my delayed iPhone 1.1.1 + third party app rant email to steve jobs
From: Jane Lee <...>
Date: Sep 29, 2007 10:31 PM
Subject: I'm trying so hard to be a faithful customer! And shareholder!
To: Steve Jobs <...>
Dear Mr. Jobs,
I know you're never going to read this, but I need to rant.
Why did third party applications have to break with the new iPhone software update? I'm so disappointed. I probably fall into the minority of users, but here are my thoughts.
1. These third party applications will never hurt the AT&T network. If they could, the AT&T network would have been screwed up many times over, and all other networks would screw up from the plethora of Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry, and Symbian applications out there running on smartphones since the very start. Instead of spending your time purposefully telling your employees to cripple the iPhone on purpose, why not tell them to work on sandboxing? Sandboxing is in Leopard, and it's a well-known security mechanism that is in use in some way or another everywhere for safely running untrusted code. It's not impossible to implement on the phone..that is...unless the idiot behind the idea of running every single application on the iPhone as root is working on it. That was really dumb. Anyone who knows anything about *nix security knows not to run anything as root unless absolutely necessary. Lame excuse. You would have gotten a less-offended response from the community and media if you just officially said "we hate third party software developers, screw off, we're never going to give you an iPhone SDK"..or maybe that would be a PR nightmare..wait, it was already one.
2. Third party apps make the iPhone that much more interesting. I use mcolloquy for IRC more often than I use the phone, texting, iPod and safari features on my phone, and that's saying a lot. That's just one application! I can ssh or vnc to my servers or computers at home to get things done. There's NES.app for games and Frotz for interactive fiction that I love. Searching for wifi networks? Simple with Stumbler. The weDict dictionary has so many dictionaries to choose from that I don't need to go on butt-slow EDGE to look up words. I can record voice notes with VNotes, which comes in real handy. Hey will you look at all the games, too? Some of them are immensely fun, taking advantage of the accelerometer too, like PigShooter. The only non-phone/texting/safari/iPod Apple-provided applications I actually use anymore are the camera, calendar, and maps, and the rest of them are hidden away with this lovely tool called rSBT, which also lets me change the icons in the dock - I got rid of Mail, cause I never use it. Replaced it with Texts, which works out a lot better for me. And of course, there's the amazing Summerboard that replaces the Springboard, which scrolls all my applications (too many to fit!) and even themes it. My iPhone currently looks like Leopard, complete with translucent bar up at top, dock, and background image. Yummy. Much more so than the default bland black.
3. Web apps are not the way to go. I watched your WWDC keynote at the moscone center as a WWDC attendee. I was just flabbergasted when you mentioned that this was the only way to get apps officially working on the phone. Steve, until technologies like Google Gears matures and supports webkit on iPhone, there are unbelievable numbers of ideas you can't even begin to start on because the technology is just not there for Safari on the iPhone. The web-based method was an obvious one everyone already knew, and you know we were all hoping for an official iPhone SDK. That was a letdown. Nevermind that some of the most popular technologies in use or soon to come to create rich internet applications are unsupported..you know, Adobe AIR/Flash, JavaFX/Java, Silverlight. So um, what apps? Except for iPhone-specific versions of sites and services, people have mostly lost interest because native applications enabled them to do more. Well, back to webapps now, I suppose. How boring..and slow on EDGE. Oh by the way? 3G is more common than open wifi networks with active internet connections in Los Angeles. The only time I ever use wifi is at home. Every other time I pull out the phone, there's plenty of wifi but always protected or MAC address-filtered. No wifi cracking tools for the iPhone yet... In comparison, most of the places I go to with my friends/family with 3G phones usually have it available without falling back to EDGE. That is just how useless wifi is.
4. The price drop. Thanks for the Apple credit, but I think people would maybe have been happier with $100 AT&T credit or a check in the mail. Or, maybe not a price drop so soon, even though that's how things work..that's not how quickly things normally work. The timing was awful, and the credit didn't do much to prevent the ton of negative publicity everywhere.
Please stop crippling the iPhone. Let people develop apps for it. Officially is better than unofficially, particularly if Apple works on phone security. Apple has an incentive to keep users on AT&T (hands-down the worst part of the whole iPhone situation), so cripple the unlockers all you want (until someone decides Apple and AT&T don't have a legal leg to stand on). Why hurt everyone else by screwing us over? I'm sure the people who don't update their iPhone software because their apps will stop working pose a bigger security threat in other ways than all of the 3rd party applications combined can to the network. And judging from the security updates in iPhone update 1.1.1 (at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306586), I'm right. And I bet there's even more that just haven't been disclosed or found yet in iPhone software <1.1.1. I can deal with all the XSS, MITM, XHR injection, and cross-domain javascript security issues in Safari/Webkit alone. That's how much I love these apps!
