open or not, but we all have to agree that the way the iPhone is ‘closed’ from the user is one pile of horse hockey!

IT IS RIDICULOUS!

I love my iPhone, I think it’s great and all and am a big apple fan. I didn’t mind the stupid way of adding custom ringtones as far as I could find my way around it easily, but the thing that tipped me off was the fact that we CANNOT add a custom text message sound. I mean, what the hell?!
It is stupid, unnecessary, idiotic and absurd. And yes, this was the reason why I’ve jailbroken my phone – just to put a bloody custom sms sound!

For a moment there I thought I could roll with what apple did, but all the sounds on the phone are crap, and I mean REAL crap. Now I have a sweet sound from ‘Worms 3′

But You see what my problem is, right? I can’t customise my bloody phone! And it is MY phone, I OWN the device and I want to have my wallpaper, my sounds, my own layout – everything just the way I like. The day when I’ll be licensing a device from a company will be the same day when I’ll start paying for playing games online and will eat my own arse!

PS I’d also like to have an iPhone file browser of a sort, so I can put a .pdf file on my phone and go through it whenever I like, or keep it for reference when I’ll need it.

I find it funny to think that people think making the iphone open source would do apple good. If it would do apple good then it would already have been done. If it were good then linux would be the #1 OS on the market (and it isn’t close to #1). Making iphone opensource would cause more problems than it would solve.

People buy a mac product not because it locks them into the hardware and software and because it keeps them in a box. They buy mac products because the software and hardware are tightly controlled so that the user experience is the best it can be. I am a hundred times more satisfied with my mac products (macbook, iphone, apple tv) than i am with anything that MS or linux has come out with, and I have tried a lot of things. Sure you can create word and excel docs with a pocket pc or G1 or the offer special features like scanning barcodes (G1) but those are not commonly useful. I don’t find myself in a store with a product in my hand and wanting to scan the barcode with my phone to search the product. I can do a google search with my iphone (and thanks to google…using speech) and find product reviews without having to scan a barcode.

Making the iphone open source would cause confusion for so many people. When i had my ppc (pocket PC) i had the hardest time finding software to suite my needs and much more figuring out how to install it and make it function properly. The iphone is so easy to use and finding and installing apps is as easy as a search in itunes.

Not to also mention you can jailbreak your iphone and have more control over it and just as much control over it as the ppc or g1.

The iphone allows the simple everyday user a mac experience…which is the best experience ever. It also provides those who want a little more control the option (with consequences, but not heavy ones) to jailbreak and take control. I am not going to argue about jailbreaking, but it is an option.

In the end, apple would lose if they open sourced and so would the user. There are only a remote few who want to play around with the limitless possibilities of an open source iphone (compared to those who just want to use it as it is). Making their software open source would ruin the integrity, end of story.

They are providing selling products that are simple to use, have attractive design and … In the longer term…anything can happen. To say that they never will do one thing or another is nonsense. There are no guarantees that Apple or even IBM or MS will play the same role in 10 or 20 years as they do today. Did any of you forsee in ‘86 what IBM would become today? What about what would happen to music distribution?

That said, they have to think ahead…and i do think greater openness will be required. I doubt that they need it right now.

Same goes for selling OSX for other platforms. Right now, that would be bad for business. Get out your calculator and do the math. They would have to become huge on the os-side to match the returns they get from selling “monopolised” hw.
You might want to use OSX on your device… there is no business in Apple allowing it.

Like all corporations, when they are forced…they will…and they will become more open. Not just yet.

“Five months after the release of the iPhone 3G last July, a team of hackers has finally figured out a way to alter the device’s software so that it can be unlocked for use on networks other than AT&T’s. That team is, of course, the infamous iPhone Dev-Team, most recently seen hacking the iPhone to run Linux.”

Read the story: http://www.macworld…hone3g_unlocked.html

But I don’t see how it would benefit Apple.

All that it really needs is some features Apple now shields us from. That’s why they loosened up a lot already.

Either they lower restrictions even more or they will be passed by others just the same. In fact their iPhone has been hacked since day one and so will every other device that is ‘proprietary’.