The new ruling from the U.S. Government allowing iPhone users to legally unlock (or jailbreak) their iPhones is a step in the right direction. For the mobile app market to really develop into something akin to the PC software/application market, users must be able to put whatever type of (legal) apps they want on their devices, without a corporate “big brother” acting as a gatekeeper.
Currently virtually every other handset in the market place allows users to put “non-approved” apps on their handsets. For example, every Java “Feature” phone allows the downloading and installation of J2ME apps – regardless of their origin. Blackberry phones do the same for Blackberry apps (and J2ME apps), and the same is true for Symbian OS-based phones as well. Even the new Android phones flooding the market have an option that the user simply has to select to allow the download of non-Android market apps.
Sure, the argument from Apple has always been that they’re just trying to guarantee a common user experience across all apps on the iPhone, and by doing so they can assure that the quality of iPhones will remain high. That may well be, but selling people a device and then telling them what they can and can’t have on it is a little too 1984-ish for our tastes. As Jennifer Stisa Granick, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’) civil liberties director said: “Consumers should be allowed to use and modify the devices that they purchase the way they want. “If you bought it, you own it,”.
It’s just too bad that the government has to get involved to make Apple do the right thing.
Filed under: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, J2ME, Java, mobile apps, Uncategorized
