"Bricked" means irrevocably turned into a brick. This sounds like something a little less offensive.

Sure, it's not good, but it's not "bricked".

...the current beta firmware has expired, necessitating a download of the updated SDK which has a replacement firmware. iBricked? Nah. Very poor headline.

As an electronic device it's as much use as a brick. However with skill you may be able to unbrick it. Getting to the main circuit board there may well be a J-Tag connection or reset line that can be fed with a signal to bring it back to life.

If it simply requires a new firmware download in the usual way then I would not call it bricked.

Depends, I wouldn't necessarily describe being bricked as irrevocable, just beyond the means/understanding of a standard luser to fix.

After all, I remember several earlier stories about apple's updates bricking iphones, and people then managing to fix them, just that the average luser with little knowledge won't be able to.

Well, bricked means unusable due to firmware not working correctly, but it doesn't mean that nothing can be done to revert or fix that behavior.

standard luser != developer

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/brick.html

... and ...

"In the strictest sense of the term, bricking must imply that the device is completely unrecoverable without some hardware replacement. If the device can be repaired through software or firmware changes, it's not a brick." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_%28electronics%29

Sure, it's a Wikifiddler definition, but it's the one most people use.

Microsoft broke RDC on OSX last week and no-one really complained. Devs can be understanding about betas.

"Well, bricked means unusable due to firmware not working correctly, but it doesn't mean that nothing can be done to revert or fix that behavior."

No, they're right! Bricked means irrevocably* in a state, where it cannot be ever be used again, except perhaps as a brick.

* This includes any situation, where there may be means of fixing it, but that these are inaccessible to the public, even via manufacturers' repair centres.

If you've got bad firmware on it, but can (relatively) easily replace it, and re-enable the phone, then it is not a brick.

Usually it is what it means, bricking a device means you're screwed and it won't work. The term has been used for indicating firmware-wipeout cases, usually those where JTAG access/knowledge is required.

See the Sony PSP, you can "brick" it by shutting it down while updating firmware, but then unbrick it using the Pandora Battery trick. Same for the NSLU2 devices if you're stupid enough to wipe the bootloader!

For the PSP case, it was inaccessible to the public until the Pandora Battery project emerged. So until then, it was for all purposes "bricked".

The situation is more akin to a trial version of windows 7 running out. If you're using a beta as a production machine, you deserve what you get, be it windows, mac or otherwise.

It's a Jesus phone, remember. It'll be fine in a few days.