Since I first purchased the phone on June 29th, countless numbers of people have been asking me their thoughts about the phone everywhere, from waiting in line at Starbucks and Whole Foods and even in class or while walking down the street, almost every single day. Probably over a hundred people have physically played around with my phone, zooming in on slashdot.org in mobile Safari and poking lights in Lights Out (another 3rd party application) with glee. Most of the time they were intrigued by the third party applications. And most of the time, I recommended they get the phone if they're not looking for much in a smartphone-wannabe (officially, until you install third party applications). But now? I have to choose between a software update and my third party apps? I'll stick with the latter. And I've started discouraging people from purchasing iPhones until it's rehacked and/or Apple starts to support these applications that do nothing but enhance the iPhone experience for the end user.
As a huge Apple fanatic and computer geek in general, lots of people come to me asking for advice about what to buy. And I like recommending Apple when it fits their needs. But the iPhone? Can't even run games they can play on a cheaper iPod or vastly cheaper smartphone with another OS? That would go against every belief of mine when it comes to selecting a product, particularly a phone. As a result, I cannot honestly recommend the iPhone anymore. I was already pretty shaky before about it, and the official stance and software update forced me to make a decision.
So far, that's three people who will never go and purchase an iPhone and accessories. My mother who's been wanting one since day one will inherit my iPhone so I can buy a better smartphone (the nokia e90 looks sweet) if these apps can't be hacked to run on iPhone software 1.1.1+, and two of my friends, both of whom have purchased other phones now. Soon to be four people, as I dissuade a family friend tomorrow who has been asking about what I think about her replacing her iPod and phone with the iPhone. It's barely been a week since the official Apple announcement about disabling unlocking (with no mention of third party apps...).
I implore you to change you and your company's stance on this policy. The original statement only mentioned unlocked phones. I have not unlocked my phone. I have been an AT&T (before the AT&T acquisition, Cingular...and before the Cingular renaming, Pacbell) customer for over a decade. I just want to run these applications so I can actually use this "smart"phone as more than just a phone. Is that too much to ask for?
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jane Lee
Date: Sep 29, 2007 10:31 PM
Subject: I'm trying so hard to be a faithful customer! And shareholder!
To: Steve Jobs <...>
Dear Mr. Jobs,
I know you're never going to read this, but I need to rant.
Why did third party applications have to break with the new iPhone software update? I'm so disappointed. I probably fall into the minority of users, but here are my thoughts.
1. These third party applications will never hurt the AT&T network. If they could, the AT&T network would have been screwed up many times over, and all other networks would screw up from the plethora of Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry, and Symbian applications out there running on smartphones since the very start. Instead of spending your time purposefully telling your employees to cripple the iPhone on purpose, why not tell them to work on sandboxing? Sandboxing is in Leopard, and it's a well-known security mechanism that is in use in some way or another everywhere for safely running untrusted code. It's not impossible to implement on the phone..that is...unless the idiot behind the idea of running every single application on the iPhone as root is working on it. That was really dumb. Anyone who knows anything about *nix security knows not to run anything as root unless absolutely necessary. Lame excuse. You would have gotten a less-offended response from the community and media if you just officially said "we hate third party software developers, screw off, we're never going to give you an iPhone SDK"..or maybe that would be a PR nightmare..wait, it was already one.
2. Third party apps make the iPhone that much more interesting. I use mcolloquy for IRC more often than I use the phone, texting, iPod and safari features on my phone, and that's saying a lot. That's just one application! I can ssh or vnc to my servers or computers at home to get things done. There's NES.app for games and Frotz for interactive fiction that I love. Searching for wifi networks? Simple with Stumbler. The weDict dictionary has so many dictionaries to choose from that I don't need to go on butt-slow EDGE to look up words. I can record voice notes with VNotes, which comes in real handy. Hey will you look at all the games, too? Some of them are immensely fun, taking advantage of the accelerometer too, like PigShooter. The only non-phone/texting/safari/iPod Apple-provided applications I actually use anymore are the camera, calendar, and maps, and the rest of them are hidden away with this lovely tool called rSBT, which also lets me change the icons in the dock - I got rid of Mail, cause I never use it. Replaced it with Texts, which works out a lot better for me. And of course, there's the amazing Summerboard that replaces the Springboard, which scrolls all my applications (too many to fit!) and even themes it. My iPhone currently looks like Leopard, complete with translucent bar up at top, dock, and background image. Yummy. Much more so than the default bland black.
