (even though it was tmobile leak) because it would void my warranty. And if Tmobile, being a less restrictive company, will take this stance, you can bet a more restrictive one like AT&T will take the same stance and stab you in the back for doing it.
Never trust an AT&T store rep without verifying it through a representative at AT&T over the phone. While they can be idiots too, they are more trustworthy than the guys who get minimal training at the store.
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Called att earlier and the same thing on the phone: flashing on a new OS won’t void your warranty since its still an OS. Unless you get the Prez of att to say it, you still can’t be certain since not just the store reps are morons but have you ever called att? Everybody who works there is a moron.
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Yes that is true, most people at AT&T stores are morons. BUT, taking back units that have been tinkered with (harware modification OR unsupported software ones) is something that puts a company in a bad position because of the people that will take advantage of it. I am certain they won’t take it back, not because I heard it from a retarded rep, but because it would be stupid for them to take it back, for the same reason that MOST companies wouldn’t.
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1. re hashing the same story everyone else is, Lame.
2. The guy who went to Apple without ‘restoring’ his iPhone is an idiot.
3. As for blacklisting, it’s been long known that Apple keeps a ’secret’ rating on customers, that sap’s number just went down or up however they keep score.
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So I wonder when it comes time to replace the battery will we have to restore the iphone to factory defaults in order not to be blacklisted?
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Just get a contract with at&t already! I can’t see how all the hassle pays off.
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Lucky I don’t own ove even rim let’s yopu mod firmware an unlock the phone even moto but apple NO and they treat this like it’s a cdma phone instead of gsm.
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You can bet your hacked iPhone all of this will be challenged in court. Look out, here come the lawyers. Which may not be a bad thing. I put clear screen protector on my iphone. I wonder if I voided the warranty.
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i don’t see why this is even noteworthy. if you’re going to make the choice to futz with your iphone, be prepared to…
- restore it before taking it anywhere near an apple store.
- wait for others to try new itunes or firmware versions before doing so yourself.
i can only speak for myself, but it was worth it to unlock it & use my t-mo sim because i’m month-to-month (no contract) and i get free t-mo wifi hotspot access with their edge data plan (unlimited for $20/mo). i’m not stuck with an at&t contract/etf and all i miss functionally is visual voicemail, which is no big deal to me.
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Total agreement with Cracka… among others who brought up this point as well.
If you are able to hack your iPhone, wouldn’t you be smart enough to try a system restore before you bring it in or call a Tech?
People who don’t have that “Common Sense” chip in their mind deserve to get Blacklisted.
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