The “I’m a Mac” ads have jumped the shark.

Check this out:

Apple has apparently included a blacklisting mechanism in iPhone OS 2.x through which the device can phone home, check for unauthorized applications, and disable them. The OS includes a URL that points to a page containing a list of unauthorized applications, specifically those listed here.

According to Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the book iPhone Open Application Development and an iPhone forensics manual:

This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.

I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.

If true, this really goes beyond being simple anti-choice and into some weird authoritarian realm. Why shouldn’t a consumer be allowed to modify a product he paid for?

Apple = Microsoft with better UI

COOLER HEADS PREVAIL: CNET follows up with some legitimate reasons for a kill-switch.

Yesterday, while bitching about my experience with AT&T’s 800 # customer service, I asked my boss what he was doing with his Gen 1 iPhone when he bought the new one. “Nothing,” he said, “You want it for like $25?”

Done. The screen is cracked pretty badly and Apple will charge me quite a bit to replace it but the phone works great.

So here’s the outcome of the AT&T customer service: I walked into my local AT&T store this afternoon (after the iPhone rush) and told the rep I wanted to hook up a used iPhone I’d just purchased from a friend. He told me all I needed to do was drop a blank SIM card into the phone, attach it to my Mac, fire up iTunes and iTunes would guide me through the setup. He handed me the blank SIM card.

I’ve never been an iTunes user but I opened it with the phone connected. iTunes prompted me to create a new account, asked me information about my AT&T account and walked me through the setup very easily. Now I’m waiting for the iPhone to update to the 2.0 software. Supposedly, the phone will let me know when it is active and working though I’ve already received an email telling me that “AT&T has successfully activated your iPhone service.”

So, for all the annoyance of Wednesday’s encounter with AT&T, today worked like a charm. So far. If the phone doesn’t work soon, I will change my tune since my old phone is already kaput.

Well, I had pretty much made my mind up to buy a damn iPhone despite my misgivings. I went to my local AT&T store about a week ago and asked the friendly customer service rep about upgrading, pricing, et cetera. His response was: as long as I would re-sign for another two years with AT&T, I could get the discounted pricing; it didn’t matter when my current contract expired.

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I’ve been greatly debating whether or not to purchase the new iPhone next week. I want the convenience of the internet on my phone but I have a gut distrust of Apple and AT&T. Whenever I talk about it with friends, I realize I sound like a crazy person because I say things like, “I don’t want to use iTunes” and they think, “What’s the big deal about iTunes?”

But I realize the big deal to me is choice. I don’t want to be locked down. I don’t run iTunes on my iPod and I don’t even run Mac’s OS on my Mac. I like variety. I like choice. I think it was Reason’s Nick Gillespie who said (probably in much better language), “Freedom means being able to opt out.”

With Apple, opting out is always difficult. But I do. And I will again. Because I’m planning on buying the iPhone. After all, no one else is offering the internet on a mobile device like they are. But the minute the Google Phone appears with its open source operating system, I’ll jump ship. I’ll leave AT&T and Apple and sure there will be a penalty to pay. But getting a customer to pay a one time penalty for breaking a contract isn’t exactly good business. Good business is giving the customer choice.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just buy the OpenMoko.

UPDATE: And now this news, new OpenMoko on sale July 4th.