I got into a discussion with someone online about Apple's iPhone and about smart phones in general and during the course of this discussion it made me realize that people often talk about Jailbreaking as if it were the answer to everything. More specifically, we were debating which smart phone is "better" than the rest. I'm quite sure no one has ever covered this topic before.
So, I expressed that I am of the opinion that iPhone is a piece of shit and severely over-hyped. I happen to own Apple's simplified, music-centric version, so I have a little experience with the platform. You may have heard of it, they call it an iPod Touch. Well, as I was saying, I made my point that I didn't prefer the iPhone and that I thought the T-Mobile G1 was superior and one of the guys in the discussion said he liked the iPhone better even though he has a G1 himself. I brought up the fact that Apple is very strict and can often appear to operate without rhyme or reason when rejecting apps (developers often complain that Apple has given no reason for rejecting their app submission). I also mentioned the recent buzz about Apple rejecting Google's Voice application.
Well, someone else mentioned that if you jailbreak your iPhone it resolves all those problems, therefore iPhone wins. Wait, what? It does?
That's what really got me thinking. Why do people think that being able to mod/hack/jailbreak a device as a work-around is a trump card that makes that device better than all of its peers? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. If anything, I should be using "jailbreak" as a case against it and its usefulness, not the other way around. If you have to "break" or "hack" something (effectively changing its intended use in some way) in order for it to work the way you think it should it doesn't make this device that much better, it makes it that much worse. Even worse if the only real reason you're doing it is because the manufacturer decided against a feature or add-on that you thought it ought to have. In other words, a feature that wasn't included not because it wasn't technically possible or would have negative drawbacks on the resources available to the device or any other technical reason, but simply because the manufacturer said, "hmmm, we'd rather not add that."
All I'm saying is you can't use jailbreaking as a case for the pro-Apple side of an argument. It's just dumb.
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2 comments:
hey... you spelled jailbreak wrong...HA
I agree with your view. I think that if you have to "hack" a device to get it to do what you want, that does not make it superior in any way. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that it only points out that the device was completely capable of doing whatever it was that you wanted, but was then locked-down to make the options you want impossible. (and any locked-down device is not superior)
Though, in saying that, I am thinking, if you have two different devices, totally and completely unlocked that would be the real test of their capabilities. But if you have to jailbreak one to get it to do what you want, and you DON'T have to mod the other in any way to get it to do what you want, clearly, the winner is the one you DON'T have to mod.
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