back to article Apple pressures Toyota to kill jailbreaker ad

Apple has fired another shot in its war against iOS jailbreakers by pressuring Toyota to stop an ad campaign it was running on ModMyi.com, a website catering to jailbroken iPhones, and to pull a Toyota iOS "theme" available through the site. "I received a call from our contact at [Toyota's ad agency] Velti this evening as well …

COMMENTS

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  1. bex

    inconcistancy

    how can it be legal to jailbreak an iphone but not a ps3?

    1. asdf
      Flame

      easy because so far its not

      Don't believe any court has ruled Geohot has done anything wrong so far. Sony is just misusing the legal system with their massive resources to punish individual citizens. Ultimately the DMCA is unconstitutional and big biz knows this and why they have avoided like the plague having the issue go before the supreme court. Sadly though big biz has been able to extend copyright to near eternity. God help us if steamboat Mickey ever went public domain.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Horns

      Correct

      Correct - there is no difference. Jailbreaking an iPhone and jailbreaking a PS3 are the same.

      However distributing the source code and secure keys would (potentially) be a different matter (to be proven or not in court).

  2. Alex 14

    Stupid title stupid duuuuuur

    "As we've said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably."

    The use of the word "violate" obviously not an accident there, when the standard term is "invalidate". Also vaguely trollish lols at the notion that it's jailbreaking, rather than flaws in the phone itself, that could cause it to become unreliable...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well...

      As far as the Apple TV2 is concerned, it may work more reliably when not jailbroken, but it is prety damn useless.

      The only way that the iTV2 could be any use to me was to jailbreak it. That's the bottom line.

      No jailbreak, no point in owning it.

  3. WizardRobeAndHat
    Jobs Horns

    Why the jailbreak hate?

    Apple should love me for buying loads in the App Store - why do they care if I get a few odds and ends for apps that received their ban-hammer?

  4. Mectron

    It all about money

    Obviously Sony spend a lot more money buying a judge then Apple did. The amercian justice system is just a supermarket where any one can buy any verdict they want as long thay pay a lot of money for it. If they where rea justice in thr USA these thing happen:

    1. the MPAA/RIAA wil be imediatly shutdown

    2. DRM of any kind whould be illegal.

    when i buy something, IT BECOME MINE AND I CAN DO WHATEVER IS SEE FIT WITH IT.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What's the justice system to do with this?

      There's not even mention of any legal proceedings.

      Seems like something that was simply settled over a large order of Lexus.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Shurley thats

        Lexii?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Exceptions

    "granted a set of exceptions to the Digital Milleneium Copyright Act (DCMA), one of which explicitly stated that jailbreaking was legal."

    And? The DMCA should not exist in the first place. Making draconian laws then placating the people by being lenient in their enforcement? Sounds familiar. Still does not excuse having the draconian law in the first place and enforcing it many many times since then.

  6. Gene Cash Silver badge

    I voted with my wallet

    And bought an Android phone instead. No matter how much I lust for an iPad (and I really really do) I won't buy one until Jobs gets the corncob out of his ass.

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge
      Pint

      Yeah - the only problem with that is ..

      .. that you are now handing data hand over fist to a company which pretends to be "free" and "open", oh, and "not evil" yet has failed at every opportunity to prove it really is.

      I have a whole collection of phones (side effect of my work), and I prefer the iPhone, closely followed by an old Sony Ericsson P1i. Both suppliers are lock-in merchants, but the damn things are usable which is what really counts.

      I also have the Sony Xperia X10 pro and the HTC Wildfire, and they are both crap in comparison - even more so when I analyse what they are actually lobbing over WiFi when left uncontrolled (thank you Wireshark and Etherape). The whole farce of "this app may do x,y, and z" approval is BS - users will press "yes" anyway because they want the App to work, and the "x,y,z" is never defined precisely enough for them to cotton on that it is shipping their entire life abroad (Pandora being a case in point).

      So you can take your Android and shove it. If you need any education regarding Google I suggest you read google.com/accounts/tos. You will find chapter 11 enlightening - especially in context of email.

      Oh, and I'm not an Apple fan either. That's actually the main problem with Apple kit - it may cause you to be seen as a fan. I just have one rule: it must work. For me.

      So there. Time for a coffee. Scrap that, beer - nice weather here :-).

  7. Cameron Colley

    Simple Answer:

    Don't buy Apple. Jailbreaking is just a pathetic way of pretending that you aren't taken in by Apple's marketing strategy -- doing so makes you a smug hypocrite who should know better.

    If you want a device you can do what you like with then buy one -- don't pay Apple to do their best to prevent people from using their devices as they wish.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sadly...

