Eh, some people clearly need to chill out!

I would suggest that they try one of our wonderful Irish alcoholic beverages & preferably in a pub... maybe they might even get out and meet people ...

It didn't offend me in the least. You would have to be one of those super-sensitive types who get offended by everything.

I can assure you that you didn't offend millions of Irish people, just a few wound-up types.

We're a bit more self-assured about our national identity than to be offended by a masthead colour lol

I think we need to chillax a bit and look at how this would operate in a bricks n' mortar shop.

If you were shopping at Tesco do you think that they'd take kindly to a product that said "Ariel selected by Sainsbury's as washing powder of the year 2010"

Or, for a US equivalent ... shopping at Wal-Mart and you get "Tide, more Costco shoppers love us!"

It's tough, but that's just the reality of retail, e-tail really no different.

A supermarket would be threatening to delist any product that did that too.

Unlike CDs, you can't rip a book and carry it's content around on a portable device like an iPod. If publishers want to get the ebook Market up and running, they need to give people access to an epub or some other industry standard version of the book they've bought either by providing the file on physical media such as a cd rom with the book or by providing a download code (perhaps that only works a limited number of times)

I think a lot more people would buy into the idea of being able to have a book on their shelf & in their mobile device.

I am most definitely not paying the same price again for a substandard ebook version of a novel!!

Well, what do people expect?

If you hack a device, install proper security measures and stop bitching about the manufacturer.

Like it or loath it, Apple's default setup on those phones is secure. This stuff is totally beyond their control and it's rather unfair to suggest that it has implications for iPhones.

Apple could prevent some of this kind of nonsense by selling the damn things SIM free without ball-breaking contracts and network lock-ins.

However, in the interim, their product is an iPhone, with their software on the networks that they have agreements with, and not anything else.

That situation will only change when competition increases. We are really only starting to see the emergence of competing platforms, the iPhone has a couple of years' head-start.

Google Android, Nokia's Maemo and perhaps Palm Pré (but it's a remote perhaps) will undoubtedly shake up the market quite a lot and Apple will inevitably relax some of its policies as it will become more concerned about shifting phones and apps than getting money out of network operators.

i.e. we will quite likely see a more iPod like strategy as the touch-screen smart phone with apps becomes a more generic and widespread device.

What is it about nokia and symbian that they ate being ignored I'm the tech media? The US tech media in particular is fixated on the iPhone, which I can understand but also on blackberry and palm which are really tiny players compared to symbian!

It's like nokia is suddenly that boring, frumpy Finnish company...

I know symbian might not light the room on fire, but I've been using a nokia 5800 which uses S60 with a touch interface and I have to say in many respects it's well able to hold it's own againsty iPhone.

Not quite as slick, but massively more functional!

The phone is also much lighter and seems to hold a charge fir much longer too.

I just wish nokia would sort out their GUI and get going on some serious pr!

They have good products and sucky marketing!!!

As far as the mobile networks are concerned, the iPhone is just like any other GSM/UMTS device. The network's not any more or less secure because the iPhone's been jailbroken.

They are talking out of their rear end and making references to 1980s analogue mobile phone hacking problems that have never existed with GSM.

The only thing that Apple controls is anything to do with push-notification or MobileMe, that's just all internet-based/IP stuff. It has nothing to do with the core of the mobile phone infrastructure.

It's a bit like saying that if you hack the software on your washing machine you could cause a global power network meltdown. It ain't going to happen

Access control to the phone network is built into the network and how it interacts with the SIM card.

Hacking unique ID codes on the phone just makes them more prone to theft, as they can be given new identities if mobile phone companies black list them, it doesn't however mean that they could actually access someone's account. As far as the network is concerned it's connecting to a SIM card.

Cloning phones ID codes was something that was a problem about 20 years ago when Analogue mobile phones with very primitive network security were all the rage.

What Apple are suggesting is total nonsense. It would be interesting to see a statement from the GSM Association on it .. (and very embarrassing for the person who came out with this claim!)

Surely the mobile phone networks access control is on the SIM card on a GSM/3g network?

Perhaps they're confusing GSM technology with some old analogue system like AMPS or ETACS.

GSM networks are pretty robust systems that can't be taken down too easily by a rogue iPhone.

Making such nonsensical claims just makes apple look stupid!!

I'd just like to point out that Alcatel-Lucent is a French multinational, the Lucent bit was purchased having almost gone bust, it wasn't really a merger.

The company's incorporated in Paris.