Apple today conducted an overdue intervention with certain customers who have engaged in a dangerous “lifestyle” of “hacking” their iPhones.
In a lovingly worded press release that clearly comes straight from the heart, Apple stressed that iPhone hackers abusers should step back from the brink… and reevaluate their lives… before it was too late.
Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.
Message?
“We care.”
The only question is if the message will be received by its more ungrateful customers.
Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller said “We made this beautiful gift for you… and this is how you repay us?
“Please, think of your families. Think of how they feel when they see you jailbreaking your iPhone.
“It’s killing them! How can you be so selfish?!”
Other members of the iPhone user group community attempted to scare iPhone abusers straight.
“If you hack your iPhone,” said the Apple Phone Show‘s Scott Bourne, “you could end up with VD.
“Or in jail. Or lying in a ditch, face down in a pool of your own vomit with your pants around your ankles and…”
Bourne went on for five or ten minutes like that.
Apple insisted that the first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem. The second step was, oddly, throwing your hacked iPhone out and buying a new clean one.
“It’s better to just start all over,” insisted Schiller.
Ouch!
If I had an iPhone, I’d keep it in a prophylactic sock at all times.
But all I have is this tin can and some string. Oh woe!
Wake up, Nxxx! I need some help here.
Stop the….
um…
Pudding.
No, wait…
Stop the… uh…
Never mind. I don’t even have a iPhone to hack, so I’ll just use this post to break Ace’s streak here…
I was also amused by Apples’ dissatisfaction with their customers’ propensity for mischief. Apparently Woz doesn’t think too much of Steve’s “way too soon” price reduction, and the fact that his early adopters were left holding a couple-of-hundred-dollar bag either.
I leave a link to the story, but that would resemble real Apple news, and that’s just not appropriate in this context.
Did I still get seven?
Wow! Yes I did.
Sorry Ace, overslept.
I feel unclean, could be that I’ve seen the inside of my Mac, or I haven’t showered yet.
Oops. That was supposed to read “I’d leave a link…”
Sorry…
I’m not sorry for stacking though.
Sorry Ace, the string broke.
That’s okay–since the string broke my wife might believe I actually need an iPhone now. I believe the tin can-to-iPhone upgrade price is $99.
Gosh…
sometimes I speak badly to my MacBook Amateur. Sometime I even shout at him…
Should I care ?
I mean, for the ditch and the pants ?
And…resist temptation :
Google ads are fun, all the time.
My name is TuCats, and I am an electronics addict. I have been clean and sober for over twelve hours, since I restored my iPhone to it’s factory state.
There is a path, of twelve steps, to overcoming your addiction…
1. We admit we are powerless over our urge to tinker and hack our iPhones.
2. We admit that an iPhone Restore can bring us back to sanity.
3. We surrender to Apple Marketing’s message as best we can understand it.
4. We made a fearless inventory of our short-comings to see if we needed to buy any more iPods as well.
5. By restoring our iPhones, we admit to the mighty servers at the iTunes Music Store that we had hacked our iPhones.
6. We are ready and open to the the next software update to fix any defects in our iPhones.
7. We humbly ask Apple to deliver the updates really soon.
8. We’ve made a list of iPhone hacks we (probably) won’t install again.
9. We’ve apologized publically to Apple, our spouses and children, and our fellow nerds.
10. We’ll keep a list of future hacks we also will probably want to apply, and admit our weaknesses.
11. We’ll monitor rumor boards as well as public announcement forums attempting to get the latest hint of information about iPhone updates.
12. Having been awakened to the dangers of hacking an iPhone, we will make a better list next time of what we did so others can more successfully hack their iPhones and enjoy the Radiant Feeling of Power over your own CONSUMER ELECTRONIC GIZMOS F*O*R A*L*L T*I*M*E !!!!
YAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!
Crap.
My name is TuCats, and I am an electronics addict. I have been clean and sober for…. 11 seconds.
Boy, everybody is slow today; I made top 20!
15 even.
It’s the little people inside the iPhone I feel sorry for. They’re doing their best but no, that’s not good enough is it? Everyone’s all “MORE! MORE! MORE! little people.”
And VD. I feel sorry for people with VD.
Hi TuCats!!
I’m not slow.
18 SUCKERS!!! Booyaa!
iPhone cracking makes baby Jebus cry!
Sure glad I got the touchscreen iPod instead! No pesky ball and chain, I mean phone, to annoy me. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV series looks right at home playing on this thing too.
Gotta go, the Vogons are about to destroy the earth.
Another damn post about iPhones, don’t have one, probably never will, (well, 100 gigs of storage and make it less than a 100 bucks,.. maybe)
blank, don’t worry about the earth, I heard another one gets pulled in as a replacement from a parallel demension, damn plural zones!!!y
kingthedestroyer, I believe you’re looking for one of these.
Also, consider yourself lucky you don’t live in Sod All, South Dakota. We don’t even have iPhones out here. We have to wait for steam power and autogyros to deliver messages back and forth. We tried creating our new standard for SMS back in the late 90’s, but the pigeons kept getting shot down in hunting season.
What’s the deal, Apple? Why don’t you (and when I say you, I mean “you, Apple”) provide coverage out here in South Dakota? Huh? Huh? What’s with all the SD hatin’? Huh? Huh?
Huh?
Sure blowed up good though!
Wondering how many bricks will be left after the update … Maybe Apple’s announcement is just a warning shot only with no more ammunition …
Hey, there might be a sustainable upside to Apple’s nefarious.. I mean sensible business plan.
If enough iPhones get bricked, users could get form a cooperative organization to repurpose the bricks in to something else.
How about the Great Wall of iPhones?
A really shiny offramp to One Continuous Loop?
iFurniture… Just needs cushions?
You get the idea. This could be win/win people!
It seems like “face down in a ditch, in a pool of your own vomit” was used in a negative connotation. Just exactly what the hell are college sophomores supposed to do on Friday nights? Study? Read frigging books?
Frankly, I’m apalled. Also, I have an Allen wrench set on my desk and I have no idea why.
Exactly which kind of Allen wrenches are those? I’m missing my Fred Allen, Steve Allen, Burns and Allen, and Woody Allen wrenches. Actually, my Woody Allen wrench is still here but it’s rusty from the flooded tunnels.
I have an Allen A Dale, Paul Allen, Tim Allen, Allen Ginsburg, and two Ethan Allens. I don’t know how I came to have an extra Ethan Allen. I think it came with the armoire.
Taxi.