      TuxPhone is not yet available for sale and it's not looking like it's going anywhere.

      Oh do you mean Android? Those let me do little more (or just about the same if they're from Motorola). You're just deluded (maybe even smug hypocrite) if you believe you can do whatever you want with them.

      1. Cameron Colley

        RE: Sadly...

        Please point me to a case where someone is being threatened with legal action for suggesting jailbreaking a Android, Symbian, MeeGo or Windows phone.

        I owned a few Windows phones in my time -- and they allowed me to install any app I pleased, including ones I wrote, without paying Microsoft anything. I can do the same on my Symbian phone (admittedly I haven't) and could do on an Android device.

        Yes, Android's code is, in effect, closed source -- but it's an open prison compared to Apple's maximum security one.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Legal action?

          Care to point me to where Apple is threatening actual legal action over jailbreaking?

          Google also raised objections to the Cyanogen mod, and as far as I'm aware even Nokia was seen closing downloads of the HelloCarbide S60 'jailbreaking' tool.

          MeeGo was never a relevant platform to warrant any such effort.

          As for the Microsoft side I remember they had a few words with the Chevron WP7 team...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Obviously

    Toyota just wanted the free publicity and needed to look all tough and daring.

    Well for the masses it seems to have worked.

    Don't believe they wanted to take this much further, probably some obscure department at Apple just called and said, "hey remember those Lexus on order? well you can forget them if you don't cut this shit" and that was enough.

  9. RichyS
    Stop

    Taste

    Surely it should be the laws of good taste that get that theme removed. Just vile.

  10. Mark 65

    Instability

    "Unauthorized modification of iOS has been a major source of instability, disruption of services, and other issues."

    But not as much as iOS updates are

  11. zen1
    Grenade

    Pssst, Steve...

    I just want a fucking smartphone that just works the way I want it to. I don't care if you find my choice of apps offensive; I don't care if you get pissy if I install something that YOU don't like and I certainly don't care if you get upset if I make an improvement that YOU didn't provide. The phone is MY property. If you have a problem with MY terms of ownership, you can expect to never see another damn dime of my money.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well you'll be saving a lot of money

      Because almost if not all the smarphones on the market will conflict with your terms of ownership...

    2. Wayland Sothcott 1
      Linux

      People think they own a cat...

      ...but the cat believes it owns the people.

      People think they own an iPhone but perhaps the iPhone owns them. After all who's getting the better deal?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Umm?

        Obviously people in both cases? Why would people own cats or iPhones otherwise? Or are you suggesting there some mass masochism going on?

        If people can afford it there's plenty of enjoyment to come from both.

    3. Ilgaz

      You buy the hardware

      You guys always get it wrong. "software license" is intellectual property and you buy right to use it and on their terms it is. Similar stuff for music/movies but I don't want to flood here.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile in a galaxy not far away

    "Microsoft and Toyota are jointly investing $12 million in a bid to build a cloud-based platform that will connect cars, homes and the electrical smart grids. The joint venture will be run out of Toyota Media Services and will leverage Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud services."

  13. Joe User
    Jobs Horns

    Apple's new motto

    You'll take whatever we deign to sell you and be damned glad to have it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Missing something?

      Isn't that the motto of every company?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Horns

      RE: Apple's new motto

      That's the problem, they do and they are.

  14. hplasm
    Jobs Horns

    Isn't that the old motto...

    v2?

    Also available in white.

  15. James Micallef Silver badge
    WTF?

    I still don't understand....

    ...why Toyota folded under the pressure. What hold do Apple have over Toyota? Do Apple source their company cars exclusively from them? Does Toyota's marketing somehow think that it cannot reach iPhone users without having to use their iPhone as the marketing channel? Is it even a legal option for Apple to, say, ban a Toyota app from their app store simply because they do not like Toyota advertising on a website that is 100% legal?

    I mean, Apple is a huge huge company (more than twice Toyota in terms of market capitalisation), but Toyota is hardly a minnow, it has a market cap. of 121 billion

    1. mhenriday
      Big Brother

      James, you have to understand that in upright business circles

      certain things are simply not done - e g, anything that might benefit consumers to the detriment of their corporate masters. Toyota committed a faux pas - but fortunately for the way the world works, had the good sense to cave when the error was brought to their attention....

      Henri

  16. MrT
    Joke

    Next...

    ... Apple sue Toyota for naming the iQ.

    Hyundai had better watch out....

  17. g e

    Toyota phonecall

    Apparently the person who answered the phone at Toyota at first mistook the caller for a small lonely child crying uncontrollably.

    It just turned out to be Apple whining.

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