3. Web apps are not the way to go. I watched your WWDC keynote at the moscone center as a WWDC attendee. I was just flabbergasted when you mentioned that this was the only way to get apps officially working on the phone. Steve, until technologies like Google Gears matures and supports webkit on iPhone, there are unbelievable numbers of ideas you can't even begin to start on because the technology is just not there for Safari on the iPhone. The web-based method was an obvious one everyone already knew, and you know we were all hoping for an official iPhone SDK. That was a letdown. Nevermind that some of the most popular technologies in use or soon to come to create rich internet applications are unsupported..you know, Adobe AIR/Flash, JavaFX/Java, Silverlight. So um, what apps? Except for iPhone-specific versions of sites and services, people have mostly lost interest because native applications enabled them to do more. Well, back to webapps now, I suppose. How boring..and slow on EDGE. Oh by the way? 3G is more common than open wifi networks with active internet connections in Los Angeles. The only time I ever use wifi is at home. Every other time I pull out the phone, there's plenty of wifi but always protected or MAC address-filtered. No wifi cracking tools for the iPhone yet... In comparison, most of the places I go to with my friends/family with 3G phones usually have it available without falling back to EDGE. That is just how useless wifi is.
4. The price drop. Thanks for the Apple credit, but I think people would maybe have been happier with $100 AT&T credit or a check in the mail. Or, maybe not a price drop so soon, even though that's how things work..that's not how quickly things normally work. The timing was awful, and the credit didn't do much to prevent the ton of negative publicity everywhere.
Please stop crippling the iPhone. Let people develop apps for it. Officially is better than unofficially, particularly if Apple works on phone security. Apple has an incentive to keep users on AT&T (hands-down the worst part of the whole iPhone situation), so cripple the unlockers all you want (until someone decides Apple and AT&T don't have a legal leg to stand on). Why hurt everyone else by screwing us over? I'm sure the people who don't update their iPhone software because their apps will stop working pose a bigger security threat in other ways than all of the 3rd party applications combined can to the network. And judging from the security updates in iPhone update 1.1.1 (at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306586), I'm right. And I bet there's even more that just haven't been disclosed or found yet in iPhone software <1.1.1. I can deal with all the XSS, MITM, XHR injection, and cross-domain javascript security issues in Safari/Webkit alone. That's how much I love these apps!
Since I first purchased the phone on June 29th, countless numbers of people have been asking me their thoughts about the phone everywhere, from waiting in line at Starbucks and Whole Foods and even in class or while walking down the street, almost every single day. Probably over a hundred people have physically played around with my phone, zooming in on slashdot.org in mobile Safari and poking lights in Lights Out (another 3rd party application) with glee. Most of the time they were intrigued by the third party applications. And most of the time, I recommended they get the phone if they're not looking for much in a smartphone-wannabe (officially, until you install third party applications). But now? I have to choose between a software update and my third party apps? I'll stick with the latter. And I've started discouraging people from purchasing iPhones until it's rehacked and/or Apple starts to support these applications that do nothing but enhance the iPhone experience for the end user.
As a huge Apple fanatic and computer geek in general, lots of people come to me asking for advice about what to buy. And I like recommending Apple when it fits their needs. But the iPhone? Can't even run games they can play on a cheaper iPod or vastly cheaper smartphone with another OS? That would go against every belief of mine when it comes to selecting a product, particularly a phone. As a result, I cannot honestly recommend the iPhone anymore. I was already pretty shaky before about it, and the official stance and software update forced me to make a decision.
So far, that's three people who will never go and purchase an iPhone and accessories. My mother who's been wanting one since day one will inherit my iPhone so I can buy a better smartphone (the nokia e90 looks sweet) if these apps can't be hacked to run on iPhone software 1.1.1+, and two of my friends, both of whom have purchased other phones now. Soon to be four people, as I dissuade a family friend tomorrow who has been asking about what I think about her replacing her iPod and phone with the iPhone. It's barely been a week since the official Apple announcement about disabling unlocking (with no mention of third party apps...).
I implore you to change you and your company's stance on this policy. The original statement only mentioned unlocked phones. I have not unlocked my phone. I have been an AT&T (before the AT&T acquisition, Cingular...and before the Cingular renaming, Pacbell) customer for over a decade. I just want to run these applications so I can actually use this "smart"phone as more than just a phone. Is that too much to ask for?
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jane Lee